Short fiction piece, very rough, but I wanted to punch it out before the stupid theatre summit, the Bungle in the Jungle. There will probably be revisions over the next week or so.
The emperor boarded his plane with a scowl, in a fugue of anger and confusion. The convention with the other national leaders had not gone quite to plan. To the extent that there was a plan at all, it mainly consisted of variations on the classic theme of I talk, you listen and do what I say.
Usually the Euros and the Canadians just complied and went along, if for no other reason than force of habit. But somehow this time was different.
The Canuck was usually a polite little pussy. He even had a pussy name -- Justin. Justin. The emperor rolled it around in his brain for a bit, chewing on its sibilance and fricative, trying to think of something nasty that rhymed with it. That little prick.
The emperor sat in his plush seat on the jet, nodded to the servant to bring him his customary second lunch, and pulled out his phone to check the Twitter feeds. That gutless faggot Flake was at it again, talking big about the wrongness of it all. Whatever. Empty words. He'll get in line with McCain and Collins and the rest of those chumps. When push came to shove, all they ever did was talk.
Empty words. Like they just enjoyed the sound of their own voices. Did those clowns realize that no one was listening to them, or was it all just for appearances' sake? Didn't matter; either way, the emperor realized that he knew something that they seemed not to -- that power belongs to those who use it.
Executive orders, pardons, decrees, signing statements: they were fixated on the items of power, the recorded documentation. What they failed to see was that the real power came from undermining the habits and customs of how things got done. Norms. Rules. Decorum. Fuck decorum, right in the ass with a fat Viagra boner. It's not like any of them had the balls to do anything about it.
That's real power, being able to conform it to the way you think it should run, not the way the last guy or the last twenty guys did it. Flex nuts or step off. And all those pussies in Congress didn't get that, and now it was too late for them to push back.
That's how you get shit done. Don't worry about the rules, just write your own, and defy them to do something about it. Elections? If they don't turn out right, then they're rigged, illegitimate. The base will go along with it. They'll go along with anything and everything.
One of his advisors, maybe Mattis or the other guy, said something to the emperor early on about the importance of alliances and partnerships with other countries. Bullshit. There's only us, and the countries who do what we tell them to do. "Partnership" implies equal footing, and the first rule of deal-making (which the emperor was an internationally renowned master genius of) was to never give the other guy equal footing.
You win through intimidation, through threats, bullying, lying, trickery, whatever it takes. But the idea of a mutually beneficial outcome to any deal beyond ordering a cheeseburger was simply impossible. If the other guy thinks he got a good deal, it means he fucked you, pure and simple. That's just science.
The servant arrived with a bucket of KFC and two Big Macs. It was going to be a long flight to Singapore, and he needed sustenance while he tweeted and plotted. The Justin thing -- he even heard that name in his head with a sneer, Jus-tin -- was a distraction. Nothing he couldn't handle. This other thing with Kim was a no-brainer. Fat guy with weird hair. Just offer him a fucking Carl's Jr. franchise and have done with it. In the end, they all just want to be Americans.
What the smug assholes in the media pool kept missing was that there was a plan, and it was working beautifully. Sure, the details might be improvised, but they were all improvised the same way, with the same outcome in mind. It ain't rocket surgery, you dummies.
Bolton leaned over from his seat. "Sir, should we go over some of the ground principles for the meeting?"
"Why? What's to go over? Either he wants to deal, or he wants to jerk us around."
"Right sir, but there are details about verification, timetables for lifting sanctions and removing troops, that sort of thing."
"No, the only detail is how much he's going to bend over."
Bolton's mustache quivered as he tried to hide his exasperation. "Well, they're sneaky devils, sir, and they'll tell you one thing and do another. We have to watch out for that, so you put conditions in so that if they violate those conditions, you can take action."
