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October 30, 2024 Login
Opinion

Satire: A Plan for a 2020 Do-Over

By Adam Wilan, November 2nd, 2020

2020 has not been … the most fantastic of years. That is perhaps an understatement. 2020 sucks. It sucks. On the Jewish holiday of Passover a song is sung called Dayenu, which translates to “It would have been enough.” 2020 has been a year of Dayenus. Just COVID-19 would have been enough. Just raging wildfires would have been enough. Just a fascist president … would have been enough. We need a redo of 2020, and fortunately, there is a way to deliver that redo. To get through this time unhurt, our government needs to switch from being a government of the people and become a government for the people. It needs to stop worrying about policies or progress or the law, and become simply a wealth of resources from which we can gorge ourselves upon until this pandemic is over. 

Here is the plan:

To begin with, the government will start over by sending all people home from school and work. Children will be made to devote all waking hours to learning how to overthrow the facist bourgeoisie. Netflix and HBO will be made free for all Americans. If the CEOs complain, they will be slain — this is true because it rhymes. These three actions will stop the spread of COVID-19. 

A problem then arises: how will everybody be fed and cared for without jobs? This is where the Great Alaskan Program (GAP) comes in. All 663,300 square miles of Alaska will be plowed and made into one giant field. Canadians will then be lured over the border with maple syrup, and will be trapped there by their good nature and genuine desire to help. Because they are so damn nice and resourceful, Canadians will begin farming the land right away, probably using seeds they keep in their pockets to feed birds with. They will then harvest said crops for us and distribute them to all American citizens, eliminating the need for Americans to work for their food. Americans will laugh heartily, slapping their dirty little bellies.

A vaccine will eventually be made by those illustrious Canadians, and they will give it to us Americans for free, in exchange for us promising to stop luring Canadians to Alaska. We will cross our fat fingers behind our backs whilst making the deal in case another disaster unfolds and we need the Canadians in Alaska once more. Once the vaccine has been administered, all can go back to work and school and we will redo 2020 without COVID-19. To prevent a buildup of kids who need to go up a grade, throughout this whole process we will periodically send Mike Pence flying around the country in a giant hot air balloon to drop free condoms for everybody to prevent any pregnancies this year. 

This plan is 102 percent foolproof and there appear to be no reasons it wouldn’t work flawlessly. That being said, it may be hard for the American people to swallow. This country has a very work-minded attitude focused only on progress and profits. We hate “Welfare Queens” and sharing stuff. American men swoon at the mention of the dreaded “Socialism.” They would never accept as thoughtful and fantastic a plan as this one, even though it actually benefits all and would save countless lives. We have been seasoned by big corporations to be skeptical of such things. I’m sure you were skeptical yourself as you were reading the plan, even though, as I have stated, it is 102 percent foolproof. This is one of the big reasons America has failed so spectacularly in combating the current pandemic. We just haven’t been able to come together as a nation and share; we haven’t been able to put aside small personal freedoms and gains in pursuit of the greater good. Why haven’t we passed another stimulus check? Why are Americans forced to risk their and their families lives to do completely non-essential jobs? Americans need to change their outlook on sharing, and need to recall those chants in kindergarten of, “Everybody do your share.” We need to band together during national disasters such as the pandemic and have our government care for us, provide safety and comfort. Well, either our government or the Canadians, whoever offers their help first.