"Hope Chooses Fear"
The New Martian Times

Planet Hope re-inaugurated failed leader W. Shrubb, who has led the planet into two unnecessary wars and an economic recession, gutted environmental protections, and presided over the continuous erosion of civil liberties. When asked why they voted for Mogul Shrubb, some responders answered "values," considering him pro-family for his efforts to ban certain undesirable minorities from using that planet's drive-thru wedding chapels, or terming him pro-life for his opposition to vital medical research. Others consider him a champion of freedom, because of his propensity for invading other planets and space stations. However, among interview subjects who agreed to undergo Positron Emission Tomography, researchers noted that the brains of Shrubb supporters demonstrated high activity in the fear centers.

Upon further interviews, the specifics of this fear took various forms. Some are afraid of a terrorist attack, and believe that Shrubb's having failed to prevent the most massive terrorist attack in Hope's history makes him uniquely qualified to protect them. Others fear that one of those couples might move in next door, and still others that they might be forced to admit what a mess their planet is in. One respondent, when pressed, admitted that she was afraid the government might find out she had actually voted for the other guy. Inexplicably, several feared that Shrubb's opponent, if elected, might have been worse, though none could explain how.

As satirist Michael Less explains, "People kept saying things might be worse if we elected the other guy. I tried asking them 'How? How could things possibly get worse?' But they'd already heard me ask that so many times. No matter how bad things already were, as soon as I asked how they could be worse, Shrubb always found a way.

"I think a part of the problem," Less adds, "is that we kept referring to Shrubb's opponent as 'The Other Guy.' I hope next time the opposition candidate has the sense to at least tell us his name, and maybe an item or two from his platform." Less then paused a moment to contemplate before adding, "Assuming there is a next election."

In an election fraught with irregularities, running against an anonymous opponent, Mogul Shrubb took 51% of the vote in a 2-way race. Despite the pathetic margin, Shrubb has repeatedly referred to this victory as a mandate, perhaps because it was still better than he did in the previous election.

"I plan to continue cutting taxes until the budget is balanced, deregulating businesses until everyone has a fair shot, and invading other planets until everyone is free," Shrubb announced in his acceptance speech, "because the voters have spoken and they have given me a mandate."

In response to this, some thousands of gay men came to Hope's capital in pairs on the day of the inauguration, wearing T-shirts that read "I have a man-date, too."

According to protocols established during Shrubb's first term, these dissidents were permitted to hold their protest in a subterranean bunker, where they would be able to observe themselves on closed-circuit television without disrupting the inauguration festivities. Police are still investigating the cause of the fatal gas leak that erupted in this bunker during the protest.

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"Hope Chooses Fear" © 2005 David Sklar. Used with permission of the author