Post-Obama Apocalypse

My grandfather died today. He didn’t live to see the end of the play. I’d hoped it would all end in time for him to know that he and all the others who brought this about had been forgiven, their sins expunged, their penitence served. I know I should burn his collection of Obama memorabilia, but it’s all I have left of him. He could never bring himself to get rid of it, even when it was banned and anyone found with possessing such materials could be arrested and imprisoned. Luckily, his cache of buttons, coins, posters, T-shirts, and books were well hidden – not in an attic or basement where they’d be easily found. These things have been buried under a tree for forty years. I dug them up a few days ago at his request. He wanted to tell me the story. I’ve heard it all before, but he wanted me to understand how he and his contemporaries let it happen.

“He was hope,” Grandpa said, looking at a photo of the deposed President on a campaign poster. “He made us proud to be American, to be black, to be men. Every word he said, everything he did was seen as divinely inspired by many of us. We thought God sent him to save our country and our people. Even after all the expansive programs he created started to fail, many of us believed in him. Some still believed in him when he left office in disgrace.” Grandpa paused not wanting to talk about the tawdry scandal that ended the first black presidency and that made Clinton’s dalliance with an intern look tame by comparison. In his former profession as a journalist, Grandpa said he and his colleagues joked that Clinton’s mistake was having sex with a woman. However, in early twenty-first century America where the religious African-American community that voted down same-sex marriages in California, Ohio, and several other states, there was little tolerance for “alternative” lifestyles, regardless of who lived them. Skipping the scandal, Grandpa talked about what happened just before and right after Obama left office.

“We accepted martial law as necessary because of the crime that ensued when police officers were laid off as city after city was decimated by debt and the failed economy, particularly in the President's hometown, Chicato. People had stopped fearing terrorist attacks following the annihilation of Pakistan and Afghanistan by Obama-ordered nuclear attacks. Although those attacks pushed Iran and Korea to arm themselves with nukes and inflamed other Muslim nations, as well as China and Russia, Al Qaeda, radical jihadists, and terrorist cells were disabled.” I remembered reading in my history books that Obama was heralded a hero when Ben Laden’s body was found among the radioactive rubble, causing even uncertain European allies to approve of the destruction of the two countries where the terrorists lived and trained for their attacks against the West. “Everyone was prepared for retaliation from Iran, China, Russia, or North Korea, but it didn’t come for decades," Grandpa said, continuing his historical account.

“Instead, due to budget cuts in cities all over the country, America was overrun by criminals who were often jobless, hungry young people who had no hope and robbed people on the street in broad daylight, using clubs, knives, and illegally purchased guns. Gun bans didn’t help and only disarmed law-abiding citizens. We demanded protection as more and more people were gunned down for a few dollars. We didn’t blink when the cameras were installed to monitor every street and alley or when the curfews were imposed. We felt it was necessary. Even when the military was sent into police the streets after being brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan, we thought it was for our protection. When they started searching our homes to see if we had guns, we still felt secure because most law-abiding citizens had turned theirs in as ordered by law. Then the protests started, at first just on the internet. Later, I found out anyone who sent or received any of the anti-Obama emails was put on a list of ‘subversives’ by the FBI.

"My name was on that list because your great aunt sent an email to my dad who sent it to me. But it was my editorial that disagreed with but supported anti-Obama forces’ right to dissent that moved me up to the top rung of the list. I was just defending free speech, but it wasn’t long before people were being arrested for speaking out. My website was one of the first taken down as freedom of the press was completely eroded. Online newspapers and magazines that even questioned the President’s policies disappeared suddenly and those that openly opposed him, not only disappeared but their creators were tracked down and arrested. Yet as soon as one website was destroyed, another one was created and the online protests continued, despite efforts to either control or even destroy the internet. Years after Obama’s exile, it was revealed that he’d ordered the destruction of the medium used to spread his message of hope during his Presidential campaign. Public protests, meanwhile, were outlawed and all unauthorized assemblies were stopped by the military that arrested those who organized these events, spoke at them, attended them, wrote about them, or even observed them.

"People started disappearing and there were rumors that some were imprisoned and tortured and others executed. All were called ‘enemy combatants.’ The Patriot Act, which many had hoped Obama would repeal, was strengthened so that every constitutional right Americans had vehemently fought for, including the right to vote, was revoked.” Grandpa paused, his face contorted in pain as he remembered the nightmare he’d lived and that was now our nation’s history. “America had turned into a fascist government and Obama was its ruler. Just when he sat posed to pass a law that would make him ‘ruler for life,’ after outlawing elections due to ‘potentially unruly mobs’ gathering at polling places, the scandal was leaked by his most loyal press sycophants who didn’t have the restrictions that had been placed on the ‘less friendly’ media. Despite those restrictions and heavy monitoring of the internet, the story got out, although it was never reported on the broadcast news which continued to spew Gibbs’ propaganda, showing Obama with his children and his dog, despite having leaked the story in the first place.

