Waking up from a coma

An imagined conversation which skips a lot of things but is still horrifying

• 2026-Me:
  OK so you’ve been in a coma since 2015. What’s the last thing you remember?
  

• 2015-Me:
  Obama’s president. Gay marriage just got legalized. Things are fine? Boring, even?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Right. You might want to sit down. Actually, definitely sit down.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Donald Trump ran for president.
  

• 2015-Me:
  The real estate guy? The Apprentice guy? Who sells steaks at The Sharper Image?
  

• 2026-Me:
  He rode down a golden escalator and called Mexicans rapists in his announcement speech.
  

• 2015-Me:
  So that was the end of that.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He won the Republican primary. All sixteen opponents. Called one “Lyin’ Ted,” called another “Low Energy Jeb,” and the entire Republican establishment fell in line like baby ducks following a bread truck into traffic.
  

• 2015-Me:
  But he lost the general.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He won the presidency.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Of what?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Of the United States of America.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Huh? How?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Russia helped. The FBI director torpedoed Clinton eleven days before the election by reopening an investigation into her emails and then closing it again having found nothing, by which point the damage was done. Also racism. Also sexism. Also a not-insignificant number of people thought it would be funny.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Was it funny?
  

• 2026-Me:
  It was not even kind of funny.
  

• 2026-Me:
  His first National Security Advisor lasted twenty-four days.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Twenty-four days?
  

• 2026-Me:
  That wasn’t even the biggest story that month. There was a period where a major scandal would break before breakfast and be replaced by a different scandal by lunch. Like drinking from a firehose of raw, weapons-grade stupidity.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He tried to ban Muslims from entering the country. By executive order. In his first week.
  

• 2015-Me:
  That’s unconstitutional.
  

• 2026-Me:
  The courts agreed. He did it anyway. Three versions. Third one stuck.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He called Nazis “very fine people.”
  

• 2015-Me:
  Context?
  

• 2026-Me:
  White supremacists held a torch-lit rally in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us.” One of them drove a car into a crowd and killed a woman named Heather Heyer.
  

• 2026-Me:
  The President stood in the lobby of Trump Tower, on camera, flanked by aides staring at their shoes with the haunted look of men watching their careers commit suicide, and said there were “very fine people on both sides.”
  

• 2015-Me:
  And he was removed from office.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He served out his full term.
  

• 2026-Me:
  His personal lawyer paid a porn star named Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to cover up an affair Trump had with her shortly after his wife gave birth.
  

• 2015-Me:
  That must have ended his presidency.
  

• 2026-Me:
  It barely dented a news cycle. The President paying off a porn star was approximately the seventh most alarming thing happening on any given news day.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He separated migrant children from their parents at the border. Toddlers. Put them in cages. Some of those kids have never been reunited with their families.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Never?
  

• 2026-Me:
  The United States government lost track of children it had taken from their parents. That is a sentence I just said with a straight face because my face no longer knows how to do anything else.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He got impeached.
  

• 2015-Me:
  OK good.
  

• 2026-Me:
  The first time.
  

• 2015-Me:
  THE FIRST TIME?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Impeachment one was for trying to blackmail the president of Ukraine into manufacturing dirt on Joe Biden’s son by withholding military aid that Ukraine desperately needed because — hold this thought — Russia was about to invade them.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Russia invaded Ukraine?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Patience.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Then COVID happened.
  

• 2015-Me:
  What the fuck is COVID?
  

• 2026-Me:
  A global pandemic. Novel coronavirus. Killed over a million Americans. Fifteen to twenty million worldwide. Shut down the global economy. People locked in their homes for months.
  

• 2015-Me:
  What did the government do?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Trump suggested injecting bleach. On live television. At the podium. In the White House briefing room. While flanked by actual doctors.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He turned to the doctors and said, with the guileless curiosity of a toddler who has just discovered that batteries go in both ways, “Is there a way we can do something like that? By injection inside, or almost a cleaning?”
  

• 2026-Me:
  The faces of the doctors behind him will haunt me until I die.
  

• 2015-Me:
  You’re making this up.
  

• 2026-Me:
  It’s on video. The video did not matter.
  

• 2026-Me:
  People refused to wear masks because they said it violated their constitutional rights. Armed protests at state capitols. Men with assault rifles screaming about face coverings.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Then vaccines came and a significant chunk of the country refused to take them because they thought they contained microchips, or altered your DNA, or were a plot by Bill Gates.

• 2026-Me:
  People died. A lot of people who did not have to die because they got medical advice from Facebook memes and a man who once stared directly into a solar eclipse on camera.
  

• 2015-Me:
  He stared into a solar eclipse?
  

• 2026-Me:
  On the balcony of the White House. Aides were shouting “don’t look!” He looked.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Oh thank God.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He refused to accept the results. Spent two months trying to overturn it through courts, state legislatures, raw intimidation.