The emperor fixed Bolton with his steeliest gaze, squinting through the spray-tan that had to be applied three times a week to cover up the rosacea. "You think I don't know how this shit works? You think I don't know they're gonna try to put one over on us? It doesn't matter -- they're gonna disarm because I tell them to, and they're gonna build me a fucking hotel, and they're gonna thank me for it. And maybe I won't nuke their shithole country back to the Stone Age."
Now Bolton was confused. "Sir, their country is poor, and they have no tourism. What good would a hotel in North Korea be? It wouldn't make any money."
The emperor rolled his beady eyes and turned his neck slightly, as if to crack out some tension. "Not in North Korea, you Ned Flanders-looking motherfucker. They're going to pitch in on the hotel we're building in Malaysia, just like the Chinese did after I went to bat for their tech company."
"Ah....okay, sir, that makes more sense." He paused, tentatively. "Are they going to be....part-owners in this venture? Won't there be a PR problem if you're doing business with them?"
"Let's just say they're going to be....silent partners. At least that's what I'll tell them. They'll play along, once I tell them the rate of return on this one-time investment opportunity. It'll make Punta Bandera look like a fuckin' cabin in the Catskills."
Now Bolton was completely baffled, but didn't want to show it. "So....back to the disarmament part of this, sir, how do we verify that it's taken place? What sort of inspection teams do we have that we can send over there? Do they have enough experts over at the Department of Energy, do we need to involve Secretary Perry in putting together teams, and then getting inspection timetables and security guarantees for them?"
The emperor flared his nostrils and exhaled loudly through them, as he tended to do when he was frustrated. "I don't know, you and Four-Eyes can work that shit out, that's why I pay you the big bucks, innit?" He picked up a burger and inhaled it in three bites, barely chewing. He glanced at his phone and jabbed a stubby, greasy finger into the screen, scrolling down the Twitter feed.
"Sure, I guess, if we have blanket approval, we can work out those details." Bolton backed away slowly, almost imperceptibly, to avoid the crumbs flying from the emperor's mouth, bouncing off his tie and onto the table. "Sir. I am glad we are finally bringing this mortal threat to heel. Nobody else could have done it."
"Of course not." He eyeballed the second burger, but thought about hitting the KFC bucket first. The chicken was always better before it cooled off.
"Where do we go from here, sir? Iran? Venezuela? So many places around the world in dire need of our forceful diplomacy."
"Fuck diplomacy. They'll do what I want, or I'll make them pay. Simple as that. They cooperate, we make nice, I build a hotel and offer to cut them in. It's easy, like I've been saying."
Bolton tried once again to hide his confusion, retracing the steps in his head. "But sir, how does it look when you're doing business with these people?"
"Well, for one, I don't give a fuck how it looks. Who's going to do anything about it? You think I care what the media cunts say about anything? How's that been working for them so far? Second, who says I'm doing business with them? Has any money changed hands?"
"I suppose not, sir, but doesn't money eventually change hands?"
"Sure, from them to me, in wire transfers to numbered accounts in Switzerland and Cyprus and Panama."
"What about their return on investment?"
The emperor paused in mid-bite, a fat juicy chicken breast (extra crispy) taking both hands. Even though Bolton could only see the bottomless contempt in the emperor's eyes, he knew that the emperor thought he was the dumbest asshole on the planet.
"What about it?" Crumbs of extra-crispy batter spewed in every direction.
"Just out of curiosity, what percentage do they make from the venture?"
"Zero. Jesus Christ, are you fuckin' retarded or something?"
"Well, no sir, I'm just curious as to the specifics of the business model you're talking about, in conjunction with our foreign policy portfolio."
The emperor paused a moment, finished the bite of chicken breast he was chewing on, closed his eyes and calmed a bit. This guy's an idiot, he doesn't mean to be an asshole, just asking stupid questions.
"I've already described the whole process to you. If they knuckle under and behave, I tell them there's a deal to be had by investing in my new project. These guys already loot their own treasuries to live like kings, so they have liquidity. They have tons of cash and nowhere to spend it, because they turned their countries into disease-ridden fuckholes, and no other country will have them as tourists. So I give them an opportunity. Hotels take time to build, they take time to turn a profit. So I hold them off, hold them off, remind them who's got all the weapons and the leverage if they start to get pissy. What are they going to do? Hell, I burned Qaddafi years ago. There's your Libyan model."
