The Fall Imagined

It was supposed to be a celebratory weekend at Mar-a-Lago. With Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell beaming behind him, Trump had just signed a bill sharply slashing the school lunch program, and now he was off for a well-deserved weekend of golf. All was good.

But then the shoe dropped.

The intelligence community released its findings on the Trump-Russia investigation. Game. Set. Match. It was over. They had the goods on Trump. Witnesses, emails, phone calls, video surveillance, the whole shebang. The case was so airtight, the agents had to wear scuba gear when presenting the evidence.

In one of those strange twists of timing that changes history, the announcement came on the Jewish holiday of Purim, so Ivanka and Jared were not at Mar-a-Lago to monitor the president. The result was a torrent of desperate tweets. When the first one, Can reveal now was dubble agent for CIA. Brave! was quickly shot down, the tweets grew increasingly unhinged. There was, Frame job by Mexican illegals trying to stop great wall. El sad! and Mika Brzezinski was raised by cats. Meow! The final tweet was a chili recipe from Brietbart.

Suspicions were further raised when hours later, a large portion of Trumps cabinet and advisors, all wearing fake noses and glasses, were spotted boarding an Aeroflot plane out of Dulles.

Still Ryan and McConnell maintained there was no need for a special prosecutor. Instead, they would turn things over to the Houses Sergeant at Arms, even though his primary job skill was the ability to say Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States very loudly. House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz said he might look into it once he completed his investigation of Hillary Clintons failure to signal for a left turn.

But when the FBI released further details the next day, Ryan and McConnells positions were no longer tenable.

James Comey played tapes of intercepted phone calls between Trump and Putin, in which Trump promised to lift sanctions, look the other way at any Russian aggression against her neighbors, and to do everything possible to undermine NATO and the European Union. In return, Putin complimented him on his tie.

Overnight, Trumps approval ratings plummeted to 12% (though still 75% among republicans).

That same day, Ryan, McConnell, Ivanka, Jared, and Gary Busey flew to Mar-a-Lago. There they made clear to the president the complete hopelessness of his situation. There were only two possibilities: resignation or certain impeachment.

As it turned out, there was a third alternative, but the coup lasted less than fifteen minutes. Plus, its not clear whether locking yourself in an extremely gaudy bathroom and refusing to come out is technically a coup.

Later that night, President Pence addressed the American people on national television. My fellow citizens, he intoned, at long last, we can turn the page on one of the darkest chapters in our history. The system of checks and balances set up by our founding fathers has functioned as intended. Your government can now turn its attention back to the important business of dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency.