MAGA's Disdain for Buyer's Remorse Voters
And All the Rest of Us: A Satiric Monologue
In an attempt to keep up with the current manic dismantling of just about every American institution, not to mention the global economy, I decided to rewrite this recent post yet again, because it now seems that just about everyone, including 65% of the biggest hotshot CEOs, are crying “buyer’s remorse.”
I don’t plan to start making this site a political one, especially since The Bulwark (which I encourage you to subscribe to) does this better than anyone. Nevertheless, I view myself as a satirist from the school of Kurt Vonnegut, and these times are ripe for satire, which, as Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” proved, can be a corrective to cultural stupidity. And yet satire can also unite. As the poet Nicanor Parra writes: “Humor makes contact with the reader easier. Remember, it's when you lose your sense of humor that you begin to reach for your pistol."
In this satiric spirit, please accept the below monologue, in which no one comes out unscathed. Which is as it should be. It was a difficult chore to inhabit the mind of the this imaginary speaker, though I think this monologue is an accurate representation of the way the current administration views us all with disdain. And yet, as damaged and mean-spirited as the speaker is, his words about a segment of our voter population sometimes ring true, which makes and it’s hard to feel sorry for voters who knew who and what they were voting for in 2024, and who strangely normalized Trump’s behavior on the campaign trail that was cruel, misogynistic, and racist. And I would throw the rest of us into the mix, as we all sit back and act as if everything will be normal again soon.
Ihave received many emails from people telling me this post was my “best” Substack “political” piece from over the last two years, so please share it with your own Substack readers or on whatever platforms you use.
“Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.” --Jonathan Swift
“Trump Administration’s Response to Buyer’s Remorse Voters: A Satiric Monologue”
[New press secretary for Donald Trump appears on the podium. Short and bald, he’s wearing a tight black T-shirt, tight black jeans, and shiny black cowboy boots. The T-shirt displays Elon Musk’s cherubic image, which itself hovers over the phrase, “And now for some real pain.” His neck is thick, his biceps so pronounced they threaten to rip the sleeves of his T-shirt. He grabs hold of the podium with both hands, smiles impishly at reporters, and begins].
First, let me introduce myself. Because I am President Trump’s third press secretary, I realize I’m probably a stranger to you. Yeah, Karoline was super smart and sexy, and so was Gillian, but the two Steve’s thought it was time to go full-out Bro. My name is Vladimir Manlove, previously host of the hugely successful podcast “Biceps and Forceps.” Although I’m new in this position, I’ve been in the Trump camp since 2010 when I was one of his janitors at the Trump Towers. Granted, I am not a journalist, but I do read a lot and, as you will soon discover, I’m very well-spoken, not to mention that Mr. Trump thinks I look like G.I. Joe. “What a jaw!” he once said, pointing to me at a Cabinet meeting. “Do you believe that jaw? What a beautiful jaw! Amazing!”
Before I take your questions, I would like to make a statement on behalf of the Boss, which is directed at self-proclaimed “buyer’s remorse” voters, and, in a way, at all voters, even the saps who voted for us.
As of today, all of us at the White House are sick of you all, though mostly the cranky independents and suburban moms, who constantly complain to reporters and social media influencers that they have “buyer’s remorse.” They say they are “sickened” by the Boss’s early Executive Orders, Cabinet choices, tariffs, “inhumane” deportation policies, “decadent gifts” from dictators, and even the Boss’s and J.D.’s ambush of Zelenksy. In short, they don’t seem to like what we in the White House call “creative mayhem.”
Although I plan to be frank and offend the American voter in this brief press conference, I think it’s time we set the record straight about who’s the real cause of the above havoc, and also make it clear that we couldn’t care less what any voter in this godforsaken country thinks, especially buyer’s remorse voters, whom we find incredibly dumb.
If you “buyer’s remorse” people remember, during the campaign we promised to abolish the Department of Education, to begin mass deportations of illegal immigrants from Mexico, to fire a million or so federal workers, to unchain our watchdogs in the DOJ, to let Bobby “run wild” with his wacky theories, to enact crippling tariffs, and to demolish NATO. The Boss even said he would be your “retribution,” so why are you surprised that he pardoned the January 6 Patriots,, or that he’s going after every college, law firm, or business that won’t kiss his behind? Or that he wants to get rid of habeas corpus so he can arrest anyone who pisses him off, not give them a trial, and then send them to one of those frozen, cavernous, and spanking new deportation centers in the Vlad’s Gulag.
