WASHINGTON, D.C.— Decades of conservative policy abruptly snapped into focus Monday after President Donald Trump was asked about universal pre-K and accidentally explained the philosophical foundation of the entire Republican Party.
“Universal? For everybody?” Trump asked, visibly confused by the premise. “You can’t do everybody. There’s too many people, and I like the way it is. You take care of the winners and ignore the losers. Losers don’t get pre-K. Frankly, we don’t need more winners. We need less losers. A whole lot less. A lot of these problems would be much easier.”
Across the country, millions of Americans reportedly froze in place.
“Ohhh,” said Cincinnati resident Mark Rollins, slowly lowering his coffee as nearly forty years of conservative politics suddenly became comprehensible. “Holy shit. That explains everything.”
Within minutes, GOP lawmakers began openly embracing what strategists are calling the Too Many Losers Doctrine, or simply TML, abandoning any tortured attempt to explain Republican policy.
“It’s just so liberating,” said Senator Ted Cruz, wiping away tears. “You have no idea how hard it is to explain why taking healthcare away from 20 million losers is actually good for America. Now, I can just say ‘TML.’”
Cruz took a deep breath and smiled. “But yeah. A whole lot of people are going to die.”
“Everyone asks why the richest country can’t afford the things most other nations figured out decades ago,” explained Heritage Foundation fellow Robert Keene. “The mistake is assuming that we’re actually trying to. The free market will sort things out—It sorts things out.”
Asked what exactly was being sorted, Keene cleared his throat. “The people. Specifically, the number of them.”
TML has also changed Americans’ understanding of Trump’s signature slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
“‘Great’ was when there were fewer people,” explained conservative commentator Sean Hannity. “In 1950, the United States population was roughly half what it is today. You could park anywhere. Let’s get back to that.”
Top White House officials are also using the Too Many Losers Doctrine to frame the current state of the economy.
“It’s not inflation; it’s demand outpacing supply, and America is naturally embracing the Disney model,” said Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. “I mean, just look at Disneyland. Higher prices mean fewer losers, and suddenly everything is better. Shorter lines. More churros. Nobody from Honduras. I mean, have you been recently? Of course you haven’t. And that’s kind of the whole point.”
For the 45% of parents with children who go into debt to pay for a Disney vacation, the comment was a revelation.
“CALL ME CRAZY,” yelled Matthew Cook, a three-time Trump voter from Texas and next-door neighbor to a roaring data center, “BUT I’M STARTING TO THINK I’M A LOSER.”
“You’re all future winners. You’re just not winning yet,” said Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, representing the poorest state in the nation, when asked how one becomes a winner in America.
“So we’re currently losers?” asked one horrified resident.
“No, you’re fans,” Wicker said. “Like when our… team wins, you know, in football, the…” He snapped his fingers, searching for the name. “Shoot. Whatever. The point is, when your local football team wins, you don’t actually win. But you sure helped them win by cheering them on.”
Wicker paused.
“What the hell is our team called?”
An aide whispered in his ear that Mississippi does not have an NFL team.
Wicker frowned. “We’re that poor? Goddamn. What a bunch of losers.”
“Too many people think the American Dream is supposed to be a standard. I mean, in this economy?” explained podcaster and Lacoste polo shirt that wished he were a real boy, Tucker Carlson. “The beauty of TML is that everyone can believe they, too, can someday be a winner for zero dollars. You just gotta, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, keep doing what the winning class says, and maybe some of their winning will trickle down onto you.”
He shrugged. “And if it doesn’t work out for most people? Fuck ’em. They were losers. But not you, listener. You’re a winner, and winners use daily NutMaxxx supplements to combat Low-T.”
Many Republican voters are beginning to realize that past conservative pushes may have been targeting them.
“Wait a minute,” said Florida Republican Rick Harmon. “When COVID started, they said we couldn’t shut businesses down just to stop some silly cough…”
He paused, his jaw dropping in revelation. “They convinced us masks were pointless. Then they kept telling us not to trust the vaccine!”
Harmon gasped and turned to his wife. “It wasn’t about herd immunity at all. They were trying to thin the herd!”
His eyes slowly narrowed. “Oh, those motherfuckers.”
Not sure if I was crying laughing at this or just full-on crying. Probably a mix of both.