Rumpledthinskin – A Parable For Our Time

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Not so long ago in a place called Hushabye, the people were friendly and industrious. They built a society where everyone had access to quality healthcare, education was free, and children were valued as a precious resource that would guarantee the country a prosperous future.

Then one day, a foreigner called Roald Rumpledthinskin came to visit. He was from the Land Of Nod and as he looked around Hushabye, he noticed how calm and polite the people were. Then he thought to himself, “What a bunch of suckers! I could take over this place and make billions without firing a shot. All I have to do is spread dissension and hatred across the land so the people turn on each other. Then while they’re fighting among themselves, I will steal everything they own and they won’t even notice!”

You’re Fired!

The first thing Rumpledthinskin did was hire a TV producer to create a new show called The Novice. People would come on the show and pitch their ideas, then he would roar, “You ignorant slut! You’re fired!!” and send them slinking from the studio in disgrace. The show was a huge hit, and lots of people in Hushabye started thinking, “Yowza, I sure wish I could be a cruel and heartless prick like Rumpledthinskin.”

Soon fans of the show started having conventions and holding contests to see who could be the biggest jackass. They started running for Congress, where they organized something called the Freedom Caucus that voted against everything that was good, and honest, and right. They hired a shill to run around the country proclaiming, “I want to shrink the size of government until it is small enough to drown it in the bathtub.”

A supporter calling himself Rochelle Limburger started a radio show that called women who wanted to be treated equally with men “feminazis.” The men in the audience (and quite a few women) ate it up, because everyone knows a woman’s place is chained to the bedpost with just enough slack to reach the kitchen. In time, the Limburger lunatics convinced women they existed only to satisfy the sexual urges of men. Women began calling themselves “trad wives” to signify their subservience to their husbands.

Antisocial Media

But still Rumpledthinskin was not satisfied. He started his own social media platform so he could lie about how wonderful he was. He dressed his immigrant wife up in finery and had her accompany him down a golden escalator to announce he was running for president of Hushabye. The people bowed and prayed to the golden god they’d made.

When he became president, he immediately started issuing illegal executive orders, but his staff rolled them up and smoked them instead of telling the nation about them. That got Rumpledthinskin all riled up, so he started running around the White House screaming “You’re fired!” at everyone he met, including the driver bringing him his daily supply of Big Macs.

Things got so out of hand that in the next election, the people of Hushabye made a tired old man their elected king. That made Rumpledthinskin very angry, so he called on his army of freaks and misfits to invade the Capitol with the intent of hanging the vice president in the Rotunda.

In the next four years, Rumpledthinskin watched helplessly as Hushabye made major investments in clean energy technology. He summoned the heads of all the major fossil fuel companies to a meeting at his palatial private compound, where he solicited a billion dollar bribe from them to put him back in the White Man’s House. They were only too happy to comply.

The plan worked to perfection and soon Rumpledthinskin found himself back in office, but this time he made sure to surround himself with toadies and sycophants who would start every day by celebrating his wonderfulness. To thank them, he gave them shoes to wear that were miles too big for them. “Herring boxes without topses,” one reporter called them and was immediately banned from all future press conferences, because if there was one thing Rumpledthinskin can’t stand, it is criticism.

Stupid People

To run the government, he chose the stupidest people he could find — a drug-addled billionaire with delusions of grandeur, a scion of a famous family who proudly told everyone he had a worm in his brain, and a former state governor named Kinky Omen, whose claim to fame was that she shot her dog when it wouldn’t behave.

Together they conspired to rip up the Constitution and imprison as many immigrants as they could find. They purchased vacant shopping malls and made plans to incarcerate people in spaces too small for a Golden Retriever. They laughed at how they sent innocent people whose only crime was breathing to an infamous prison for terrorists in a Central American country where torture is routinely practiced.

Rumpledthinskin was jealous of former president BushLeague, who only tortured a few hundred people at Guanotanamo Bay. He planned to mark his place in history by torturing tens of thousands. What fun! Such innocent merriment!

No Thanks!

But still, the people of Hushabye turned their backs. Nothing got under Rumpledthinskin’s skin like being ignored. Not only that, people were fixated on reports that he had consorted with a notorious sexual predator. Scurrilous rumors persisted about how he had sex with a thirteen-year-old girl at one of the predator’s “very special” parties. “Will no one free me of this meddlesome pervert?” he asked repeatedly.

When no one did, he did the only logical thing. He ordered the military to launch an unproved attack on a foreign country. The first salvo of the war obliterated a girls school that made the mistake of being next door to a military target. Ooops!

Over a hundred innocents were killed, but did Rumpledthinskin apologize? No, he did not. Instead he claimed, with a straight face, that the other nation had bombed its own school — a claim was met with hoots of derision around the world.

Derision is something Runpledthinskin cannot tolerate, so he ordered his navy to torpedo a ship belonging to that nation that has just participated in joint military exercises with several other countries. Did he apologize? No he did not. He said watching the ship sink was “fun” and told the families of the dead: “Sucks to be you!”

As the war escalated, the foreign country closed a vital waterway, which caused the prices of oil, LNG, fertilizer, and plastics to reach historic levels. The result could be massive famine and billions in lost revenue, but Rumpledthinskin doesn’t mind. Pain and suffering give him pleasure. He is a sadist of the first order and Hushabye will never be the same.

In a little more than a year, one man has destroyed all that was good and decent about Hushabye for the past 250 years. Because of him, it may not make it to 251. Is there a lesson here? If there is, it might be that when writing a constitution, always make provision for those who are mentally deficient. As John Fogarty told us years ago, “When they play Hail To The Chief, they point the cannons at you.”

Be constantly on guard for lunatics and nut jobs. The country you save might be your own!