But now, because your friends are losing jobs and your own livelihoods and medical insurance are next, you whine endlessly to pollsters and reporters, which forces us to waste time defending the Boss, and that’s draining. I mean, it takes, a lot of energy to “deconstruct the Administrative State,” though most of us, excluding Steve Bannon, don’t exactly know what the Administrative State is. You “buyer’s remorse” people are creating so many distractions that we haven’t even had time to flesh out our national abortion ban policy, which, I promise, will be a real doozy, especially with Kash (doesn’t that guy look like someone has mainlined speed into his temple) and Pam (who the evangelicals call the Angel of Retribution) are both prepared to make sure the administrations policies will be followed.
And concerning the Senators and Congressmen who are disgruntled by our recent actions . . .Who cares? The Boss has basically turned them all into eunuchs, and there aren’t enough sane women in Congress, even Joni Ernst (thanks for Pete Hegseth vote, Joni), to make much of a difference. Also, it’s clear from the results of the election that no one cares what women think anyway. Even women.
As far as the lamestream media is concerned, we’re happy to let them indulge their rage. Their pointless bellyaching provides us with free publicity until we decide to take them off the air and let them waste what’s left of their lives writing indignant books about the Boss that we’ll make sure never see print. We can even sic the DOGE Bros on them, if we want to, and those guys really know how to destroy people’s lives. Talk about kids with Oedipal issues. Also, the media provides comic relief, since everyone, instead of being outraged, laughs like hell they report the funny and degrading names the Boss concocts for journalists, especially women journalists.
But I’ve come here today to make an even bigger point, which may, at first, shock some of you.
The truth is: the Boss never wanted to be elected in 2016, and especially in 2024. In fact, we did everything imaginable to make those victories impossible. From the very beginning, our campaigns were about making money. In 2016, when the Boss descended that escalator, he deliberately offended any normal person’s sense of decency by calling Mexicans rapists. From then on, came one outrageous insult after the other. He and we knew that if he kept trash-talking everyone and every sacred American institution, he’d be constantly attacked by the lamestream media, after which we’d bombard our base with requests for donations. Originally, we thought the base was probably about 20% of the Republican party, but as it turned out, the old guard, and even evangelicals (that one blew the Boss’s mind), came on board. Add all those disparate groups together and you end up with a windfall of cash, and it kept coming and coming.
But then the Boss got nervous when it appeared he might win, so we leaked the Access Hollywood tape, confident that the infamous “grabbing them by the pussy” comment would end our campaign, that is, until Mike Pence went rogue and defended the Boss, saying, in his comforting preacher’s voice, that he had looked deeply into the Boss’s heart, not realizing that the Boss doesn’t have a Mike Pence-kind-of heart. The Boss is actually proud of that absence, often arguing that being nice and conciliatory is a liability if you want to be strong and accumulate more cash and power than a Roman emperor.
But even after Pence’s heartfelt words, we still felt that we had sealed the deal for Hillary. I mean, that “pussy” comment even made most of the women in our campaign quit.
And yet the Boss won anyway.
Why?
Much to our surprise, we discovered that at least half the country is far more racist, misogynistic, greedy, angry, self-pitying, and homophobic than we had originally thought, and that, stunningly, all they seemed to care about was the price of stupid eggs and hating Hillary. We also were knew that you’re all so lost in your electronic devices that you can’t even think through an idea, anyway. Did you really think that when the Boss said he was YOUR for retribution, that you wouldn’t have neded up as roadkill too.
So after our 2016 victory, annoyed and/or angry, we decided to create utter chaos and enjoy every minute of it. We felt like the bad boys on Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, suddenly given permission to say or do anything we wanted to for the next four years. In short, to get rich and to make sure the Boss would never be asked to run again. We gave you international instability, tax breaks for the rich, hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths from Covid, and, finally, the insurrection.
Who would ever reelect a guy after he instigated an insurrection, right? What kind of Senate wouldn’t impeach a president for that?
