By Alexandra Petri / The Washington Post
You’re so naive.
To be clear: If I did anything bad (I did) with respect to Ukraine, holding up aid to oblige Ukraine to look into a wild server conspiracy theory I had concocted, if there was a quid pro quo, it was just because; well, why not? Everyone does it. It’s the reality of life. Wake up, sheeple. Imagine needing to ask if there were a quid pro quo. Imagine living in a world where there wasn’t a quid pro quo all the time! You’re SO naive.
Whereas our opponents are probably secretly in the pocket of sinister autocratic forces, I am openly and visibly climbing into a large pocket full of money and disappearing entirely from view. Isn’t honesty great!
Isn’t my candor refreshing? Our opponents probably push old men down the stairs in private and kept it a secret so that no one would ever find out. That is why I am pushing an old man down the stairs right now, in front of you! Everyone does it! What?
The other side probably has a basement bunker full of infants they sacrifice to retain their youthful vigor. That is why — pass me your baby, please — I am just doing what they would do if they weren’t hypocrites, to show how much I respect you.
My predecessors probably refused aid to any country that wouldn’t look into their theory that, at Disney World, there are creatures walking around who appear to be costume characters but actually, those heads are their real heads! Or to investigate a more bizarre theory than that, which now that I have seen it articulated, haunts me! Probably they did that, and that is why I am, before God and Man, demanding investigation of a wild, bizarre conspiracy theory of my own.
Quid pro SURE, WHY NOT? This is real life, not “The West Wing”! Not some fantasia concocted by liberals and children and walking brooms who know nothing of the world, where people do the right thing in public and in private. Such a world doesn’t exist, and you should be ashamed for wanting it! We’re just doing what everyone does, probably! And the reason you haven’t heard about them doing it is another deep conspiracy we are going to look into soon!
They are probably secretly deeply corrupt. That is why I am publicly, openly, deeply corrupt.
My opponents worship a goat-god in secret, in a big hidden bunker with John Podesta, where no real Americans can see. I worship the goat-god here, in front of you! I pour incense at his hooves! All hail the goat-god! Isn’t it nice to be free of lies?
Everything bad you have ever suspected was happening, however groundlessly; oh, it is true, it goes all the way to the top, and that is why I am doing it openly, right now.
It is unrealistic of you to think that people have not been doing this for centuries. Just look at the Founders! They did this, probably, in secret, this very thing. And you haven’t heard about it because; the Masons. You get it. We all get it. My opponent probably spit in your food in the kitchen. I will spit in your food now, here, in the open, because I have integrity.
You are to blame. You are naive, for thinking that maybe there was a version of the world where no one did any of this. Did you ever, however briefly, imagine you deserved to be treated better? Did you imagine people would be punished for acting this way? No one is better. No one is punished.
This is the most you deserve.
UPDATE: Wait, actually, what I meant to say was that, uh, we did not do any of these things! That is what I meant to say, sorry. Uh.
Follow Alexandra Petri on Twitter @petridishes.
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