April Fools And All The News That Didn’t Happen
Tewfik Cassis
We debated how to celebrate April Fools Day. We could have sent you some fake news this morning, but would you have believed it? Here are the headlines we’d love to write and not be joking:
The US Presidential Race Is Going Smoothly
Despite a lot of naive wishes by the “Republican Establishment” (a group of old, white, men generally out of touch with the rest of America) the race to replace Obama did not go according to plan. True to his word Donald Trump ran a campaign that he intends to win, taking out rival after rival in an almost glorious display of schoolyard taunts: “little Marco” and “low-energy Jeb.” The result? Reducing the world’s pre-eminent power into a reality TV show that may or may not bestow the nuclear launch codes to a man concerned about the size of his hands (penis).
Europe Solved The Refugee Crisis
Contrary to no expectations, Europe didn’t really figure out a way to solve its long standing refugee crisis. Yes, it put up a few walls, some fences and gave Turkey some money in return for a refugee policy that can be summarized as “free returns, store credit only.” The first quarter of the year saw more drownings and scenes of chaos on the Greek-FYROM border (due to technical reasons we are not allowed to call it Macedonia). Meanwhile, far right, anti-immigrant populists are taking Germany’s regional parliaments by storm and they haven’t moderated their views despite their leader being saved from a car-crash by a bunch of Syrian refugees.
Capitol Hill Returned to Functioning Normally
There were small rumblings of hope towards the end of last year, when Paul Ryan took over the House and cut a budget deal with Obama in a controversial move known as “governing.” Since then things are back to business as usual and all it took was the death of Antonin Scalia to terrify Republicans into paralysis. The term lame duck has been stretched to include the final four years of any Presidential term in a bid to make sure no one makes any decisions until the American people have a voice, at which point the powers that be can ignore that voice until it agrees with them (kind of like Thanksgiving dinner conversations).
The Middle East Reestablished Peace Process
There are so many complicated, interlocking rivalries that we are constantly subjected to “clarifying” charts like this one that explain who hates whom and every few months John Kerry packs up his hair and goes on a “shuttle diplomacy” tour to try to get everyone to ease up. But, as usual, nothing’s changed. Sure Putin announced that he was “pulling out” of Syria but he’s still committed to “fighting terrorists.” Meanwhile, the Syrian Civil War has firmly moved into Turkey and ISIS hit another European Capital. The Israelis and Palestinians are so far away from agreeing on how to agree or how to get the Peace Process started and Libya now has three different governments trying to run the country. On the plus side, a man hijacked a plane for a cause that wasn’t terrorism! Progress? We think so.
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