A Knock on The Door
[NOTE: My bid at Andy Borowitz-type writing — lol!]
Fresh from a great night before and clinging to late-morning winks, Mark Zuckerberg hears the door-knocker. Sleepily, he pulls himself off the couch, grabs a robe, collects a few quick thoughts and saunters to the door. Still rubbing edgy sleep from his eyes he cracks the door and peers out to find Hillary Clinton’s two primary political operatives, Robby Mook and Joel Benenson. Both seemed gruff and were growling.
Noting their distraught, Zuckerberg said, “Wuz’ the matter guys? You look upset? What can I do to help?”
Mook weakly asked, “Can we talk?” Louder than Mook, and at the same time, Benenson said, “Yeah, we gotta talk!”
The new morning Zuck, waved his arms towards inside the house, and welcomed, “Sure. Join me in the kitchen — we’ll have some coffee.”
Mook and Benenson stormed past, neither uttering a word. Zuckerberg thought as they quickly passed by, “This is odd. They’re usually more friendly.” When in the kitchen, Benenson whispered, “Anybody here? Can anyone hear us?”
The night before suddenly dawned on Mark. A telling smile swept his face, and he paused in silence. He then said, “Hold on for a minute or two.”
He walked into the dining room vestibule area where a visiting and very happy Stormy Daniels was watering plants. “Hey, Stormy. Can you do me a favor and go outside to the pool for a bit? Somethin’s come up and I’ve got private meeting in the kitchen. It’s something I need to quietly tend to.” Pointing to where she should exit, he said, “Please go out that door … thanks!”
In the middle of watering a giant rubber plant, Stormy seductively smiled and quipped, “Sure, Zucky!” He ogled her every move as she sashayed into the sunlight.
He went back into the kitchen to the coffee machine and began making java. Suddenly he turned, waved his hands in the air and asked, “Is Hillary okay? Why you guys here? It’s not Bill again, is it?”
Neither Mook or Benenson responded. Instead they looked at each other. With ice cold eyes, Mook said, “you tell him!”
A reluctant Benenson sighed a soft breath, gathered his courage and said, “All right. It’s gotta be done.” He turned to the social media mogul now pouring coffee, cleared his voice and began with an instant stutter, “Mark, I, ah … er, ah — well, we don’t wanna tell you how to run your business. But there’s something important you gotta do. We — ”
Zuckerberg interrupted, “What’s she need now? You guys want coffee?” Mook and Benenson automatically both nodded, no.
Benenson shrugged his jacket, stood as tall as possible and carefully marking his words began. “Mark, you gotta get rid of those Facebook Memories! You can’t publish them anymore. They’re killing us! We’re gettin’ hurt big-time!”
Surprised, Zuckerberg said, “Huh? Really? You wanna ditch the Facebook Memories?” He paused. “What exactly do you mean, Joel, ‘we gotta ditch our Facebook Memories?’ Everybody loves ‘em!”
Benenson answered, “Well, it appears — “
The young billionaire interrupted. “Joel, even I love my Facebook Memories! Don’t you?”
Benenson, now feeling guilty, slunk his head low to his shoulder, and started again. “I know … I know, Mark. But that’s not the point. Of course, everybody loves Facebook Memories! But they gotta go! You gotta to stop publishing them. Now! Yesterday even! You’ve got to understand the Facebook Memories are making it really difficult for us to again fix the Primaries for 2020.”
That said, Zuckerberg instantly understood the gravity. Worried and now extremely attentive, wide awake even, he said, “Tell me more … lay down the whole skinny for me.”
Benenson chortled, “Every day Facebook users are getting bombarded with a daily dose of serious reminders— over and over. It’s like ‘Hillary did this,’ or ‘Hillary did that’ or ‘We did this,’ or ‘We did that.’ ‘The DNC rigged this, the DNC rigged that.’ The evidence about what we did against Sanders in 2016 is extensive and way too overwhelming. Our nefarious actions keep returning from the Memories!”
He continued, “You wouldn’t believe the shit that’s been coming through. What happened one year ago, what happened two years ago and so on! It’s endless, non-stop! And it’s damaging. The damn reason why it’s so damaging is she — and we — really did do everything everybody’s now sayin’ … (long pause) … she’s done worse that that! We all have! Our 2020 plans will get disrupted by the damn Facebook Memories!”
Pouring his coffee into a giant Facebook mug, Zuckerberg asked, “I thought the Russia thing had it solved. Heck, all I ever hear or see on the radio or tv or in the newspapers — every day, week after week, month after month — is ‘Russia-Russia-Russia’ and ‘Trump-Trump-Trump’ … how guilty they are. I mean it’s just like you, me and the others planned. They don’t seem at all like they wanna go after Hillary for anything! I mean, we’re still safe, aren’t we?”
Silence slew the room.
