WINNERS AND LOSERS OF THE RECENT NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST

DAN CLUCHEY

The nation was recently rocked by retaliatory nuclear blasts that have turned much of America into a barren wasteland, decimating the population, triggering the rise of firestorms and supervolcanoes, and generally bringing civilization to the brink of collapse. Let’s take a look at the political fallout.

Winners

• Congressional Republicans: Widespread destruction aside, this was a kumbaya moment for a caucus that has had its share of family spats of late. For the first time since coming together to narrowly pass the American Health Care Act in May, Speaker Paul Ryan wonkily persuaded the House GOP’s version of the Hatfields and McCoys — the principled hardliners of the Freedom Caucus on one hand, and the reasonable moderates of the Tuesday Group on the other — to set their bickering aside just long enough to squeak through a resolution in support of President Trump’s plan, tweeted out at 3:29 a.m. on Thursday morning, to “FRANCE IS LOOKING FOR TROUBLE. Sick country that won’t solve its own problems. Maybe nucluar?” Concerns that a more deliberative Senate would splash cold water on a rare show of Republican unity proved unfounded when Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), the human fulcrum perched stoically at the precise center of American politics, revealed in a nationally televised special that she would vote to authorize nuclear war to balance out the fact that she had recently broken ranks with her party on an agriculture appropriations bill.

• CNN: As every news producer knows, nothing makes for better theater than war — and nothing makes for better CNN than theater. Right up until the moment when the first blast’s electromagnetic pulse wiped out all of the technology on the eastern seaboard, the cable giant was in fine form, drawing record viewership to a number of its weekday staples. The roiling debate over whether or not to abruptly drop hydrogen bombs on traditional allies proved to be compelling fodder; one particularly juicy squabble between contributors Jeffrey Lord and Lanny Davis will likely go down in history as the second-to-last thing to go viral. Time will tell whether Ari Fleischer’s observation that a nuclear conflict “could be the victory that Donald Trump needs to right the ship of this administration” holds true, but one thing’s for certain
  — this moment was CNN as it was meant to be: a grand arena where intellectual titans come to match wits and battle it out over issues with no clear answer.
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