"So you just never pay them their share, sir?"
"Have you never read a fucking newspaper, Bolton?"
"Sir, I have seen and heard stories here and there over the years, but I never lent them credence. I just assumed it was more hate and rumor-mongering from the reckless liberal media. They go out of their way to make you look bad, sir."
"Look, Bolton, here's how it is. A good deal is one where I get one over on the other guy. Fair trade is where I come out ahead."
"Of course, sir. America first. It's high time we had someone in the White House who sees it the right way."
Jesus Christ, this guy is a fucking moron. "No, me first. America will get prestige from letting a world-class deal-maker like myself perform. That and once the tariffs kick in, they'll all be making more money in their paychecks, an extra million a month or whatever."
"Sir, not to argue, but the retaliatory tariffs that the G7 countries and China are threatening will hurt many of the workers who voted for you. Steel makers in Pennsylvania, dairy farmers in Wisconsin, pork farmers in Iowa, soybean farmers in California -- they're already starting to be hurt by the commodity future forecasts, and some of the Canadian tariffs are set to kick in as soon as July 1st. What about those working folks, sir? Won't they turn on you?"
The emperor chomped into a drumstick with an audible crunch. "Will they? And do what? Vote? For who, some fag liberal, some broad who wants to take away their guns and give them tampons? I've already convinced them that this is all life-or-death for them, and they're all in for me. They won't turn. They don't have the balls, for one, and they're getting what they want, for another.
"I'm telling you, Bolton, just look at what's happened so far: I gave the billionaires a fat fucking tax cut, and some of the little guys got a little something. Since then, gas has gone up, health care is going back up while we starve Obamacare to death, we're locking up illegals and taking away their kids, we're telling everyone to go fuck themselves -- liberals, Euros, haters, fucking Jus-tin. And I've got a 90% approval rating from the Republicans. Even those pussy senators that try to talk big always vote with me. Every fucking time.
"And that's what's really important to them, my voters -- that I punish the people that they hate. They could lose their job, their house, their health care, all of it, and they'll still vote for me, because I make them feel better about hating Crooked Hillary or whoever. They even give me their money, buying hats and t-shirts and all that shit. They're not gonna turn on me."
Bolton thought for minute, taking it all in. "Where do we stand with the Russians?" He could swear he saw a flicker in the emperor's eyes, maybe a glimmer of fear or unease, just a split-second but there all the same.
"Don't worry about them. We'll have them back in the G8 before you know it. It'll be great, believe me."
"But sir, why do we need them in that group?"
"Need?"
"Well, strategically. The G7 is more of an economic alliance, Russia isn't even in the top fifteen in GDP, and they've been bad actors the last few years." He saw the emperor's countenance darken. "I mean, with Crimea and Ukraine and all. Sir."
"Let's just say that what's in Putin's interest is in my interest, and what's in my interest is in America's interest. Okay? Jesus, you're like that fuckin' kid in that "show me the money" movie, all the fuckin' questions. You gonna tell me how much a fuckin' head weighs next, how boys got a pee-nus, and girls have a pajiba?"
"Ah, got it, sir. So there's a business understanding with Mr. Putin, then."
"There ya go. See? Not that complicated. Simple. No puppet!"
"No, of course not, sir."
"Where's that fat fuck Pompeo, he still napping?"
"I'll go check, sir. Should he and I work on the summit briefing before we land?"
"Work on it between the two of youse, and give me the elevator pitch when you're done. I don't need to hear every detail. Make sure you work on the PR end of it too. Give Hannity some talking points he can hammer all summer, till they can sing it back to me at the next rally. Make it like the Democrats are trying to make this thing fail, call it 'Nukegate' or 'Summitgate' or something like that."
"Yes sir. Anything else before we land?"
