Joe Biden And The Tooth Fairy
Why bedtime stories are a poor guide for life
“Mommy, tell me a story before I go to sleep?”
“OK, dear one. What would you like to hear tonight?”
“Tell me the one about Joe Biden and the Tooth Fairy.”
“That’s your favorite, isn’t it? Do you remember how it starts?”
“Once upon a time there was a wise old man called Joe Biden…”
“That’s right. Once upon a time there was a wise old man called Joe Biden. Of course, he wasn’t really wise but he certainly was old. He’d been a politician all his life, which meant he was very good at smiling at people and talking slow, using simple words the people could understand. Joe talked a lot, in fact more than most people wanted, but he always kept smiling.”
“Tell the part about the mental dwarf.”
“In the White Castle lived an orange mental dwarf. He was so unhappy that he was always grumpy, and he was so mindless that everything he said was simultaneously a lie and mostly incomprehensible. Some people said he was the stupidest person who’d ever lived, but then other people pointed out that forty-three million US citizens had voted for the mental dwarf, which made those voters even more stupid than the mental dwarf. At this point, smart people would shake their heads or begin to cry.”
“Why was the mental dwarf so stupid, mommy?”
“Nobody knows, dearest. Probably because he was born without a brain. Maybe also because he was spoiled and indulged his whole life. Maybe because even his wives vomited when they looked at him and his children all ridiculed him. Mostly, I think, it was because no one was smart enough to strangle him at birth. Anyhow, the mental dwarf did one thing that was very special and important: he urinated all over the US Constitution every day.”
“What’s a Constitution, mommy?”
“It’s a piece of paper nobody reads, dearest, because they’re too busy waving flags. Also, most of the flag-wavers can’t read. Remember, not everyone is lucky enough to go to a school where they actually teach you things. In lots of US States half the population is functionally illiterate. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“It means they can’t read and they can’t write.”
“That’s right. So those flag-wavers couldn’t read the Constitution even if they wanted to. Which probably they don’t because it would interfere with their beer-and-donuts time. Anyhow, the mental dwarf and his good friends the Republican Party all urinated all over the poor old Constitution every single day and they thought it was a very clever and smart and stable genius thing to do.”
“Why didn’t their mommies put them on the naughty step?”
“Because there were no more mommies, dearest. So the bad little children could do whatever they wanted. And they did.”
“So then Uncle Joe and the Tooth Fairy came to rescue everyone?”
“That was the story many people told themselves, yes indeed. People told themselves that despite the eagerness with which paramilitary thugs broke the law because they knew they were beyond the law, and despite the eagerness of the Republican Party to destroy the basis of government and civil society, and despite the complete and utter cluelessness of the Democratic Party, and despite the forty-three million drooling howling mindless supporters of the mental dwarf, magically Uncle Joe would make everything right again with a wave of his hand. All the DHS thugs and police thugs would realize how very wrong they’d been and they would be very contrite and promise, cross their hearts, not to do it again. And the Republican Party politicians would realize how very naughty they’d been to urinate all over the Constitution for the last two decades and they’d promise, cross their hearts, not to do it again. And all the forty-three million mindless drooling followers of the magic pixie would also realize how very misguided they’d been and they too would understand the need for better education, universal healthcare, and maybe a few tens of thousands fewer gun deaths every year.”
“And the Tooth Fairy would help too!”
“Yes indeed, the Tooth Fairy would help too. Though quite how, nobody knew, because just like The Wisdom Of The Ordinary Person, she didn’t exist. But when things don’t exist, it’s easier to believe in them because then they can be whatever you want them to be.”
“Like the magic pixie!”
‘Yes, dear one. Just like the magic pixie. Anyhow, a lot of people believed that Uncle Joe and the Tooth Fairy would magically make everything all right again.”
“But it didn’t happen, did it, mommy?”
“No, dearest, it didn’t happen. How could it? First of all, every last one of those forty-three million voters who want to kill black people and Hispanic people and make women into kitchen slaves turned out to vote for the mental dwarf. Meanwhile many of the Democrats didn’t vote for Uncle Joe because he wore the wrong color socks and didn’t do the little dances some of those people like so much. But even if more people had decided to vote for him despite his socks, it wouldn’t have made any difference. The mental dwarf made a rule that people living in cities where Democrats got elected couldn’t vote because it wasn’t safe because of an imaginary plague the newspapers and television were using to get lots of juicy advertising revenues. And so in the end the mental dwarf got 387.4% of the vote which was the biggest yugest vote in the history of the universe and definitely more than some black guy called Obama got back when nobody can remember anyhow.”
“That’s sad, mommy.”
“Not really, dearest. Uncle Joe wouldn’t have made any difference. The Republican Senate would have blocked everything he’d have attempted and the far-right Supreme Court would have ruled in favor of criminalizing abortion anyway. And then the next Republican President would have done all the things the orange mental dwarf did, only less chaotically and more ruthlessly. Uncle Joe was an illusion because people never want to look reality in the face. People think life is a TV show and there must always a happy resolution at the end of the final series.”
“So then what happened really, mommy?”
“You know this part, dearest. The mental dwarf made a rule that anyone saying anything mean about him was a terrorist traitor, so the patriotic men of the DHS and the police broke into people’s homes and locked up thousands and thousands of Americans in special camps where they sit in fields all day playing with flowers and butterflies. And every day they burn special wood, which is what makes all that black ash come out the camp chimneys.”
“And that’s why we came to Canada, right?”
“Yes, dearest. That’s why we came to Canada.”
