V: Comrade, good afternoon.
D: Good afternoon, Mr. President!
V: I have been watching carefully to observe your progress on the overthrow of your government, and I am pleased to see that you have implemented so many of my suggestions.
D: I have appreciated your guidance! After reading “Mein Kampf” several times, I realized that the direct coaching of an expert would be very useful.
V: Da. You have needed a lot of coaching.
D: And you’re the best!
V: Da. Let us review now your progress on the to-do list I gave you in 2015.
D: I have it right here—I like to look at it first thing in the morning, right before I send you a copy of my Presidential Daily Briefing, and last thing at night, right after my final incoherent rant on Truth Social. I must say, I’ve completed almost every task on the list.
V: Let us review.
D: Well, first, I demonized immigrants and Muslims. Thanks for that tip about creating a common enemy to unite the base—that worked really well! Then I made up horrible lies about my predecessors and about my opponents in the 2015 Republican primary, and again in the general against that nasty Hillary. Oh, and I just want to say thank you, again, for all of your help in that election—I couldn’t have done it without you!
V: Da. I know. This is because you are an idiot. Who else would be stupid enough to alter a hurricane map with a black sharpie, or advise his countrymen to drink disinfectant, or hire prostitutes in Russia to pee on a hotel bed without considering that all visitors to Russia are surveilled continuously?
D: Yeah, that wasn’t too bright. Oh, and Vlad—
V: What did you just call me?
D: Sorry, sorry—Mr. President…
V: That’s better.
D: Mr. President, as for that whole peeing prostitute thing, could I please have those pictures back now?
V: Nyet.
D: Oh. Okay. I thought it was worth a try.
V: Back to the list, Comrade.
D: The next item was to savage and insult our allies and then embrace first you, then Mohamed Bin Salman, Kim Jong Un, and Viktor Orban, but of course mostly you, since you are my KGB handler and the G’DOAT—Greatest Dictator of All Time.
V: Da. My agents in Brighton Beach managed you when you were just a small-time braggart with a rich father and a big mouth. I only became interested in taking a more active role after you launched that ridiculous television show about how successful you were. As I watched that nonsense from my palace on the Black Sea, I realized that your unique combination of fame, hubris, and stupidity could be parlayed into my eventual take-over of the free world.
D: It’s amazing that no one ever found out I was broke. That Kremlin expense account was a godsend! Oh, and speaking of money—
V: I will not increase your allowance again. If you want more money than I’m already giving you, you’ll have to get it from Elon or Mohamed.
D: Yes, Mr. President.
V: Continue, please.
D: At your suggestion, every time someone told the truth about me, I called them a lunatic and accused them of doing something even worse. That was very useful. Then I demonized the free press as the “enemy of the people.” That was also very helpful, because it caused all of my supporters to stop reading mainstream newspapers or watching mainstream news on television. Then I turned Fox News into my personal propaganda network, so all of my supporters would be bombarded continually by disinformation. That whole brainwashing operation really was key to the coup I staged on January 6. I think it went very well.
V: Nyet. It did not go well. The coup failed, in spite of my very specific instructions to you. I was not happy with the result.
D: That’s only because someone called in the National Guard without my permission, probably that nasty Nancy Pelosi; but I tried to make up for it by giving you all of the highly classified intelligence that I stole from the White House on my way out the door.
V: Comrade, I already had that information. You leaked top-secret intelligence to me continually during your first term. What are you doing to make sure it never happens again?
D: As you instructed, I have now installed only corrupt loyalists at the Pentagon, so there won’t be a next time. Now that I have an obedient command structure, they will take orders only from Elon and me.
I also stacked the highest court in the land, and the federal judiciary, with all of the anti-democracy judges recommended by the Heritage Foundation. That was also a big success: Last summer, they gave me blanket immunity for all the crimes I committed as president! Now I’m completely untouchable!
V: Not so fast, Comrade. There are still a few judges left who take seriously their oath to uphold the law.
D: I’m not worried about them. They can rule against me all they want, since the Supreme Court also gave me blanket authority over the Department of Justice, so their rulings won’t be enforced. And all of my current department directors want to see this democracy fail just as much as you and I do—so they are closing their agencies in record time.
V: And how will you avoid being removed from office?
D: Oh, that has already been arranged. If we decide to pretend to hold elections going forward, they’ll be shams. If anyone protests, I’ll just declare a national emergency and invoke martial law, just like you told me to. And I am gutting the Department of Education, so no one born after Jan. 20 of this year will have any idea that their country used to be a constitutional republic; history will be rewritten, and we will redefine “democracy” as “The divine right of a supreme leader to do whatever he wants, however he wants, whenever he wants, to whomever he wants, with absolute impunity.”
V: Then it appears that your assignment is almost complete.
D: Yes. I am happy to say that once you’ve taken Ukraine and the rest of Europe—which should be easier now that I’ve pulled the plug on the Voice of America and stopped sharing intelligence with any of our former allies—I can then announce that I’m stepping aside and ceding control of the United States to my cherished leader and mentor, President Putin.
V: Da.
D: And then, can I have those pictures back?
