Our Wartime President (Part 2)
What if Trump really was president in WWII?
Given the dark days our country faces, people have been making comparisons to other crises of historical proportions. Even President Trump has referred to himself as a “wartime president,” hearkening back to American leadership in World War II. Indeed, there are many parallels, as both the coronavirus and World War II required strong leadership, and, on the part of average Americans, a willingness to sacrifice for the good of the country, indeed for the good of humanity.
As we search for hope today, it is perhaps worth remembering how the selfless sacrifices of the Greatest Generation and leadership of FDR helped the country face down the threat of fascism…
Our Wartime President!
Fighting raged in New York as the country tried to rally. With thousands dead in New York, and fascists attacking both coasts, the United States began to mobilize against the most serious military threat it had faced since the Civil War. The Wartime President invoked the Defense Production Act to harness the nation’s industrial might for the war effort. People were pressed into service to fight on the front lines in California and New York.
Individuals were called on to put the greater good of the country over their own interests…
…and, perhaps most effectively of all, in his famous “fireside chats” the Wartime President demonstrated his great ability to be able to empathize with the victims of the war and to rally the country.
The American people appreciated and admired all the sacrifices their Wartime President was making, and they rallied to his side. Soon his approval rating soared up 5%.
Fighting raged for many weeks, but by the time spring arrived, the Wartime President and many of the American people had had enough. The rationing meant they couldn’t eat out at restaurants. Even worse, the fear of Japanese and German bombers meant state governments were forbidding large groups of people from gathering in one place. They also asked people to turn out their lights at night, as the British had done before, to confuse enemy bombers.
As German and Japanese bombers swept across the country, a debate raged over turning out lights at night. Yes, it might save lives, but if we sacrificed individual liberty for the greater good, weren’t we really fascists ourselves? If we turned out our lights, then Hitler had already won.
The people also found the pleas from the generals confusing. Maybe tuning out their lights at night made them a little less likely to get killed by a bomb, but wasn’t it their right as Americans to make that decision?
Of course, turning out your lights primarily helped other Americans, but wasn’t caring about other Americans just collectivist thinking that was utterly foreign to the country’s way of life? Many people decided the best way to stand up to fascism was to make zero personal sacrifice themselves and intentionally keep their lights burning all night to set an example of American liberty. Take that, Hitler!
Yet other Americans insisted there was no invasion and said the generals were part of a nefarious political agenda to silence the people and strip freedoms from hard-working Americans.
The Wartime President made sure to set a good example himself. If the president couldn’t be trusted to stand up for important freedoms, who could? And so the Wartime President refused to let the lights at the White House be turned off at night.
You might think this would put him at great risk, but the Germans soon realized what was going on, perhaps because the Wartime President bragged openly of keeping the White House lights on all night during his fireside chats. Rather than bomb the White House, German High Command realized it would be more effective to use the White House as a waypoint for bombers en route to military bases and factories. Why kill the goose that laid the golden eggs?
Soon keeping your lights burning all night was a showed you supported the president and the war effort and turning them off a sign you were a disloyal coward who was afraid of the Nazis.
But while such actions were useful for weeding out traitors, they did little to win the war. Now the Wartime President faced a dilemma like no other president had before. How to preserve precious American freedoms and defeat the fascist invaders?
Fortunately, an answer quickly presented itself: wishful thinking.
Having realized the solution, the Wartime President addressed the country: “By April they will all be gone. The Japanese and the Germans can’t stand the heat, you know. Their countries are so cold. When it gets a little warmer, they will all miraculously go away.”
The Wartime President figured this must be what would happen because it would be so beautiful if the country could have Easter services in peace, without fear of being blown up by Axis bombs and also because he liked Easter:
“I would love to have the war over by Easter. It’s such an important day for other reasons, but I’d love to make it an important day for this. Easter’s a very special day for me. Wouldn’t it be great to have all the churches full? You’ll have packed churches all over our country … I think it’ll be a beautiful time.”
The Wartime President prayed for an Easter miracle. “They’re going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, they will disappear,” he informed the country.
While the Wartime President tried to pray, his advisers and generals gently massaged him in encouragement.
But God works in mysterious ways, including by not working at all. And so the fascists were free to continue their rampage across the country without facing any divine wrath.
Since God was not of much help, the Wartime President figured he could give the war effort a few more weeks, and he reluctantly dropped his plans to declare victory before Easter.
The Wartime President instead thought maybe a quick technological breakthrough could save the day. That’s what always happened in the movies the president watched, after all. Just when it looks like all is lost, the hero finds a solution that effortlessly saves the day. Desperate for a new technology that would end the war, the Wartime President spoke to the nation about one idea he had:
“I hear the Japanese will die if you inject bleach into them. It kills them in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injecting it into ourselves? Maybe in our lungs? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. We could inject bleach into our lungs and then breathe it on the Japanese. That’s pretty powerful. Have you looked into it? No?”
But after widespread public ridicule, Operation Bleached Lung was scrapped. No longer would the government try to turn American troops into fierce, bleach-breathing super soldiers. The wartime president informed the nation that he had asked about bleach-breathing super soldiers sarcastically: “It’s like when I say I’m sorry to Eleanor or when I ask my generals what I can do to help them. I don’t really mean it. It’s sarcasm — look it up, genius.”
Instead of Operation Bleached Lung, the nation’s top scientists began work on a second, highly classified high-tech effort to end the war, Operation Manhattan Speed.
The Wartime President, eager to reassure the country, discussed the latest positive development in a reassuring fireside chat:
“It’s top-secret, so I can’t say anything about it. I don’t know all the details cuz I’m not a scientist — I could be, you know, that’s how smart I am — but let’s just say it involves a big boom. And the scientists are busy getting a lot of uranium for the project. Very rare element, you know. Very rare and hard to find. I hear there might be a lot in Canada. So, whatever you do, those of you listening, don’t tell the Nazis. And since I’m the president, I get to name the new weapon. I’m gonna call it the ‘HUUUGE bomb.”
As usual, he faced hostile questions from the press. “But isn’t ‘Manhattan speed’ really slow because they always have traffic jams there?”
“Won’t the HUUUGE bombs also kill Americans and render much of the country too radioactive to live in?”
The Wartime President refused to dignify such questions with responses and instead kept talking about how huge the explosions would be.
To be continued.
