Friday, March 20, 2020

Mike's thought experiment

My buddy Mike the Maximum Leader over at Naked Villainy writes a post that includes the following amusing Gedankenexperiment:

Assume the former/late [p]residents of the United States were alive and in their retirement after leaving office, but living in 2020. What vehicle do you think they would drive?

Well, Mike clearly said "vehicle" and not "car" or "truck," so here are my thoughts on some of the past presidents.*

1. The George Washington question has already been asked and answered by a YouTube video that went viral years ago. Done in the salty-tongued spirit of a traditional American tall tale, the video musically claims that Washington patrolled the land on "a horse made of crystal." I'm sure that wouldn't change for 2020-era Washington.

2. As for John Adams... well, I've been influenced by Paul Giamatti's excellent performance in the HBO series about America's second president. Given how roly-poly Giamatti is, I'd say John Adams would drive a VW Bug.

3. James Buchanan would ride an enormous piece of artillery. Get it?

4. Abraham Lincoln was a tall, spindly fellow, so I see him prowling the streets of Washington, DC, on the back of a giant spider. Maybe a black widow. But some humorless liberal somewhere would complain that the image of "Lincoln riding a black widow" was racist.

5. Ulysses S. Grant would travel the land on a giant bottle of whiskey. With mounted lasers.

6. Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt would definitely roar around in an F-16 Fighting Falcon, retrofitted with VTOL capability. That would fit his bomb-bastic personality.

7. Heavy, rotund William Howard Taft would get around in an M-1 Abrams tank.

8. Herbert Hoover would shuffle the streets wrapped loosely in a stinky tent for homeless people while riding a rickety shopping cart.

9. FDR? Well, I think you can guess. Wheelchair. But supercharged and armed with missiles, with a bumper sticker on the back that reads, "FEAR ITSELF."

10. Horny, wayward JFK would (cough) tool around on the back of an enormous dildo.

11. Lyndon B. Johnson would get around in a palanquin carried by Vietnamese slaves.

12. Richard Nixon would proudly ride a penny-farthing whose wheels are the reels for a 70s-era tape recorder.

13. Jimmy Carter would rove the asphalt on the back of a boulder-sized testicle. The nut thing.

14. Bill Clinton would steal Kennedy's dildo.

15. Donald Trump would ride around DC on a tackily gold-filigreed Nancy Pelosi.



*Then again, Mike did also clearly say "drive," so I guess, technically, the vehicles all need to be driveable and not merely rideable. Oh, well.



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