VOTE FOR ME

VOTE FOR ME: All public fountains should be converted to splash pads. They shouldn’t look like splash pads, mind you: I just want my kids to be able to play in any public fountain they happen to see.

VOTE FOR ME: All manhole covers should be designed by local artists and vary state to state, city to city, or, preferably, neighborhood to neighborhood.

VOTE FOR ME: All public signs, maps, and placards should be covered with anti-graffiti paint. All private businesses should be given free anti-graffiti paint upon request. Any graffiti-er caught tagging a bridge or train will be fined twenty-five dollars. Any graffiti-er caught tagging THE FUCKING TRAIL MAP ON BELLE ISLE IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA will be shot into the sun.

VOTE FOR ME: All road construction projects will proceed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week until completed. If this sounds impractical, I will commission a study to calculate the number of hours Americans spend in traffic each day, the value of those hours, and how much money sitting in traffic actually costs.

VOTE FOR ME: You want toll roads? Fine, you can have toll roads. But they will all use the E-Z Pass scanner thingy that allows people to pay without slowing down. If this sounds impractical, I will commission a study to see how much gasoline America wastes every day as millions of cars traveling sixty miles an hour come to a complete stop, pay the toll, then speed back up to sixty miles an hour.

VOTE FOR ME: Nah fuck it I changed my mind you can’t have toll roads.

VOTE FOR ME: Cars are better and safer than ever, which means the majority of speed limits are woefully out of date. We must survey every street, highway, freeway, and off-ramp in America and bring speed limits into the twenty-first century.

VOTE FOR ME: But then we should actually enforce them. The spirit of the law and the letter of the law should never be separate things. Going 81 in an 80? You’re breaking the law and risk getting pulled over and fined. Speed limits make sense now, so this isn’t ridiculous.

VOTE FOR ME: Abolish all screens at gas stations. Abolish all music at gas stations. Abolish all music at gas stations, grocery stores, and any other public places. Beethoven was said to hear music in the ambient noise of his surroundings. As I type this, it is raining, and I hear the sound of rain. When I want to listen to music I will. Till then, let people hear the world.

VOTE FOR ME: Abolish all billboards. Abolish all advertisements on public transportation. Abolish all stadiums named after products or companies. We’ve all read (Substack essays about) Infinite Jest. We all know The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. Please let that remain satire.

VOTE FOR ME: Speaking of public transportation: all public transportation should look like a Virginia Lee Burton illustration.

VOTE FOR ME: Speaking of Virginia Lee Burton: the entire United States should look more like a Virginia Lee Burton illustration.

VOTE FOR ME: No building is allowed to be torn down until it is at least 250 years old. This makes me sick because I want to tear down every new building I see, but I’ve read stories of how, in the throes of mid-century International Style, people were demolishing Queen Anne mansions for being too floofy and hard to maintain, so I will allow a 250-year waiting period as insurance against any hasty decisions.

So fine, keep your muntinless, asymmetrical, greige rectangles of indeterminate building materials. But keep everything else too.

VOTE FOR ME: Speaking of architecture:

VOTE FOR ME: Every time I buy something, I spend five to fifteen minutes removing stickers with Goo Gone. (Also, this isn’t a “VOTE FOR ME” or anything, but the makers of Goo Gone should be given a Noble Prize for both chemistry and peace.) There shall be FEWER FUCKING STICKERS ON EVERYTHING and if they must exist they shall be THE KIND THAT PEEL OFF EASILY. You sons of bitches I know you know there are stickers that peel off easily: I collect records and there are price tags that come off in two seconds. ANYONE WHO USES THOSE IMPOSSIBLE-TO-REMOVE STICKERS SHALL BE SHOT INTO THE SUN.

VOTE FOR ME: Every time an electronic device won’t charge, I get to play the world’s stupidest game show: WHY?! WON’T?! THIS?! CHARGE?! This is because the problem could stem from (1) the device, (2) the charging cable, (3) the charging block, (4) the charging ports, or (5) some unholy combination of all of the above. I don’t know how to solve all these problems, but I can at least eliminate one: all charging cables and charging blocks shall henceforth be inseparable. And don’t even get me started on household appliances whose cords end with USB plug-ins.

