If this Didn’t Happen in America the Headline Would Be: Disputed Vote Plunges Former British Colony into Attempted Coup, Bloodshed
Washington, DC, USA — Encouraged by the vitriol of its strongman autocrat, Donald Trump, the capital city of the United States was besieged by thousands of rioters who attempted to stop the national assembly from counting ballots from the disputed recent election. Scores of Trump loyalists smashed the windows of the legislative palace and stormed parliament, forcing lawmakers to suspend the session and flee to their offices. Gunfire erupted in the halls of the national assembly, killing at least one person, when the mob forced their way into the upper house. Pro-government and opposition lawmakers in the lower house hid under chairs and donned gas masks as overwhelmed armed federal police barricaded the entry with furniture.
Terrorists who support the deposed president brought with them pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails. Such violence has become common around political events in the perpetually crisis-stricken former British colony. Recently racial tensions flared when government forces violently suppressed peaceful civil rights protests in the wake of the extra-judicial killings of Black civilians by security forces. Tonight the only figures in downtown Washington, the capital, which is usually choked with traffic, are helmeted soldiers crouching behind barricades.
The current spate of post-election violence began as supporters of the nationalist leader unleashed their frustrations about the election, which was held in November. Despite assurances that the election was free and fair from observers dispatched by the Carter Center to the fragile state, the authoritarian president has peddled widely debunked conspiracy theories ginned up in the deepest recesses of the dark web. High-ranking members of the ruling party have parroted these false claims. Recently, audio tape from a telephone call which captured the president attempting to conspire with cronies to illegally manufacture tens of thousands of votes surfaced, confirming the worst fears of the opposition party.
One of the most economically strong nations in North America with a formerly thriving tourism industry, the country’s fragile healthcare system has been broken by its inability to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, which rages unchecked throughout the country as national leaders either deny the existence of the outbreak or promote quack therapies such as drinking disinfectant. Sick and dying patients languish on gurneys in hospital hallways as makeshift morgues overflow with the dead. As the only developed nation without any national healthcare, over 360,000 of its citizens have died in the past ten months during its unchecked plague, resulting in unprecedented levels of unemployment and massive deficit spending.
The president has attempted to suppress a free press, coerced foreign governments into digging up dirt on his political opponents, attacked the judiciary, and been accused of dozens of instances of sexual assault. Unable to form a unity government, the failed state has descended into tribal bloodletting, but UN Peacekeepers are nowhere to be found.
