With Trump assuming the most power of any man in the world today – an unpresidented situation – this satirical imagining by Thomas Hornall ponders what America could look like under The Donald.
The fences enclosing the White House buckled under the weight of swarming protesters, who threw flares and firebombs in their descent on the Washington seat of power.
But, the looters and rioters found no trace of The Donald, who hovered high above in a gilded helicopter on its way to Trump Tower.
Gazing up at the night sky, they could just discern the chopper manoeuvring through black torrents of smoke above the porcelain building.
It was, in fact, the last helicopter in America, all others having been flogged off in a futile bid to clear the $10 trillion National Debt that had piled up under Trump’s buccaneer capitalism.
The gaping fissure in the world economy started when “currency manipulating” Chinese imports were slapped with a punishing 50% tax.
Within months the price of everything from clothes to computers had soared, hitting blue-collar middle-Americans hardest.
The internecine tit-for-tat between the two great powers made the 2008 crash look like a playground debt over sweeties and toys.
And Russia, which looked set to power-share with the US on the world stage, was crippled immediately.
An increasingly unsteady 73-year-old Trump surveyed the smouldering hellscape from the sky with a puzzled look.
Everything seemed easy on that bright, cold day in January 2017 walking across the star-spangled stage played on by a saccharine Springsteen tribute act.
“Honestly,” he told the baying crowd, “you’re going to be so tired of WINNING. Trust me, it’ll be terrific. All right?
“The losers can’t stand it. Honestly, they can’t. You ask ‘em, they can’t stand it.”
A chorus of hard-voiced, reverential chanting floated up in heavy waves: “Trump! – Trump! – Trump!”
He could do no wrong.
Mexico will pay for the wall!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2016
Work started on the wall within days, with tons of cement and bricks moved to San Diego, El Paso and Brownsville. Thousands of jobs were created and MEXICO was going to PAY FOR IT ALL.Deporting all 11 million illegals would take 20 years, they said, but Trump forced it through in two. Midnight raids. Searchlights in the darkness. Splintered doors. Shattered windows.Indeed
Gardeners, garbage collectors, cleaners, beauticians, masseurs, restaurant workers, were all shipped out.The cry went round: “Trump has deported the illegals! More jobs for us!”But the positions went unfilled.Lawns overflowed with leaves. Bins burst with trash. An average manicure, to the eternal chagrin of the comfortable, rose to $45.“We didn’t mean those illegals,” they howled, “just the bad ones. You know, the rapists, the drug-dealers, the murderers.”
Meanwhile in Britain, as some form of inexplicable counterweight, voters elected the sandal-wearing Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister.The overconfident Theresa May had called a snap election to secure the Tories’ grip on power.But voters, particularly the young, turned to the white-haired revolutionary who promised wealth redistribution, free education, guaranteed jobs and social justice for all.“The rich and so-called free markets have gotten away with it for too long!” he declaimed on the doorstep of 10 Downing St, “this is for the people!”Before the People’s Bank started printing money and milk rose to £4 a pint, the wealthy had fled to the only place safe for them in the world: Manhattan.#DrainTheSwamp in #WashingtonDC #TrumpTrain #USA
Heavy investment in coal and oil seemed a way out of the collapsing economic scenery for an increasingly desperate Trump. After all, global warming was a Chinese hoax.Billions poured into the fossil fuel project and slowly the planet buckled under the constant drilling, mining, burning.Meanwhile, to boost approval ratings, Isis strongholds tasted the full fury of the world’s best air force with thousands of hellfire missiles dumped across Syria and Iraq.And, when Muslims were barred from entering the US, and Middle East heartlands were burnt beyond belief, Sunni and Shia united in contempt against him.This greatest of dealmakers, “the likes of which the world had never seen”, had single-handedly healed the ancient schism in one of the world’s major religions.THANK YOU AMERICA!
Then, like some terrible but necessary event pushed to the back of the mind, the 1,000th day of Trump arrived.America was now a howling wilderness. Every man for themselves. The Wild West without the romance. The police had long since gone on strike, enraged at having been unpaid for months on end.
Families shuttered themselves in houses, armed to the teeth. The island of Manhattan was surrounded by towering black walls emblazoned with a thumbs-up-giving Trump, and the slogan: “Separating the winners from the losers!!!” The guard presence made the Korean “demilitarised zone” look like a pacifists’ convention.Thousands amassed at the wall’s border – demanding change. But answer came there none.
The ozone layer was disintegrating. The planet warming.The ice caps were melting and sea levels were rising rapidly.But Donald – surveying the vista of destruction and flooding from Trump Tower – couldn’t care less. He was on the top floor.