• 2026-Me:
  He called the Secretary of State of Georgia, on a recorded call, and asked him to “find” exactly 11,780 votes. The exact margin. Said the number out loud. On a call everyone knew was being recorded.
  

• 2015-Me:
  And he was arrested.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Not yet.
  

• 2026-Me:
  January 6th, 2021. He held a rally near the Capitol. Told his supporters to march there and “fight like hell.” They stormed the building. Smashed through windows. Beat police officers with flagpoles.
  

• 2026-Me:
  They smeared shit on the walls. Built a gallows on the lawn. They were hunting for Mike Pence, his own Vice President, because he wouldn’t unilaterally overturn the election, which he didn’t have the power to do, which did not matter to the mob.
  

• 2015-Me:
  This happened in America?
  

• 2026-Me:
  On live television. Every network. The whole world watched. Congress evacuated through tunnels. People died.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Impeached again. For inciting it.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Convicted?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Acquitted. Senate Republicans said he was guilty but argued you can’t convict a president who already left office. A legal theory they invented on the spot to avoid doing the right thing.
  

• 2026-Me:
  The Supreme Court. So. A justice died during Obama’s last year. Obama nominated a replacement. Mitch McConnell refused to hold a hearing. For an entire year. Said it was too close to the election. Trump filled the seat.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Then Ruth Bader Ginsburg died six weeks before the 2020 election. McConnell confirmed her replacement in eight days. After saying four years earlier you couldn’t fill a seat in an election year.
  

• 2015-Me:
  That’s staggering hypocrisy.
  

• 2026-Me:
  The word “hypocrisy” implies there was a principle being violated. There was no principle. There was only power. Three Trump justices. Six-three supermajority.
  

• 2026-Me:
  They overturned Roe v. Wade.
  

• 2015-Me:
  They overturned Roe?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Fifty years of constitutional protection for abortion rights, gone. States immediately started banning it.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Women in Texas were forced to carry dead foetuses because doctors were afraid to perform procedures that might be classified as abortions. A ten-year-old rape victim in Ohio had to travel to Indiana for the procedure. She was ten.
  

• 2015-Me:
  I want to go back into the coma.
  

• 2026-Me:
  I haven’t told you about his second term yet.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He ran again in 2024. While under four separate criminal indictments. Ninety-one felony charges. He had a mugshot taken. It became a bestselling T-shirt.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Surely he lost.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He was convicted. Thirty-four felony counts. Falsifying business records to cover up the porn star payments.
  

• 2015-Me:
  So he went to prison.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He won the election.
  

• 2015-Me:
  HE FUCKING WHAT?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Beat Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden after Biden dropped out mid-campaign because he was visibly declining. The Democrats replaced him with his VP approximately four months before the election and were then surprised when four months wasn’t enough. The strategic acumen was breathtaking.
  

• 2015-Me:
  A convicted felon won the presidency.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Welcome to the timeline.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Oh, someone tried to assassinate him at a rally. Shot him in the ear. He stood up with blood streaming down his face and pumped his fist. It became the most iconic photograph of the decade. His poll numbers went up.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Of course they did.
  

• 2026-Me:
  The man is immune to consequences the way a cockroach is immune to radiation. In a perverse way it’s almost admirable, the way you might admire a virus for its efficiency.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Second term. He is systematically dismantling the federal government from the inside. He gave Elon Musk...
  

• 2015-Me:
  The Tesla guy?
  

• 2026-Me:
  The Tesla guy. Who is now the richest person in the world. Who bought Twitter, turned it into a right-wing propaganda sewer, renamed it “X” for reasons nobody has satisfactorily explained.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He did a little jump on stage at a Trump rally that was compared, unfavorably, to a Nazi salute. He was given an office in the White House and a mandate to cut spending, which he interpreted as permission to fire federal employees by the tens of thousands and gut entire agencies.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He dismantled USAID. People are dying in developing countries because a billionaire with a god complex and the emotional maturity of a ninth-grader decided their funding was inefficient.
  

• 2026-Me:
  The Supreme Court also ruled that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts.”
  

• 2015-Me:
  Checks and balances?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Adorable. Genuinely adorable that you still think in those terms. I remember thinking in those terms. It was nice. Like believing in Santa Claus but for governance nerds.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Russia invaded Ukraine. February 2022. Tanks across the border. Largest land war in Europe since 1945. Tens of thousands dead. Cities flattened.
  

• 2026-Me:
  In Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, Russian soldiers executed civilians and left their bodies in the streets. There are photographs.
  

• 2015-Me:
  And NATO responded?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Weapons and sanctions but not troops. Biden supported Ukraine. Trump is now trying to end the war on terms that basically reward Putin for invading.
  

