◆The Barbaric Yawp Project

(“What, Me Worry?” meets “What, You Serious?”) Hey America! It’s me, Alfred E. Neuman— your gap-toothed prophet of cheerful disaster, your freckled face of permanent denial, your patron saint of “Relax, everything’s already broken!” And today I climb up on the rusted hot-dog cart of history to sound my yawp over Trumpian America. “Whaaaat, me worry? Nah—YOU worry.” Because boy, oh boy, do you folks have your suspenders in a twist. Everybody’s mad at everybody, everybody’s yelling about fake this and rigged that, and half the country looks like they swallowed a live ferret of outrage. Now listen— I’ve made a whole career out of being blissfully clueless, but even I can see you’ve wandered into a Three-Ring Circus of National Neurosis. Ring One: The Big, Red, Shouting Guy who tells you he alone can save you from the world ending— which is funny, because it’s usually guys yelling on street corners who say that stuff. Ring Two: The crowd chanting his name like it’s a new breakfast cereal. Crunchy! Sugary! May cause democratic erosion! Ring Three: Everyone else watching this and muttering, “Is this a parody? Are we in MAD Magazine now?” And I, Alfred E. Neuman, America’s idiot laureate, stand in the middle of it all grinning like a raccoon that found a congressional dumpster. And here is my yawp— my goofy, giddy, gap-toothed truth-bomb: “You can’t run a country on punchlines and panic! Not even I would try that— and my entire worldview is printed on cheap paper stock!” Look, America: I’ve always believed that if things get too serious, something’s seriously wrong. But when the joke becomes the system, and the system becomes the punchline, and nobody remembers who’s supposed to laugh— well, even I start to sweat a little. So I say unto you: “Wake up before the satire wakes up for you!” “Don’t elect your emotions!” “Don’t let the loudest guy in the tent convince you he’s the ringmaster!” And above all: “Don’t let fear turn you into the punchline of your own democracy.” And with that— with my ears flapping in the wind of national nonsense, my freckles glowing with secondhand embarrassment, and my grin stretching into the unknown— I sound my barbaric yawp: “WHAT… ME WORRY? NO. BUT MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST A LITTLE.” And then, America, I hand you back your country— because even I am not reckless enough to keep it.