A Better and Brighter ’28 Shortlist

Any day now, the first 2028 presidential contender will enter the ring. From your local corner cracksmoker to the ambassador to Burkina Faso, many men and women are rubbing-handisly contemplating the biggest bid in the world.

Who are the top aspirants, according to legacy media? A bunch of snores.

Vice President Vance? ERRRRRR. Too insecure and, more importantly, too inclined to drop cringey clangers. Secretary of State Marco Rubio? Maybe if he starts picking up the tab for my VW’s diesel tank. Lonestar senator Ted Cruz? Now, now. No need to guzzle that entire Drano bottle.

Let’s try the other side of the aisle. California Governor Gavin Newsom? Way, way too unctuous. Also, he resembles a wax museum escapee. Socialist shrill Rep. A.O.C.? The last thing this country needs is the new season of “The Bachelorette” to film on location from the Oval Office. Georgia senator John Ossoff? His dark hair sits just so; his skin is perfectly even—is that makeup he’s wearing? Never mind. We’re looking at his sleeves now, which are carefully rolled up and emphasize biceps that are, well, quite noticeably larger than they were when Georgia voters sent him to Congress in 2021.

Pardon the plagiarism. That kind of lusty longtongue is courtesy of The Atlantic’s blue-pom-pomer Elaine Godfrey. (Ossoff’s a cuffed man, Elaine!)

These ho-hum hustingers excite nobody but loyal Politico subscribers. The two most relatable—Vance and Ocasio-Cortez—look like America in 2026, but are too cautious, too slavish, too managed, too flat-toned, or too estúpida.

Worse, the debate stages are going to be more crowded than a Starbucks on the release day for an exclusive Labubu/Pokémon/Squishy Bun crossover cup. Everyone, from the snowhaired congresscodger to the shriekiest purple-haired liberal legislator to the treasurer of Dubuque, will declare their intention for the brass ring.

In a country blessed with 23 deodorant choices, don’t we deserve to pick from a gabble of candidates who all, from a man, woman, and whatever gender Steve Cohen identifies as, stink?

Now, patient reader, allow me to play at Miss Cleo with your thoughts. Yes, we’re two years away from the election. Nobody has openly declared powerlust yet. Heck, most hopefuls haven’t even hired the intern to ghostwrite their fanciful memoirs yet. Why conjecture already?

Because the hour is late. In August alone, America lost three native national treasures: Dolly Parton, Wendell Berry, and Tim Curry. (The latter a Brit to be sure, but an honorary Yankee if only for “Home Alone 2.”) Haste is of the essence. If we don’t snag a consensus prez quick, we could lose untold numbers of prez potentials preferable to *checks CNN headlines* Amy Klobuchar? Gaaaagggg. Plus, Dick Van Dyke isn’t getting any younger!

Without further ado and stalling to fill column inches, here you go, America. A list of presidential contenders who won’t draw your tears and melt your brain cells.

First up, Keanu Reeves. The beloved actor has inhabited every American disposition, from kung-fu conspiracist to chill fratbro to gun-toting assassin to bus driver to antihero hedgehog with rocket rollerblades to wooish necromancer. He’d be comfortable talking up voters in a New Hampshire dojo and a black Pentecostal church in Charleston. He might even save us from A.I. extinction. Reeves may not be a natural-born U.S. citizen, but maybe we can trade Ilhan Omar to Canada in exchange for making the Chosen One constitutionally eligible.

Next, Ron Swanson. No, not his legal alter ego, Nick Offerman, who is as frenetically prog as Nancy Pelosi. The country needs Swanson at the helm, shirking public duties like tax collection and mailing everyone glazed ribs smoked on the South Lawn. (A chicken in every pot!) If Offerman refuses to play the part, Congress can invoke impressment and force him into power. Like Swanson’s hero Thomas Jefferson said, sometimes public preservation requires stretching the law.

Next, since we need a woman somewhere in here or the A.C.L.U. will file suit, let’s go with Stevie Nicks. She doesn’t have to be commanderess-in-chief. Every single military conflict U.S. forces are currently engaged in can be solved with one carefully sung diddy. Have Nicks serenade Mojtaba Khamenei with “Dreams,” and watch the Strait of Hormuz clear faster than a boys’ room after stink bomb goes off. As for our strained relationship with Europe, one rendition of “Everywhere” should soothe any bruised feelings.

Just so I don’t tread into token territory, another potential presidentess: Judge Judy. The TV magistrate just retired, hence she’s got time on her gavel-swinging hands. Somebody needs to whip a town of slimy vipers into shape, and Judy suffers no fools. Plus, her motto “don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining” is the best American saying since “we hold these truths to be self-evident.”

Time to sandwich the two tooties between fellas. Second to last is Shane Gillis, the everyman comedian. Like Trump, Gillis survived a leftist cancelation attempt: not a bullet, but a firing. And like our death-dodging President, Gillis had the last laugh. He wrote and acted in the funniest S.N.L. skit in three decades. He’s hocking brewskies with Post Malone and Peyton Manning. Chelsea Harridan Handler thinks he’s a crypto Atomwaffen member. And he’s the vocalized consciousness for millions of young American males who watch helplessly with cynical detachment as history sweeps away the postindustrial heartland. If Vladimir Putin threatens to deploy an RS-28 Sarmat at Fort Wainwright, President Gillis can cut the tension with a well-timed cunnilingus crack, calming nerves, avoiding World War III, and saving the free world.

Lastly, we have the most winningest football coach in N.F.L. history, Bill Belichick. The 8-time Super Bowl champion has as many strategic chops as Napoleon. Football is the last vestige of common culture in America. Belichick is the ne plus ultra commander of our one remaining collective ritual. Even in his downside years, with a demotion to Chapel Hill, Bill epitomizes late-century Boomerism: dumping his wrinkled wife for a nubile lass half his age, father to a failson, hamstrings plumped with decades of a buttered, M.S.G.-laden diet. One more accolade: Belichick’s is persona non grata to his pigskin peers. Smug, crafty, and resentful, have the coach call Uncle Sam’s offense and watch the country win serial championships, starting in Iran, extending to Russia, then, after an unblemished season, losing to China after Xi Tyree catches one of our Tomahawks off his dǒulì.

Take heart, dour countrymen! Don’t settle for the tasteless tripe served from Washington under a comfortable byline. Plastic nose-polishers need not be the future of our republic. We can break out of our rut, refuse to settle for the usual pressed suits who inveigled their way from county executive to state legislature to governor to congressman to sweating gladhander at the Wisconsin state fair.

Imagine: a tabloid nation headed by a beloved celebrity with no political experience. What could go wrong?