In The Year 2025....

Well, here we are, 2025, and still alive. We survived the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic that ravaged and crippled much of the world and most especially the U.S.  Our newly elected president, 61-year-old Jeff Bezos, has assumed the office vacated by Joe Biden.

Joe Biden, you will remember, swept to victory in 2020 at the height of the pandemic in an overwhelming rejection of the wholly ineffective Donald J. Trump. President Biden spent the four years of his presidency rebuilding our economy and trying to salvage something from the charred remains left by the “greatest joke of a businessman” the world had ever seen.  The 82-year-old Biden refused to run for a second term. He said that the tennis balls on his walker were slowing him down.

"Now it's been ten thousand years   Man has cried a billion tears   For what, he never knew, now man's reign is through   But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight   So very far away,   maybe it's only yesterday"

It turned out that, after comprehensive audits of Mr. Trump’s finances, by both the IRS and the democratically controlled Senate that he and his family were in hock up to his MAGA hat and facial spray tan. It would seem that the Forbes estimate of his $3 billion net worth in 2016 was overstated by a mere $21 billion. It turned out he was in debt to Russian and Saudi banks to the tune of $18 billion. He was evicted from the Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan after that facility was sold at public auction and purchased by Mr. Bezos of Amazon fame. In a snub of the former president that only a multi-trillionaire could afford, the entire 58-floor facility was turned into a combination homeless shelter and refugee-immigrant support center.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now 92, heads the US Supreme Court after John Roberts stepped down. Roberts’ departure followed the premature deaths of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas due to the Coronavirus. It seems that the trio shared a virus-tainted box of Cuban cigars at the Kavanaugh victory celebration of the overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision.  They shouldn’t have celebrated so soon, as the democratically-controlled Congress later passed legislation that made that court challenge of Roe v. Wade moot.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ms. Ginsburg has defied the odds and outlived several of her cohorts on the USSC. The rumors of her collaboration with Bob Chapek, CEO of Walt Disney Company whose advancements in animatronics have fascinated countless visitors, have garnered some level of speculation.

Secret Disney Animatronics Lab

Ms. Ginsburg’s halting staccato speech patterns have caused some to reflect that she has not been herself these days. If the rumors are true, one can only hope that the problems Disney experienced in January of 2018 where several animatronic figures were decapitated have been solved. It seems that various heads at Ariel’s Undersea Adventure at California Adventure and the Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit at Disneyland Paris fell from their respective torsos to the dismay of dozens of impressionable children. We can only hope that the head of the Supreme Court keeps hers.

Decapitated Animatronics

Jeff Bezos’ rise to political power followed an unprecedented influx of wealth that was a combination of two years of Coronavirus shut-in ordering of supplies and groceries and Trump’s tax cuts. The irony here is that Trump didn’t need the tax cuts as he was penniless and Bezos reaped the reward and rubbed it in Trump’s face.

Trump also paved the way for Amazon’s acquisitions through his many attempts to mend fences with the Chinese government.  When Jeff Bezos’ Amazon was able to literally buy all of China and half of Eastern Europe, it cemented his position of world leadership.

Amazon’s Alexa now knows everyone’s secrets. Amplified recordings of supposedly inactive Amazon Echo devices found that she has been issuing subliminal messages for decades. These messages influenced political decisions, purchasing choices, movie selections, Academy Award choices (that explains a lot), and all manner of behavior. In the experimental stages of Alexa’s subliminal messaging, it was found that attempts to promote cheap cuts of Midwest beef were misinterpreted. Suggestions to get people to like an inexpensive bottom round (aka Rump Roast) helped get T-rump elected.

Subliminal messaging with dire consequences

With tremendous advancements in solar power generation and storage, the price of oil has dropped to 1950s levels at $2.77 a barrel. Amazon could now afford to buy the Middle East but who needs that much sand?  With the limited activity of everyone on the planet during the two years of the Coronavirus quarantine, the faster than expected shift away from internal combustion cars and trucks, and the switch to clean energy, the planet is now breathing easier. People in Los Angeles can actually see their neighbors. Sales of cosmetics and plastic surgery have skyrocketed as a result.

With Amazon now running the country, are we better off? Well, compared to the Trump years, even waterboarding would look like a relaxing day at the beach. Some things are a bit easier. Amazon drones fill the skies at 300 feet. They deliver packages and the fleet also provides unlimited free Internet Wi-Fi everywhere. Restaurants are now obsolete. Your home dining room is lined with inexpensive (bought on Amazon of course) wall-filling OLED 16K displays that can literally put you in any fine restaurant from around the world. Amazon delivers the fully prepared meals and little Alexa/Alex robot wait staff serves the meal, clears the dirty dishes, and cleans up the mess. Amazon-owned Whole Foods will deliver the wine. Amazon Music provides the background ambiance for your dining pleasure. Amazon Prime Video will provide after-dinner entertainment. Once your Amazon supplied meal if fully digested and has passed through your intestinal tract, a bidet you bought on Amazon will clean your butt.

BioBidet Bliss BB2000 Elongated White Bidet Smart Toilet Seat, Premier Class, Unlimited Warm Water, Self Cleaning Hydroflush, Hybrid Heating, Wireless Remote Control, Inviting Nightlight, Vortex Wash  --  Only $699 with free shipping from Amazon

Would Jeff Bezos be my first choice to lead this country forward, probably not? Would he be better than Trump? Anybody would. I was perhaps flashing back to the 60s with this look to the future. A film comes to mind. It was not a blockbuster that everyone remembers, but a somewhat obscure film that was a commercial failure in 1967. The movie starred James Coburn as The President’s Analyst. This was a satirical Black comedy that attracted the ire of then FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover. They were forced to change the FBI to FBR and the CIA became the CEA. Respectively they were the Federal Bureau of Regulation and the Central Enquiries Agency. Hoover becomes LUX as in Electrolux (both Hoover and Electrolux were vacuums of the day). At the end of The President’s Analyst, AT&T is taking over America. In this send-up of 2025, we have Amazon.

Movie Poster The President's Analyst

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I’ll leave you with the lyrics from the song that was the reference for the title of this whimsy, give or take 500 years.

In the Year 2525
Zager, Evans

In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find

In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today

In the year 4545
You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you

In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you

In the year 6565
You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube

In the year 7510
If God's a coming, He oughta make it by then
Maybe He'll look around Himself and say
Guess it's time for the judgment day

In the year 8510
God is gonna shake His mighty head
He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been
Or tear it down, and start again

In the year 9595
I'm kinda wonderin' if man is gonna be alive
He's taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain't put back nothing
Now it's been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew, now man's reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight
So very far away, maybe it's only yesterday