"Yeah, get me a towel, turn it to Fox and Friends, and close the door behind you. See you in Singapore."
The emperor boarded his plane with a scowl, in a fugue of anger and confusion. The convention with the other national leaders had not gone quite to plan. To the extent that there was a plan at all, it mainly consisted of variations on the classic theme of I talk, you listen and do what I say.
Usually the Euros and the Canadians just complied and went along, if for no other reason than force of habit. But somehow this time was different.
The Canuck was usually a polite little pussy. He even had a pussy name -- Justin. Justin. The emperor rolled it around in his brain for a bit, chewing on its sibilance and fricative, trying to think of something nasty that rhymed with it. That little prick.
The emperor sat in his plush seat on the jet, nodded to the servant to bring him his customary second lunch, and pulled out his phone to check the Twitter feeds. That gutless faggot Flake was at it again, talking big about the wrongness of it all. Whatever. Empty words. He'll get in line with McCain and Collins and the rest of those chumps. When push came to shove, all they ever did was talk.
Empty words. Like they just enjoyed the sound of their own voices. Did those clowns realize that no one was listening to them, or was it all just for appearances' sake? Didn't matter; either way, the emperor realized that he knew something that they seemed not to -- that power belongs to those who use it.
Executive orders, pardons, decrees, signing statements: they were fixated on the items of power, the recorded documentation. What they failed to see was that the real power came from undermining the habits and customs of how things got done. Norms. Rules. Decorum. Fuck decorum, right in the ass with a fat Viagra boner. It's not like any of them had the balls to do anything about it.
That's real power, being able to conform it to the way you think it should run, not the way the last guy or the last twenty guys did it. Flex nuts or step off. And all those pussies in Congress didn't get that, and now it was too late for them to push back.
That's how you get shit done. Don't worry about the rules, just write your own, and defy them to do something about it. Elections? If they don't turn out right, then they're rigged, illegitimate. The base will go along with it. They'll go along with anything and everything.
One of his advisors, maybe Mattis or the other guy, said something to the emperor early on about the importance of alliances and partnerships with other countries. Bullshit. There's only us, and the countries who do what we tell them to do. "Partnership" implies equal footing, and the first rule of deal-making (which the emperor was an internationally renowned master genius of) was to never give the other guy equal footing.
You win through intimidation, through threats, bullying, lying, trickery, whatever it takes. But the idea of a mutually beneficial outcome to any deal beyond ordering a cheeseburger was simply impossible. If the other guy thinks he got a good deal, it means he fucked you, pure and simple. That's just science.
The servant arrived with a bucket of KFC and two Big Macs. It was going to be a long flight to Singapore, and he needed sustenance while he tweeted and plotted. The Justin thing -- he even heard that name in his head with a sneer, Jus-tin -- was a distraction. Nothing he couldn't handle. This other thing with Kim was a no-brainer. Fat guy with weird hair. Just offer him a fucking Carl's Jr. franchise and have done with it. In the end, they all just want to be Americans.
What the smug assholes in the media pool kept missing was that there was a plan, and it was working beautifully. Sure, the details might be improvised, but they were all improvised the same way, with the same outcome in mind. It ain't rocket surgery, you dummies.
Bolton leaned over from his seat. "Sir, should we go over some of the ground principles for the meeting?"
"Why? What's to go over? Either he wants to deal, or he wants to jerk us around."
"Right sir, but there are details about verification, timetables for lifting sanctions and removing troops, that sort of thing."
"No, the only detail is how much he's going to bend over."
Bolton's mustache quivered as he tried to hide his exasperation. "Well, they're sneaky devils, sir, and they'll tell you one thing and do another. We have to watch out for that, so you put conditions in so that if they violate those conditions, you can take action."
The emperor fixed Bolton with his steeliest gaze, squinting through the spray-tan that had to be applied three times a week to cover up the rosacea. "You think I don't know how this shit works? You think I don't know they're gonna try to put one over on us? It doesn't matter -- they're gonna disarm because I tell them to, and they're gonna build me a fucking hotel, and they're gonna thank me for it. And maybe I won't nuke their shithole country back to the Stone Age."
