If mud wrestling settled the election
The big debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Monday promises to be one of the most watched events in American history. And why not? At this point, would anyone be surprised if Trump showed up on stage accompanied by a boxing kangaroo or Clinton turned into a bat and flew away?
The debate also reminds us that we’re entering the final stretch into what has been arguably the most entertaining presidential election in history. Soon enough, sadly, it will come to an end with Election Day, and, tragically, one of them will actually be elected president.
We still have a few weeks left before the Nov. 8 finale and the catastrophe that awaits us in January when the winner is sworn in. So we might as well enjoy the time we have left.
In the next few weeks, don’t be surprised if the following events occur as we go careening toward Election Day:
At the end of the first debate, Trump supporters declare Trump the winner; Clinton supporters say she won hands down, and Bill Clinton is discovered mingling in the crowd with a mirror on his shoe.
But the big surprise comes when the Electorate, which is watching the performance, says, “Wait a second. These guys look really old.” The Electorate then cards both candidates and is stunned to find out that both are geezers.
In a rare show of unity, both Trump and Clinton react swiftly to the outcry that they duped the Electorate by hiding their age with plastic surgery. Rather than participate in another debate, the two decide to schedule a mud wrestling contest to prove they have the physical vitality to be commander in chief.
Later in the week, in a bid to burnish his image as a strongman, Trump models a freshly inked barbed wire tattoo woven around a Confederate Flag with the words “Defend This House” on his right biceps. Trump flashes the tattoo for TV cameras during a surprise visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who agreed to travel to New York for an arm wrestling contest against Trump. The two men, shirtless, go at it for nearly 15 minutes with neither able to the pin the other. The contest is declared a draw, and before flying home, Putin tells reporters: “A bear of a man he is, yes.”
Two days later, Trump accuses the press of being “loathsome scum not fit to lick my $10,000 loafers” after reports emerge that the Trump campaign chartered a plane which flew hundreds of cases of high-end tequila to a Crimean resort where Putin maintains one of his palaces. Reporters question whether the tequila – Putin’s favorite booze – was a payoff to fix the arm wrestling contest. Trump responds: “You’re sick. Sick,” before declaring that he would never buy Mexican booze. Ever. Ever.
For his part, Putin emerges from the palace dressed only in his swimsuit and accompanied by two scantily clad blonds on either arm whom he introduces as his “distant nieces.” He tells reporters: “I am quite certain President Trump will know of the methods to deal with the press.” He then takes a deep pull from a salted margarita glass, puts his arms around his distant nieces and disappears behind the palace gates.
Not to be outdone, Hillary Clinton gives a highly anticipated speech on foreign affairs in Chicago where she displays a tattoo of her own: A teardrop tattoo beneath the corner of her right eye. Teardrops typically represent gangland killings. “I call this one Gaddafi,” she tells the crowd, referring to the Libyan dictator who was gunned down like a dog when she was secretary of state. “I’ve got two more coming, Assad and Kim,” she says, referring respectively to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and North Korean bowling ball Kim Jong Un.
Sadly for Clinton, her speech is interrupted by a coughing fit. Aides rush her off the stage with an oxygen tank and wheel chair.
Amid much speculation about her health, Clinton reemerges two days later with an explanation. She has an unlit cigarette in her hand. She tells reporters that while secretary of state, she used to steal away with the president while he enjoyed one of his smokes. Her longing for second-hand smoke evolved into taking an occasional puff, and then bumming cigarettes until the president finally made her buy her own packs. She tells reporters that it quickly evolved into a two-pack a day habit. Menthols.
She then lights the cigarette, inhales deeply, turns green and nearly falls to the ground coughing. Aides whisk her away to a waiting limousine. The president is golfing for the “foreseeable future” and unavailable to verify Clinton’s account.
All eyes turn to Trump when he takes to Twitter to lambaste Sylvia Van Aanning, a 54-year-old head librarian in Little Falls, Minn. who sent out a critical Tweet after Trump made an off-the-cuff remark about “burning certain books that are sick, sick.” Trump’s Twitter fusillade against Van Aanning includes gems like “homely little book worm woman” and “Van Aanning sounds mighty Mexican to me.”
Mysteriously, Trump’s Twitter account suddenly goes silent and disappears from the Internet. He demands an immediate investigation. TV pundits theorize that the Chinese hacked his account. But a few days later, the FBI announces that it traced the hack to an office at the Republican National Committee.
Finally, the night of the big mud wrestling contest arrives. Bill Clinton is unable to attend because he is no longer allowed in Las Vegas for “previously and habitually flaunting regulations stipulating that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
The match gets off to a slow start as the two grab each other around the shoulders, circling in mud above waste deep. “Stop coughing on me!” Trump yells. “You’re pinching. You’re pinching,” Clinton yells back.
Suddenly the two topple over. For a moment you see arms and legs flailing, scratching. Then, nothing. After a few moments, emergency crews wade in and start looking. Soon the search gets frantic. But their heroic efforts fall short.
And, just weeks before the election, the nation is plunged into a constitutional crisis.