"Once the scandal broke, black people took to the streets in numbers so large, the protests couldn’t be ignored. Even after the water hosing and tazzing started, others joined these anti-Obama protests. Finally, after months of using military tactics to attack his own citizens and creating anti-American sentiment throughout Europe, Obama was forced to step down by his own military leaders. However, once Biden was sworn in to finish out Obama’s term, the military stepped down as the law enforcers in the country. Obama’s final speech to the nation was so bitter and unremorseful, people booed their TVs.” I recalled having to learn that speech in school as an example of the result of the corruption of power. “His wife had already left him and returned to Chicago with his children. She was given a speedy divorce and by the time he boarded that plan with Oprah Winfrey, he was no longer married to Michelle. No one was surprised when he married Winfrey and her billions, safely in a Swiss bank account, or when he used her power and money to take over the African nation that became their home in exile.

"Most Americans weren’t even surprised when the Obamas joined the anti-American nations once called the axis of evil by George Bush, the President before Obama whose approval rating was the second lowest in history when he left office. We were surprised, however, that the fascism Obama put in place continued after he was gone. We supported the clean sweep of the Obama administration and the indictment of those who helped put him in office. Bided selected Hillary Clinton as his Vice, and they started dismantling the military control of federal government and returning control to the three branches of government. Once the Obama political team was imprisoned, Congress went after the journalists that were in the tank for Obama during and after the election, dismantling the news organizations of all three major networks and CNN. Fox had long been demolished by the Obama and administration following a long feud that began when they refused to air his speech to a joint session of Congress in the summer of 2009. The only broadcast news network allowed to continue was CNBC. Americans demanded the heads of those who’d supported Obama: Matthews, Olberman, and Maddow from MSNBC and Martin, Braziel, Borgia, Cooper, and Blitzer from CNN, in much the same way they went after congress members who voted for the Iraq War they supported.” Grandpa’s voice was a little bitter as he paused reflecting the demise of his chosen profession.

“Journalism and journalists were outlawed with the people’s approval because it was believed that we put Obama in office by convincing people that he was the man they believed him to be. They were right, of course. It was the media that overlooked his faults, never reporting his rants against anyone that criticized or opposed him, even though we all knew about them and sometimes even witnessed him. I saw him at the 2008 Democratic Convention making up to his wife onstage after his acceptance speech and wondered about it, then later found out from a fellow journalist that he lit into her earlier because their youngest daughter had talked over his scripted dialog when he was shown watching Michelle’s speech with a family in another location. Of course no one blamed Michelle for supporting her husband. Many even suggested she suffered from battered wife syndrome and women all over the world applauded her when she left him after finding out about his clandestine double life. When she ran as Hillary’s vice, it was a sure thing. No media hype was needed to elect the two spouses of the Presidents who’d put the country through the biggest two scandals since Nixon and Watergate.

"They were sympathetic figures, matching the mood and temperament of the nation and they were a shoe-in for election. Each served her eight years gracefully, repealing any of the laws remaining that took away our rights and restoring our democracy. Clinton commuted the sentences of the imprisoned journalists, the very ones who’d brought her down when she ran against Obama. However, neither President was able to restore America’s faith in the media, and journalists are still regarded with disdain and distrust. Anyone and anything associated with Obama is still loathed in this country. I think the Obama memorabilia is outlawed in deference to former President Michelle Robinson. But I want you to keep this so you can remember that it wasn’t a scam. We really believed in him. I know it was wrong of us not to tell the public the truth about him. We knew about his trysts and the rumors about the men who knew about his secret life from Rev. Wright’s church that turned up dead. We just wanted to keep his image pure. We just wanted to believe.”

I listened to my grandfather, trying to hide my own shame of being related to one of the journalists who helped elect Obama. I didn’t succeed because my grandfather looked at me pleading for understanding and absolution. He didn’t get either from me. How can I forgive him? I’ve been drafted to fight in the war against Obama and his allies, a war being waged on American soil. I will be going to boot camp in less than a week, then on to California to try to keep the enemies form advancing. That state is completely occupied by the enemy. Seismologists say the heavy mortar fire has created conditions for a massive earthquake. Luckily, my relatives in Northern California got out before the attacks from China and North Korea. They say they wanted to put America out of the movie business after that movie about the downfall of Obama was released last year and distributed worldwide, making over a quadrillion dollars. That say it’s just propaganda. Obama should know. It was propaganda that elected him and allowed him to almost become a dictator. Now, he and several Muslim nations, along with Russia are said to be preparing to invade the East Coast, which will divide our troops between the two coasts in defense of our nation.

I will bury my grandfather tomorrow and all of his Obama relics with him. Hopefully, some day someone will find those pieces of history and understand what I cannot.

July 4, 2048