Now Bolton was confused. "Sir, their country is poor, and they have no tourism. What good would a hotel in North Korea be? It wouldn't make any money."
The emperor rolled his beady eyes and turned his neck slightly, as if to crack out some tension. "Not in North Korea, you Ned Flanders-looking motherfucker. They're going to pitch in on the hotel we're building in Malaysia, just like the Chinese did after I went to bat for their tech company."
"Ah....okay, sir, that makes more sense." He paused, tentatively. "Are they going to be....part-owners in this venture? Won't there be a PR problem if you're doing business with them?"
"Let's just say they're going to be....silent partners. At least that's what I'll tell them. They'll play along, once I tell them the rate of return on this one-time investment opportunity. It'll make Punta Bandera look like a fuckin' cabin in the Catskills."
Now Bolton was completely baffled, but didn't want to show it. "So....back to the disarmament part of this, sir, how do we verify that it's taken place? What sort of inspection teams do we have that we can send over there? Do they have enough experts over at the Department of Energy, do we need to involve Secretary Perry in putting together teams, and then getting inspection timetables and security guarantees for them?"
The emperor flared his nostrils and exhaled loudly through them, as he tended to do when he was frustrated. "I don't know, you and Four-Eyes can work that shit out, that's why I pay you the big bucks, innit?" He picked up a burger and inhaled it in three bites, barely chewing. He glanced at his phone and jabbed a stubby, greasy finger into the screen, scrolling down the Twitter feed.
"Sure, I guess, if we have blanket approval, we can work out those details." Bolton backed away slowly, almost imperceptibly, to avoid the crumbs flying from the emperor's mouth, bouncing off his tie and onto the table. "Sir. I am glad we are finally bringing this mortal threat to heel. Nobody else could have done it."
"Of course not." He eyeballed the second burger, but thought about hitting the KFC bucket first. The chicken was always better before it cooled off.
"Where do we go from here, sir? Iran? Venezuela? So many places around the world in dire need of our forceful diplomacy."
"Fuck diplomacy. They'll do what I want, or I'll make them pay. Simple as that. They cooperate, we make nice, I build a hotel and offer to cut them in. It's easy, like I've been saying."
Bolton tried once again to hide his confusion, retracing the steps in his head. "But sir, how does it look when you're doing business with these people?"
"Well, for one, I don't give a fuck how it looks. Who's going to do anything about it? You think I care what the media cunts say about anything? How's that been working for them so far? Second, who says I'm doing business with them? Has any money changed hands?"
"I suppose not, sir, but doesn't money eventually change hands?"
"Sure, from them to me, in wire transfers to numbered accounts in Switzerland and Cyprus and Panama."
"What about their return on investment?"
The emperor paused in mid-bite, a fat juicy chicken breast (extra crispy) taking both hands. Even though Bolton could only see the bottomless contempt in the emperor's eyes, he knew that the emperor thought he was the dumbest asshole on the planet.
"What about it?" Crumbs of extra-crispy batter spewed in every direction.
"Just out of curiosity, what percentage do they make from the venture?"
"Zero. Jesus Christ, are you fuckin' retarded or something?"
"Well, no sir, I'm just curious as to the specifics of the business model you're talking about, in conjunction with our foreign policy portfolio."
The emperor paused a moment, finished the bite of chicken breast he was chewing on, closed his eyes and calmed a bit. This guy's an idiot, he doesn't mean to be an asshole, just asking stupid questions.
"I've already described the whole process to you. If they knuckle under and behave, I tell them there's a deal to be had by investing in my new project. These guys already loot their own treasuries to live like kings, so they have liquidity. They have tons of cash and nowhere to spend it, because they turned their countries into disease-ridden fuckholes, and no other country will have them as tourists. So I give them an opportunity. Hotels take time to build, they take time to turn a profit. So I hold them off, hold them off, remind them who's got all the weapons and the leverage if they start to get pissy. What are they going to do? Hell, I burned Qaddafi years ago. There's your Libyan model."
