If you love your country, and you wish someone would kill me, vote for Scott Adams as a write-in for president of the United States. If elected, it’s a virtual certainty I’ll get assassinated, but not before I solve every problem in the United States. And by our excellent example, the problems in other countries will also be solved.
(Incidentally, if you don’t live in the United States, you can still vote in our elections, thanks to our electronic voting machines. You might need to guess a password. Try “123” or “Reagan.”)
As president, I would solve all the world’s problems by creating a reality TV show where think tanks compete for the best solutions to everything from health care to energy policy to immigration. The judges would be experts who help viewers sort the squirrel shit from the caviar, but the final decisions would be made by viewers, just like on American Idol.
I think you can see many problems with this plan. But you have to compare it to the current political process where idiots elect liars to transfer wealth to crooks. How’s that working out for you?
You might think one problem with my plan is that few people would watch a show about political policies. But before the TV show Survivor came on, who predicted that millions of people would watch a bunch of assholes fighting over a coconut? Before American Idol, who predicted that a show featuring bad singers (mostly) would be a worldwide sensation? A good producer can make anything seem fascinating.
Let’s take one example: energy policy. At the risk of oversimplifying, our current energy policy in The United States involves shooting bearded people. It’s not hard to imagine better ideas coming out of a reality TV show. I’m not a think tank and I can give you a few great ideas right off the top of my head:
1. Pass a law in the United States requiring power companies to put a patriotism rating on customer bills. Depending on how much you reduce your consumption over the prior year, you earn a rating of up to four American flags. If you use more energy than last year, your bill comes printed with only one flag. And it’s the flag of Saudi Arabia, you frickin’ traitor. Energy consumption would drop like a rock.
2. Pass a law requiring all cars to have a large gas mileage label on the driver’s side door, with an arrow pointing to the driver’s big ol’ head. Everyone already knows, in a general sense, which vehicles use the most gas. But if you have to drive around town with a “9 miles per gallon” label pointed at your mullet, it might make you think twice the next time you consider putting monster tires on your pickup truck.
Seriously, I’d love to watch a reality show where two think tanks argue over whether we should go balls-to-the-wall growing sugar cane and turning it into fuel. Is corn for losers? Does Brazil have it right? It’s all slightly too boring for me to research on my own, and it wouldn’t help because I don’t believe anything I read. But I’d watch a reality show about it if the losers were insulted by someone witty. That’s the kind of leader I am.