But the Senate choked, and the Biden DOJ acted too slowly on the rabble, thinking, stupidly, that everyone would move on and that the Boss would return to golfing and partying with billionaires. Instead, the right-wing talking heads, me included, started pushing the Boss’s lie that the election had been stolen, and that’s when the money started flowing in again, which made the Boss reconsider running in 2024 to pay off his legal bills. Plus, he was very, very angry and felt, as Tucker said, it was time for “Daddy” to give all the bad boys and girls a good spanking.
We were even aided by the lamestream media’s poor coverage of the insurrection and the Biden’s administration’s failure to make Biden out to be the victim of the attack. If we had been on Biden’s team, we would have come up with a crazy new con, maybe “Biden Crucifixes” with Sleepy Joe nailed to the cross, displaying a befuddled look on his face. Then we would have used the sales to pummel the public with videos of the insurrectionists beating the hell out of cops and wiping human excrement on sacred statues, adding a few stills of where the “Patriots” (the Boss got that name from me) defecated on the floors of Congressional offices.
Libs, that’s how you get into people’s heads! Show the photos of actual crap, over and over again, but then, for some bizarre reason, you guys have never mastered the power of repetition.
In short, “buyer’s remorse” people, blame your disenchantment on the Senate, and the lamestream media, and the Supreme Court Eunuchs who gave the boss immunity, and the Biden DOJ, who, years too late, decided to take a run at the Boss. When those investigations started, we let the conspiracy theorists loose and even pretended to be legit, selling Trump Bibles and watches—anything we could manufacture to pay his legal bills and throw big parties.
True to form, the base, God love them, came through again, contributing what little savings remained after their anemic monthly checks were depleted on food and other necessities.
All was going well until everyone got accustomed to the drama, and contributions began to decrease.
What to do, what to do?
That’s when we decided to encourage the Boss to cut loose, and, man, did he try everything to alienate you all. He insulted women, blacks, Latinos, Jews, Arabs, intellectuals, and then he chose “childless cat lady” J. D. Vance as VP, who is probably the only guy in politics less appealing to women than Matt Gaetz or Ted Cruz.
But, still, whatever we did, you people desperately wanted the Boss to be your president! Meanwhile, Kamala kept preaching about “Joy,” not realizing that you guys were interested in rage and grievance, not joy. You had no desire to be “joyful warriors,” more happy to be a bunch of “gloomy whiners.”
So the Boss made one last ingenious attempt to sicken you. He realized that if he could alienate every normal decent, self-respecting white woman in America, especially educated suburban moms with children, he’d lose the election for sure, declare it was rigged, and then ask for contributions to another “Stop the Steal” campaign. So in front thousands of adoring supporters, some with their young children, he went off script and did some very provocative things with a microphone.
WTF.
Caught off guard, we couldn’t stop laughing, knowing all we had to do was wait for the lamestream media to replay that video a thousand times a day.
But the dopes didn’t take the bait, arguing that they didn’t want to “offend” their viewers. Distraught, I suggested that our campaign make up the ad for them, create a phony liberal organization to sponsor it, and play it to death, but, unfortunately, we ran out of time.
Which leads me to my summary:
“Buyer’s remorse” voters, PLEASE. PLEASE STOP WHINING ABOUT THE BOSS. Stop whining about us separating men from their families and imprisoning them in El Salvador. Stop whining about us shooting the Supreme Court the finger and ignoring their decisions. What do you think the Court is going to do? Get Kash and Pam to arrest us for violating their orders? What none of you get is that the Founders of this silly country never expected a genius like the Boss to appear, some diabolical holy man who’s always one step ahead of an outdated system built on old-fashioned concepts like “joy” and “kindness.” Dudes, read Machiavelli’s The Prince.
In short: BUYER’S REMORSE PEOPLE, SHUT THE HELL UP!
YOU are the ones who gave him a mandate to “deconstruct the Administrative State,” not to mention everything else that’s supposedly sacred in this country!
You 52% of white women who wouldn’t want your children or husbands to act like the Boss, who took a woman’s right to choose away from them, who gladly accepted going back to being second-rate citizens, whose children are now susceptible to polio and measles, YOU WANTED HIM!