• 2026-Me:
  October 7th, 2023. Hamas attacked Israel. Killed about 1,200 people. Massacred civilians at a music festival. Took over 250 hostages. Deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Holy shit. And then?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Israel bombed Gaza into rubble. For months. Then more months. Tens of thousands dead. Mostly civilians. Mostly women and children. Hospitals destroyed. Schools. A famine. The US kept shipping weapons the entire time. Netanyahu burned every ounce of international goodwill for Israel
  

• 2026-Me:
  Meanwhile, Biden could not bring himself to condition aid to Israel. Bibi in full save-his-own-ass mode and Biden didn’t hold him back. And Kamala stuck to Biden’s policies...
  

• 2015-Me:
  So what happened?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Trump V2
  

• 2026-Me:
  And Trump greenlit and joined an Israeli attack on Iran.
  

• 2015-Me:
  On IRAN?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Active military engagement. 2026. Unfolding right now. Done with the casual indifference of a man who has never been asked to bear the consequences of any decision he’s ever made.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Oh... I forgot... The UK left the European Union.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Voluntarily?
  

• 2026-Me:
  By referendum. 2016. The morning after the vote, the most googled question in Britain was “What is the EU?”
  

• 2026-Me:
  The campaign was built on lies about immigration. It was championed by Boris Johnson, who became Prime Minister.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Was he competent?
  

• 2026-Me:
  He threw illegal parties at Downing Street during COVID lockdowns while the rest of the country was forbidden from visiting their dying relatives in hospital. He resigned in disgrace.
  

• 2026-Me:
  He was replaced by Liz Truss, who lasted forty-five days. A tabloid put a head of lettuce on a webcam to see which would last longer. The lettuce won.
  

• 2015-Me:
  The lettuce?
  

• 2026-Me:
  The lettuce is the most stable leader Britain has produced in a decade.
  

• 2026-Me:
  George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020. The officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes while Floyd said “I can’t breathe.” The whole world saw it. It triggered the largest protest movement in American history.
  

• 2015-Me:
  And things changed?
  

• 2026-Me:
  For about eighteen months. Then there was a backlash. Then the word “woke” became the most weaponized word in the English language, deployed by people who couldn’t define it to condemn things they couldn’t articulate.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Jeffrey Epstein. The billionaire sex trafficker connected to Trump and Clinton and Prince Andrew and half the powerful men on earth. Arrested in 2019. Died in his cell under circumstances nobody believes were suicide. The client list was never fully released.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Prince Andrew?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Paid a settlement. Lost his titles. Lives in a lodge. The monarchy pretends he doesn’t exist. It is the most British resolution imaginable.
  

• 2026-Me:
  The planet is literally on fire. Hottest years in recorded history, all since you went under. Canada burned so badly the smoke turned the New York City sky orange. People in Manhattan walking around in masks looking up at an apocalyptic tangerine sky like extras in a film the studio declined to greenlight on grounds of implausibility.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Climate response?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement. Again. The EPA is being gutted. Public lands opened to drilling. And the man in charge is on record saying windmills cause cancer.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Windmills do not cause cancer.
  

• 2026-Me:
  I know.
  

• 2026-Me:
  AI happened. You can talk to a computer and it talks back. It writes essays, generates images, produces video indistinguishable from reality. It can pass the bar exam. Nobody agrees on whether it’s going to save civilization or end it.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Which is it?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Both, probably. Simultaneously. Which is fitting because everything in this conversation has been both things at the same time.
  

• 2026-Me:
  The Queen died.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Elizabeth?
  

• 2026-Me:
  September 2022. Ninety-six years old. Charles is King. The British do death well. It’s the living they struggle with.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Also Elon Musk might be the most powerful unelected person in American history. Direct line to the President. Access to classified systems. Making policy with no oversight, no confirmation, no accountability. While running Tesla, SpaceX, X, and a brain-implant company. He has eleven children by at least three women. He posts memes at 3 AM.
  

• 2015-Me:
  That’s a comic book villain.
  

• 2026-Me:
  Except in the comic book version the villain is usually competent.
  

• 2026-Me:
  So. To summarize. Since you’ve been asleep.
  

• 2026-Me:
  A reality TV host became president twice, got impeached twice, got indicted four times, convicted of thirty-four felonies, got shot once, incited an insurrection, and is currently dismantling the government from the inside with the help of the world’s richest man.
  

• 2026-Me:
  There’s been a pandemic that killed twenty million people. A war in Europe. A devastating war in Gaza. Israel is bombing Iran. Roe is gone. The Supreme Court is captured. The UK left Europe and was briefly governed by a woman who lost a popularity contest to a vegetable.
  

• 2026-Me:
  The planet is on fire. AI is eating everything. The Queen is dead. Epstein didn’t kill himself. And the richest man alive might be a shadow president who posts like a teenager.
  

• 2015-Me:
  Is there any good news?
  

• 2026-Me:
  Orban lost in Hungary. The autocrat playbook can be beaten.
  

• 2015-Me:
  That’s it?
  

• 20226-Me:
  --