A political joke for our times…
Trump is holding a meeting at the White House when the doors slam open and who should walk in but Vladimir Putin himself.
“What do you want?” says Trump.
“I have two demands,” says Putin. “First, shoot every member of the government who opposes you—every member of Congress, every political appointee, every governor, every mayor, every judge, everyone, down to the lowest level government employee. Then paint the White House green.”
“Why green?” says Trump.
Putin smiles. “I knew you wouldn’t object to my first demand.”
(This was originally a Soviet joke, or “anecdote,” in which Stalin comes back from the dead and tells the current leader of the country to purge the government and paint the Kremlin green—“Why green?” “I knew you wouldn’t object to my first demand…” It was told over multiple decades of Soviet history, just replacing the name of the current leader, until the joke even outlasted the Soviet Union itself—the latest iterations have Stalin telling Putin to execute the government, etc. It’s pretty horrific how well Soviet jokes fit our current context.)