You Latino Trump voters who overlooked being likened to vermin and disease, and who are now seeing family and friends deported, don’t complain, because, again, YOU WANTED HIM!
You young white and brown Bros who didn’t think a women had the cojones to be president, who are now being asked to pay off your student loans pronto or face the wrath of collection agencies, who will be unemployable when the recession hits, and who are unable to stay on your parents’ health insurance when an emergency appendectomy can cost $20,000, don’t complain, Bros, YOU WANTED HIM!
You white guys who couldn’t vote for a progressive Black woman, whose 401ks are tanking because the Stock Market hates instability, and whose teenage daughters and granddaughters are heartbroken because you have created a world where their intelligence will not be valued, YOU WANTED HIM
And, everyone, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE stop talking about “Trump Exhaustion.”
Your insatiable hunger for drama, your hero worship of oligarchs like Elon, your unrealistic expectations for the “perfect life,” your anger and rage and phony religious fervor, and your bizarre fixation on the price of eggs is what’s exhausting.
I mean, there’s never been a president whose been able to lower the price of eggs or gas.
Think of the Boss as a prophet, preaching the Bible of Project 2025, a manifesto that YOU made possible.
Now if I seem mad, well, I am. Because of you, I have to wake up every morning for the next four years and invent new ways to act like a jerk while “deconstructing the Administrative State.” Trust me, everyone else on the Trump Train feels the same way about you, and, this time, when we are done causing chaos (a mandate YOU happily gave us), there will be nothing left. It will not be like the past when you “buyer’s remorse” people could wait four years and then go back to “normal.”
There will be no “normal” to build upon. It’s already too late.
All because YOU WANTED IT.
I realize much of what I’ve said will piss you all off, and you’ll threaten to hand back the Senate and House of Representatives to the Democrats in 2026. But here’s the thing, WE DON’T CARE. First, you assume that everyone will have a chance to vote in 2026, and we have big plans for that. Second, the whole point has always been about MONEY, and by 2028, we’ll all be so stinking rich, most of us will no longer want to live in America. There are a lot of cool islands just a short plane ride away.
[Vladimir Manlove, sweating heavily and looking extremely perturbed, takes a deep breath and and looks directly into the camera, before saying:]
Why don’t we wrap this press conference up with a friendly warning, to my fellow American, especially to buyer’s remorse voters: Be careful how loudly and to whom you complain or you just might get yourself mistaken for a “homegrown terrorist,” and we all know what happens to them.
But that’s not to say you are completely helpless. Try to get involved. Forget about the past and present, and become part of the future by going to the official Donald J. Trump Store where you will find Trump T-shirts, Trump pasta, Trump red neckties, and an assortment of special offers—the one today being individual lifelike voodoo dolls of January 6 Select Committee members, which you can buy for only $19.95 each (3-inch-long pins extra for $5.95), if you call within the next ten minutes. Complete sets are available for only $195 and come with a dozen plastic, bright red “Trump Made-in-America” golf balls that you can smash into your woke neighbor’s garage all night, just to piss him off.
All proceeds will go to the next “Stop the Steal” campaign, which will only be necessary if Don Jr. doesn’t win in 2028.
But then we have four years to make that loss an impossibility.
The End
You can find Peter Johnson’s books, along with interviews with him, appearances, and other information at peterjohnsonauthor.com
His most recent book of prose poems is While the Undertaker Sleeps: Collected and New Prose Poems
His most recent book of fiction is Shot: A Novel in Stories
Find out why he is giving away his new book of prose poem/fragments, even though he has a publisher for it, by downloading the PDF from the below link or going to OLD MAN’S homepage. His “Note to the Reader” and “Introduction” at the beginning of the PDF explains it all: Observations from the Edge of the Abyss
One of the hardest pieces I've written because there was so much to balance. I get it that most people are decent, but they were told over and over and over what he was going to do. He even told them. But I am still optimistic. There are also all of those people who didn't vote, who will certainly be out there in two years. But I don't plan on many political posts. I can painfully laugh at this one, but, in general, I don't have enough years left to be part of his Reality TV show. Hope all is well.
Pete, enjoyed it immensely. What hurts is its reality!