The Orange-Haired Prince, Chapter Two

The following is the second chapter of my reimagining of Election 2016 through the lens of a fable. You can read Chapter One here. 

And then, in the year 2016, an Orange-Haired Prince came along.

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The Grand Country had never accepted a prince before. Grand Country people had always rejected royalty, never trusting the heavy hand of an ultimate ruler.

“Of course, I’m not a prince,” said the orange-haired man.

“But really, I am a prince,” he would say in the next breath.

Because the people of the Grand Country had never before seen someone who thought himself a prince, they were curious. At first when they looked at him, many laughed.

He was famous as a star of Entertainment, and he came from a big city, and the Orange-Haired Prince also had many, many Media Clicks and Bank Benjamins.

And so he was a benign spectacle, like a spring carnival, that a person might visit and enjoy, and then depart from.

This is what most Grand Country people thought the Orange-Haired Prince would remain.

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But something else happened in the year 2016.

Because the Grand Country had a long tradition not just of laws and being united in a way unique upon the earth.

They had a history also of fearless News Tellers.

News Tellers of yon had been the gatekeepers of freedom and fairness. There were many great legends, of young male and female News Tellers bravely searching out the truth.

These News Tellers had often afraid been afraid of the many powerful people they confronted.

But they did not let their fear overcome them.

The News Tellers had exposed the spying of a powerful Leader, they had uncovered the wicked schemes of ruthless companies, they had risked (and sometimes lost) their lives overseas, to bring the truth of foreign wars home to Grand Country people.

And thus the News Tellers were relentlessly dedicated to truth, so that the Grand Country people trusted that, if there were serious problems in an important person, then the News Tellers would give them warning.

And yet, a curious thing happened with the Orange-Haired Prince.

For he had proclaimed that he came now to be a Leader. But he did not act like other aspiring Leaders.

The Orange-Haired Prince said he did not need to be nice, like the lying failures from The Red and The Blue.

The Some and the Protestors, and even many other Grand Country people, liked that about the Orange-Haired Prince. He was not pretending. For they knew that many of The Red and The Blue were only nice when someone was watching, and would then change behind closed doors.

But as he traveled the Grand Country, it seemed that the Orange-Haired Prince was especially unkind to certain groups of Grand Country people.

For he would say, “All women are equal.”

And then he would say, “But young, beautiful women are the best.”

Or he would say, “I love people from the South.”

And then he would say, “But people from the South are mostly criminals.”

On one occasion, the Orange-Haired Prince pretended to be a person with physical handicaps, holding his arm at an odd angle and shaking his head, and he laughed and found himself very amusing.

Once he said, “I love Religious Minorities.”

But then he said, “Religious Minorities should not be allowed in our country.” And then he said he did not really mean that. But afterwards, he said he really did.

Even when the Orange-Haired Prince discussed the most popular religion, he did not know much about it. He said he read the Great Book of the Grand Country’s most common religion. But he did not speak or embody any of what the Great Book taught.

Many people of faith did not believe the Orange-Haired Prince, and even their most famous teacher questioned his sincerity.

But most of the religious people did not have enough Media Clicks or Bank Benjamins.

Normally, that would not have mattered. Because the News Tellers would have exposed the Orange-Haired Prince.

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But.

The News Tellers were behaving in ways most bizarre.

Because as the Orange-Haired Prince grew more and more nasty in his speech, more and more tyrannical in his vision of himself as a Leader, the News Tellers seemed to grow less and less willing to reproach him.

For the News Tellers now needed (or wanted) Media Clicks and Bank Benjamins of their own. They had needed, or wanted, the MCs and BBs for many years. And because they wanted (or needed) MCs and BBs so much, the News Tellers had started a different tradition, to mix news of the foreign wars and corrupt leaders with news about Media Click kitten sensations and the affairs of famous Entertainment people, and sometimes they even reported on the lives of certain other people, simply because those people had the most Bank Benjamins.

The Orange-Haired Prince was one of the first to use his many BBs to get attention from the News Tellers, and he was very good at doing things that would make them write about him. Things like seducing married women, and calling other women fat and ugly, and threatening his business competitors.