VOTE FOR ME: Any tech company that updates the shape of their charging ports more than once a decade will have its executives shot into the sun.

VOTE FOR ME: To reduce doomscrolling, all webpages must take ten seconds to load. If you’re on a website that uses a “feed,” each new image, video, or bit of text must take five seconds to load. This is true for Substack, YouTube, Pornhub, TikTok, and that baking site you like. This will ensure people are clicking with intention.

VOTE FOR ME: If TikTok is banned in China, it should be banned everywhere.

VOTE FOR ME: Smartphones aren’t legal until you’re eighteen. Social media isn’t legal until you’re twenty-one.

VOTE FOR ME: Some things should be legal in real life but illegal on the internet: you can gamble at a casino, buy porn at a sex shop, get weed at a dispensary, and purchase liquor at a liquor store, but none of those interactions shall be facilitated via smartphone. (I’ve yet to decide how far out of town these establishments should be.)

VOTE FOR ME: Considering the size of the average political bribe, all politicians should be paid ten times their current salary.

VOTE FOR ME: But all politicians must have transparent bank accounts. Every dollar made and every dollar spent can be viewed on a website by any citizen at any time. It’s fine if Senator So-and-So buys a new yacht as long as everyone has access to the paper trail.

VOTE FOR ME: Every April 15 the government will send citizens a completed tax form. Citizens are free to double-check the government’s work and file a complaint if anything is incorrect. The executives at H&R Block and all other tax prep companies who have spent years lobbying against will be shot into the sun.

VOTE FOR ME: Don’t ban plastic straws. Don’t ban plastic anything. If you want less of something, tax it until you have the optimal amount, but let the market determine the individual cases when plastic should or shouldn’t be replaced.

VOTE FOR ME: Speaking of plastic: set aside a few billion dollars and give poor Asian countries working sanitation services.

VOTE FOR ME: We have a trillion dollar army that (under my administration) won’t be fighting any wars. Redirect that money and manpower toward environmental causes. The Army should destroy invasive species, from Burmese pythons to kudzu to zebra mussels. The Navy should tackle the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Air Force should blow up any buildings currently funneling their pollution into our rivers.

VOTE FOR ME: All K-12 classes will be capped at twenty-three students. If, at any point, a class has twenty-four students, teacher pay at that school shall rise ten dollars a day until said pay is lucrative enough to draw in applicants and reduce class sizes.

VOTE FOR ME: All K-12 teachers are allowed to kick out three students of their choice at any point during the school year. (I’ve yet to decide where those students should go.)

VOTE FOR ME: The only way to stop grade inflation (at the K-12 and college level) is to limit the numbers of possible grades. In a class of twenty-three, teachers may assign four A’s, five B’s, seven C’s, and seven D’s. They can, of course, assign as many F’s as they see fit.

VOTE FOR ME: More teachers, more nurses, more cops.

VOTE FOR ME: Yes, more cops. Who do you want arresting you? The guy who’s under-trained, overworked, and told he can never take a short shift or a long vacation, or the guy who’s well-trained, well-rested, and just back from a Disney cruise with his family? How is this controversial?!

VOTE FOR ME: Also: everyone wants more cops on foot patrol. Give people more cops on foot patrol!

VOTE FOR ME: Okay, you still don’t want more patrol officers, on foot or anywhere else. How about more homicide detectives? The U.S. currently solves just under half of murder cases. So: all police departments must hire one additional homicide detective a week until ninety-five percent of murders are solved.

VOTE FOR ME: This is the most important one. Celebrities are NO LONGER ALLOWED to write children’s books (upon penalty of being shot into the sun). I’m tired of these unimaginative midwits peddling their treacly drivel: book stores have limited shelf space and parents have limited time, which means every night you read Your Baby’s First Word Will Be DADA by Jimmy Fallon you’re not reading Home by Carson Ellis. I will make an exception for any celebrity who illustrates their own book (which has never and will never happen) and any celebrity who writes in some other capacity (which means B.J. Novak and The Book with No Pictures can stay earthbound).

That is all. Gets the rockets ready and VOTE FOR ME.