“There has been a terrible mistake,” the Arranger told me the next time we met.
“Not the Living Wage, again?” said I.
“No, no. But that puts things in perspective, Stan D. Garde. Thank you. Nothing so terrible as that. It’s you we must terminate.”
I will say this was not the first time I began inexplicably to distrust the Arranger. But I will say no more at the moment.
“I thought I was in good standing.”
“Oh, you are Garde, you are, undoubtedly. And far more than good standing, I might add, for you remain indispensable to the DemReps, and, well, in so many ways to us all. However, the Party does not want you to run for President, after all. Apparently, I was given the wrong instructions. We want you to write speeches, talking points, sound bytes, inspirational memos, news releases, and other publicity texts. We’ll pay well – quite a bit more than the subsistence wage you made back at Rockview Terminal.”
They would have to.
For I sorely resented being jerked around so severely, and I vowed it would never happen again. Gone were my visions of personally ordering the bombing of disobedient third world countries. Gone were my visions of restoring the United States to its pre-Civil War bucolic days and ways. Gone were my visions of, well, being a PVI – a Presidential Vision Itself.
I was outraged, infuriated, scandalized. I swallowed and burped softly. I wondered how I could be sure the DemRep Party was about to offer me a real position for the future. There was only one way, I decided firmly – I would create a position myself and demand it for myself.
“We would like you, now,” said the Arranger, “to be The Official Terminate DemRep Sloganeer” (– the United Corporations of course having adopted the inspired school district lingo of Terminal to their purposes many years ago. Thus, corporate became terminate, and corporations became terminations – as in the United Terminations of America and the World, the illustrious ruling global body. Of course, the schools had further changed the formal titles of administrator and superintendent to terministrator and superintermident, but terminations had been content to stick with their old fashioned yet powerfully allusive term, executive).
“The Official Terminate DemRep Sloganeer” – I mulled over the newly offered title. Highly attractive – I had to admit and could not resist. Gone was my good intention to retrench, stand firm, act on my own initiative. I coughed. “I am deeply disappointed,” said I.
“I understand.”
“I accept.”
“I understand that too.”
“The Official Terminate DemRep Sloganeer. It has a nice ring,” said I.
“A grand title.”
“A great honor.”
“One which we are more than glad to bestow. OTS, for short. Very good.” He clapped me on the back so powerfully it almost sent me toppling. But not quite. “I look forward to hearing your very first OTS, tomorrow, Stan D. Garde.”
“You can count on it, Sire. Excuse me, of course, I mean, Sir.” And not the French word from which Sir is derived, meaning Father, or Master.
“Outstanding, Garde. See you then.”
“Yes, Sir,” said I. “On the morrow.”
A slogan instantly popped into my mind: Never stab a man in the back who may as easily be stabbed in the chest.
On second thought, I decided to put that one away for a later day.
What would I come up with? A thousand and one possibilities seemed to flash instantly through my mind.
But first and foremost, that is, after “Conquer the World, Now,” came a blazing, blinking, short and sweet, concise and neat slogan that I knew would be the one to get the whole thing going – We Promise to Do Less with More.
And its various grammarizations —
Doing Less With More.
Have More, Do Less.
More, Less. More, Less. More, Less.
And so forth.
Numerous understandings and examples of this inspiring slogan seemed so evident that I would scarcely need spell them out for the Arranger and any others tomorrow. The point, the barb, the hook was in the catchiness, the catchingness, the absolute grab you by the ganglia and not let you go nature of the trope — the twist and turn. Some call it spin.
All in all, it may seem quite a tumble to go from being candidate for the next great President of the United States to being the Official Terminate DemRep Sloganeer.
However, anyone who thinks about it for any length of time whatsoever cannot help but see that the distance between the President and Official Sloganeer is so slight as to escape notice.
After all, the President “catapults the propaganda” in the words of one of the greatest all time DemRep Presidents, George W. Bush, and in this way one “builds a bridge to the future” in the words of his colleague in arms, that other former great DemRep President, Bill Clinton.
And the Sloganeer of course tropes into shape that which is to be catapulted.
What a great future we catapult, indeed.
A Practical Policy 