"So you just never pay them their share, sir?"
"Have you never read a fucking newspaper, Bolton?"
"Sir, I have seen and heard stories here and there over the years, but I never lent them credence. I just assumed it was more hate and rumor-mongering from the reckless liberal media. They go out of their way to make you look bad, sir."
"Look, Bolton, here's how it is. A good deal is one where I get one over on the other guy. Fair trade is where I come out ahead."
"Of course, sir. America first. It's high time we had someone in the White House who sees it the right way."
Jesus Christ, this guy is a fucking moron. "No, me first. America will get prestige from letting a world-class deal-maker like myself perform. That and once the tariffs kick in, they'll all be making more money in their paychecks, an extra million a month or whatever."
"Sir, not to argue, but the retaliatory tariffs that the G7 countries and China are threatening will hurt many of the workers who voted for you. Steel makers in Pennsylvania, dairy farmers in Wisconsin, pork farmers in Iowa, soybean farmers in California -- they're already starting to be hurt by the commodity future forecasts, and some of the Canadian tariffs are set to kick in as soon as July 1st. What about those working folks, sir? Won't they turn on you?"
The emperor chomped into a drumstick with an audible crunch. "Will they? And do what? Vote? For who, some fag liberal, some broad who wants to take away their guns and give them tampons? I've already convinced them that this is all life-or-death for them, and they're all in for me. They won't turn. They don't have the balls, for one, and they're getting what they want, for another.
"I'm telling you, Bolton, just look at what's happened so far: I gave the billionaires a fat fucking tax cut, and some of the little guys got a little something. Since then, gas has gone up, health care is going back up while we starve Obamacare to death, we're locking up illegals and taking away their kids, we're telling everyone to go fuck themselves -- liberals, Euros, haters, fucking Jus-tin. And I've got a 90% approval rating from the Republicans. Even those pussy senators that try to talk big always vote with me. Every fucking time.
"And that's what's really important to them, my voters -- that I punish the people that they hate. They could lose their job, their house, their health care, all of it, and they'll still vote for me, because I make them feel better about hating Crooked Hillary or whoever. They even give me their money, buying hats and t-shirts and all that shit. They're not gonna turn on me."
Bolton thought for minute, taking it all in. "Where do we stand with the Russians?" He could swear he saw a flicker in the emperor's eyes, maybe a glimmer of fear or unease, just a split-second but there all the same.
"Don't worry about them. We'll have them back in the G8 before you know it. It'll be great, believe me."
"But sir, why do we need them in that group?"
"Need?"
"Well, strategically. The G7 is more of an economic alliance, Russia isn't even in the top fifteen in GDP, and they've been bad actors the last few years." He saw the emperor's countenance darken. "I mean, with Crimea and Ukraine and all. Sir."
"Let's just say that what's in Putin's interest is in my interest, and what's in my interest is in America's interest. Okay? Jesus, you're like that fuckin' kid in that "show me the money" movie, all the fuckin' questions. You gonna tell me how much a fuckin' head weighs next, how boys got a pee-nus, and girls have a pajiba?"
"Ah, got it, sir. So there's a business understanding with Mr. Putin, then."
"There ya go. See? Not that complicated. Simple. No puppet!"
"No, of course not, sir."
"Where's that fat fuck Pompeo, he still napping?"
"I'll go check, sir. Should he and I work on the summit briefing before we land?"
"Work on it between the two of youse, and give me the elevator pitch when you're done. I don't need to hear every detail. Make sure you work on the PR end of it too. Give Hannity some talking points he can hammer all summer, till they can sing it back to me at the next rally. Make it like the Democrats are trying to make this thing fail, call it 'Nukegate' or 'Summitgate' or something like that."
"Yes sir. Anything else before we land?"
"Yeah, get me a towel, turn it to Fox and Friends, and close the door behind you. See you in Singapore."
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