After the pause, Benenson elaborated, “Here’s the problem. It’s not just that the Memories are attacking Hillary. Due to their closeness with her, Biden, Booker, Beto and Harris — Warren even — they’re all getting pegged as insiders exactly like Hillary is. But these are precisely the kind of candidates we were told to make sure get to the top of the primaries in order to again deny Bernie the nomination.”
Benenson put both hands on the kitchen counter, deepened his eyes and aimed a hard look at Mark. He took a deep breath, and said. “For crying out loud, Mark, we’ve got our marching orders! If it keeps up like this, where everything we did to rig it for Hillary keeps coming back up over and over in your Facebook Memories, our candidates won’t get the votes we need ’em to get. We can’t fix all the voting machines either, only some of them. You don’t want Bernie to win the nomination, do you ?”
Waving his hands wildly in the air, he concluded, “We don’t want ‘The Party’ stuck with that commie-socialist Bernie Sanders and his ‘Love Bug’ supporters! Most of ’em aren’t even Democrats! Bernie’s not only gonna grab all of the wheat germ, tye-dye and granola vote, he’s gonna get the tavern vote and he’ll pull away with a lot of the minority votes. He’s already nailed down the Millennial votes! The horse we stand behind won’t stand a chance in a race like that! We’ll end up with a powerful and knowledgeable ‘outsider’ in the White House!”
Zuckerberg, still clinging to hope, yelled, “Bernie Sanders? I thought the media had him well-pegged as nuthin’ but a cranky ole’ white man who already lost, is lousy on women issues and can’t even get Black votes. Besides, haven’t Brock and them been painting him as too radical for America and all Bernie’s got are Bernie Bro-types behind him?”
Again, silence captured the room.
Mook finally spoke. “Mark, it really isn’t just Bernie vs. Hillary. It’s like Joel said. The others are getting dragged down too! The Facebook Memories are exposing that the horses we want to win are pegged as insiders, part of a system of candidates running on behalf of our oligarchy. And you know who I’m talkin’ ‘bout!”
Feeling braver, Mook stated, “Our problem is the electorate wants to elect an outsider, sorta like how we had it set up with Obama in ’08, when he pretended he was one. And, man, was he a great pretender! In 2016, knowing Obama didn’t give them what the voters again wanted an outsider. They didn’t want a Hillary Clinton! Had it not been for our actions she wouldn’t have gained the nomination.”
Betwixt in small pride, Mook said, “As political operatives, we fooled ‘em by controlling the system. We did everything we could. It worked in the primary, but it just couldn’t work in the general election. For all of our efforts, we couldn’t shake that dastard Wall Street Clinton image. That’s how Trump got in. Had nuthin’ to do with Russians! You know that, don’t you? But now everybody knows Trump was the wrong outsider and the damn voters still want an outsider, not an insider!”
Finally, Mook couldn’t hold back. He shouted, “Had we not done what we did for Hillary, Bernie Sanders would have become the president. Not Trump! At least with Trump, he’s a billionaire! With him, what with all his whiskers and bravado, at least oligarchy has a back-up! Problem today is our pals are making their money off of Trump’s whiskers rather than Hillary’s smile and too many of the GOPwinger oligarchs are getting a better deal. We’ve been ordered to get the presidency back for the Democrats!”
He continued, “But the real problem is, largely due to your Facebook Memories, our cover’s been blown. Bernie’s now getting all the sympathy, plus he actually advocates what the people really want. In 2020, he’ll win it all. We can’t let this happen!
“Everything that’s been bleeding out from Facebook Memories is proving, near-daily, that we rigged the 2016 primaries. For example, very few people believe today that the DNC computers were hacked by those Russians. They’re now thinking what Wikileaks released to the public really did come from the inside leak. Then there’s that other matter …” his voice trailing off into silence.
All three of ’em nodded their heads in a quiet acknowledgement.
Benenson then jumped back in, “Mark, you gotta do it! No more Facebook Memories — there’s no other option! Plain and simple, you’ve gotta stop your users from re-reading those way too vivid and way too descriptive Memories! For cryin’ out loud, they keep showing how we rigged the damn election! Mark, plain and simple, if you don’t stop publishing them Bernie’s gonna be the next president! He’ll beat anybody we put up in the primary. He’ll absolutely clobber Trump! America won’t be the same. Oligarchy will suffer!”
Zuckerberg began drawing several heavy swigs from his coffee as if he were bourbon. He looked at both of them. He started to say something, but paused. He drank heavy again. He began tapping his mug, pacing back and forth, whispering over and over, barely audible, “Facebook Memories … no more Facebook Memories … Facebook Memories —”
Suddenly the door sprang widely open. In pranced a bikini-clad Stormy Daniels. Smiling at Mook and Benenson, she joyfully screeched, “Oh, Democrats today … Hi guyz — what are you doing here?”
(to be continued ….)
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