In retrospect, it was inevitable. However, at the time we thought, or hoping, it would never happen.
Almost exactly eleven years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the great recession, in the fall of 2019, the American financial institutions were under a major cyber attack by the Russian hackers. Overnight, a majority of them became insolvent and with that the entire machinery that kept this country going came to a grinding halt.
There were early warnings. The intelligence services had identified attempts by the known Russian hackers to infiltrate the American banks and investment houses. However, when they took that warning to president Trump, he responded by saying he will call Putin and make sure they were not up to some mischief. When Putin said that they had nothing to do with such attempts, and in fact, there were no hackers in Russia, Trump was satisfied. He told the intelligence services that they were wrong and the whole thing was a Democratic plot to stop him from being re-elected.
At first, Trump did not understand that an attack had happened and the financial system was in grave danger of collapse. However hard the economists and Federal Reserve Board chairman tried to explain it to him, even in a sixth grade English, the president refused to accept that anything was wrong. He explained that Sean Hannity did not think anything was wrong so it could not be. Besides he was a successful businessman and knew financial matters better than anyone else.
Things got bad very quickly. It was clear that an international effort was required as was the case during the great recession. The Europeans, Canadians and Chinese were eager to work with US to align their policies so that the bottom would not fall out. Trump’s response was predictable. “We have America First policy and we don’t depend on Canada, run by a weak person Trudeau; or Europeans, because they sucked us dry; or the Chinese, because they are shifty people.” The only person Trump relied on was Putin, who was too eager to help.
A large number of people became unemployed. Trump quickly attacked the illegal immigrants for taking away jobs. “If they had allowed me to build the wall, this would not have happened.”
As he looked at the unemployment numbers climbing rapidly, he asked the economists to provide him the number of people employed. This he used for his next rally in Alabama. “See the number of people employed. It is larger than the number during Truman’s administration. I am the greatest job creator in the history of mankind.” The crowd of hypnotized followers cheered and waved Make America Great Again posters.
Then there were riots on the street as people desperate for food broke into grocery stores. These images were shown as breaking news on all the regular channels except Fox News, which maintained that the whole thing was a right wing conspiracy and continued showing a program on pet care. “All fake news being shown by the enemy of the people,” tweeted Trump. “I definitely saw Hillary standing on the sidelines, directing the whole operation.”
The next few days were chaotic. Trump was found one day by the White House staff, roaming in his bathrobe, shouting obscenity and nonsense. “It is all a plot. Nothing is wrong. I am the greatest president who ever lived. It is all Crooked Hillary’s fault. Obama is behind it. The Mexicans are coming after me. Muslim terrorists have infiltrated our economy. Sean Hannity is going to be my Vice President. The Democrats should be all jailed. Nobody knows anything like me. I am the greatest, THE GREATEST”
The 25thamendment was invoked, and Trump was removed from the office for the reason of insanity. His whereabouts are unknown but it is widely rumored that he has taken residence in a small island in the Pacific Ocean and they have elected him their emperor.
I hope you enjoyed my brief narrative. I now better get to my soup kitchen before it closes. I better get used to the chicken broth soup; this great depression is going to last for a while.