For the Orange-Haired Prince knew what the News Tellers knew, that while Grand Country people hated that kind of behavior, they also liked to hear about other people doing it.

It was exciting in a bad way, which is to say, it was scandalous.

Over many years, the News Tellers grew more and more dependent upon Media Clicks and Bank Benjamins. And because they wanted them, or wanted them, they began to change the way they told the news so much that they started to think perhaps they should change their name.

And so at some point, no one can say exactly when, the News Tellers began calling themselves by a different name: News Makers.

And when he announced he wanted to become a Leader, the Orange-Haired Prince was such a spectacle attraction that the News Makers understood he would bring them large numbers of MCs and BBs.

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Of course, the Orange-Haired Prince knew this also.

So he demanded that News Makers paint him in a harmless, positive light.

He threatened to ignore whole groups of News Makers if they were “not fair” to him.

And he said that once he came to power, the Orange-Haired Prince would change laws to make it easier to punish News Makers for how they reported on him.

Grand Country people might have been appalled, if they knew of the Orange-Haired Prince’s true intent and character as a possible Leader.

However, the News Makers did not really tell the Grand Country people the truth.

Instead, they crafted their own reporting. So rather than telling the Grand Country people of his many terrible actions and sayings, the News Makers analyzed the Orange-Haired Prince’s strategy of throwing parties instead of giving serious speeches. Was that a surprise, or what? Who knew parties would work so well?

They used words to describe him that were not exactly negative. They called the Orange-Haired Prince “unconventional.” And they called him “unexpected.”

Even though he was a prince, or he thought of himself as one. Even though he disliked the darker-skinned people, and the people from the South. Even though he claimed that women who were not beautiful did not matter.

The News Makers still told his stories in a way that would distract from the danger of those ideas.

Because the Orange-Haired Prince was bringing them many, many Media Clicks and Bank Benjamins.

Or… that is what the News Makers did at first.

Yet a funny thing might happen, when a person lies and pretends.

If the lying and pretending go on too long, a person might start to believe it.

A News Maker might start to say to himself, “Am I really pretending? Perhaps the Orange-Haired Prince might actually be just what we need.”

And a News Maker might start to say to herself, “Well, but the Orange-Haired Prince is just a man after all. How bad could he be? He’s not any worse, certainly, than most of the other Red and Blue politicians.”

And another News Maker might start to say to herself, “But well really, what about all the Some and the Protestors? Haven’t they been left out of the Grand Country? Don’t their struggles deserve attention?”

Because that is where the Orange-Haired Prince went first. He went to the Some. He threw large and raucous parties with them, and he said he loved them and their way of life. This was a surprise, and gave many of the Some great love for the Orange-Haired Prince.

He loved them back always, he said. Even when they were cruel to darker-skinned people. And the Some loved that, because there were a few among them who really hated darker-skinned people, and they were giddy with glee that the Orange-Haired Prince accepted them so openly.

At one party, a few darker-skinned people came to protest. They did not like, or perhaps even feared, the Orange-Haired Prince, for he had lately shown ambivalence toward a man who would bring back the great evil of slavery. When the Orange-Haired Prince saw these darker-skinned men, he had his guards force them to leave.

An elderly Some man from the crowd saw the darker-skinned men leaving, and he took it upon himself to punch one across the face.

Many Grand Country people were disturbed when they saw this.

But the Orange-Haired Prince was not. He said his supporters were passionate, and that he might just hire extra help for the elderly Some man, in case he got into trouble with the courts over how he had hit the darker-skinned man.

“I love the darker-skinned people,” the Orange-Haired Prince said.

“But they shouldn’t bring their disruption into my events.”

Many of the Some flocked to the Orange-Haired Prince.

And when he sensed he had enough of their support, the Orange-Haired Prince targeted the Protestors.

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Source: 30dB.com – Donald Trump and Religion

Comment: “Looks like Social shares the concerns of the good people of Grand Country and do not trust the Orange Haired Prince on the topic of religion.” – Howard K. 30dB

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