Once upon a press cycle, in the enchanted swamplands of constitutional gray zones, stood a majestic, over-air-conditioned spire known as the Tower of Executive Orders. It loomed above the Kingdom of the United States of Amnesia like a caffeine-fueled intern—impressive in posture, questionable in judgment, and utterly convinced it was the most important part of the story.
The Tower was home to the most powerful figure in all the land: the President, known variously as Commander-in-Chief, Chief Executive, Most Photographed Human, and sometimes simply, “Sir.” The President was not a king, except on Tuesdays, in emergencies, or whenever Congress went on recess. Which, to be fair, was most of the time.
The Tower itself was built atop a sacred relic called Article II, a magical scroll that granted the President vague powers and even vaguer accountability. It had been written centuries ago by men in powdered wigs who feared tyranny but also really liked having a leader to blame things on.
Each President who came to power inherited a set of enchanted pens capable of issuing Executive Orders—binding decrees that bypassed the laborious process of democracy in favor of speed, spectacle, and Saturday deadlines. With the stroke of a pen, a President could expand surveillance, deploy troops, cancel lunch programs, or declare that Thursday was now National Hot Dog Freedom Day.
The catch, of course, was that every President inherited not just the pens, but the ink-stained fingerprints of those who came before. Which meant that every action had precedent, and every precedent had a loophole, and every loophole had a press secretary trying to spin it in real time.
The prior occupant of the Tower, Joseph of Delaware, also known as Uncle Joe, had once campaigned as a healer, a unifier, and a man who knew where the coffee filters were stored. With a smile as weary as the Constitution and a vocabulary that occasionally wandered into 1983, Joe promised to restore decency, order, and a working printer to the West Wing.
And to be fair, he tried.
He rejoined climate pacts. He forgave some loans (though only the kind approved by oracles with FICO scores above 700). He wore aviators in press photos as if they were a policy. But Joe was not just a man—he was a caretaker President in a nation that no longer wanted caretaking. The people wanted fireworks, not footnotes. And Joe, unfortunately, preferred legislation to livestreams.
Still, he soldiered on, flanked by an army of Cabinet secretaries, each representing a piece of the great governmental mosaic—departments created to serve the people, but now mostly functioning as bureaucratic escape rooms.
First among them was the Department of Defense, a hulking, iron-clad fortress shaped like a five-sided credit card. Its Secretary spoke only in acronyms and deployed metaphorical and literal drones to address both foreign threats and domestic discontent. The Pentagon, as it was known, had a budget so large that if you stared at it too long, you could hear your child’s school cafeteria go bankrupt.
Then came the Department of Homeland Security, also known as the Ministry of Eternal Vigilance. It was created after the Kingdom’s Great Panic and tasked with keeping threats at bay—though it never quite decided whether those threats were abroad, online, or already in Congress. DHS had a long memory for brown people at borders but a short one for white men carrying zip ties into federal buildings.
The Department of Justice lived in a crumbling castle of credibility. Once led by towering figures of jurisprudence, it now changed tone depending on who wore the crown. Under one ruler, it investigated insurrection. Under another, it prosecuted journalists. Most recently, it resembled a passive-aggressive uncle at Thanksgiving: technically neutral, but always quietly judging someone’s plate.
Its current Grand Wizard, the Attorney General, was a man of legal pedigree and monk-like patience, which made him beloved by law professors and loathed by TikTok activists. When asked about holding former rulers accountable for high crimes, he replied, “The law takes time.” When asked if that time would run out before democracy did, he adjusted his glasses and muttered something about process.
Elsewhere, in a greenhouse with flickering fluorescent lights, lived the Environmental Protection Agency, better known as the E.P.A., or “That Place Republicans Sue Every Other Tuesday.” It was tasked with protecting the air, the water, and the concept of a future. However, its authority was constantly undermined by lawsuits, deregulation, and the discovery that half of its advisory board was sponsored by Big Oil.
At the Department of Education, the Secretary spent most days dodging ideological dodgeballs. One party wanted to erase history; the other wanted to fund it through PowerPoint presentations on systemic racism. Meanwhile, public schools crumbled, teachers bought supplies with their salaries, and the phrase “book ban” returned from the dead like an illiterate zombie.
Over in Health and Human Services, a department supposedly designed to keep people alive, leaders played an endless game of bureaucratic Jenga: insurance companies pulled out blocks of care, pharmaceutical giants added gold-plated rules, and the rest of the tower teetered on the shoulders of overworked nurses and chronically underpaid support staff. Mental health? Optional. Reproductive rights? Location dependent. Medical bankruptcy? Still our most effective health savings plan.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development handled housing insecurity with all the urgency of a pigeon navigating a corn maze. Affordable housing projects were proposed, delayed, and underfunded, usually in that order. Tent cities spread across major cities while luxury condos offered tax breaks to ghosts. The Secretary of HUD gave a speech about equity while developers filed eviction notices during her closing remarks.
Even the Department of Transportation became a gladiatorial arena, where the nation’s crumbling bridges and failing trains were pitted against selfies of the Secretary riding a bike in dress shoes. “Infrastructure is destiny,” he declared, dodging potholes in rhetoric and literal D.C. traffic. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration outsourced everything but the in-flight snacks.
In the dark vaults of the Department of the Treasury, decisions were made that impacted every citizen’s life but were explained using charts no one could read and terms like “quantitative easing” or “soft landing.” The Secretary, a seasoned oracle fluent in economic paradox, appeared on CNBC like a haunted banker. Her job was to convince the public that the national debt was both catastrophic and entirely manageable, depending on who was in office.
But perhaps the most curious ministry of all was the Department of Executive Privilege, a hidden wing of the Tower that expanded and contracted depending on scandal. This department had no nameplate, no mailing address, and no legal clarity. It issued denials, delayed subpoenas, and referred all questions to the Office of Legal Counsel, which lived in a labyrinth of footnotes and plausible deniability.
Whenever a question was asked—“Did the President know?” “Is this legal?” “Can we release the visitor logs?”—the Department of Executive Privilege replied with its national motto: “That is currently under review.”
And so the Tower of Executive Orders thrived—not through clarity, but through convolution. Every department had a mission. Every mission had a loophole. Every loophole had a press release. And the President, perched atop the highest balcony, looked down at the kingdom and tried to lead while holding together a rickety scaffolding built from nostalgia, inertia, and the terrifying knowledge that a single tweet could derail it all.
Of course, no story of executive power would be complete without mentioning the ghosts who haunted the Tower—past Presidents who lingered in the national consciousness like unpaid bar tabs.
There was Donald the First Unchecked, who discovered that if you broke enough norms quickly enough, the laws could not catch you in time. He had left the Tower physically but returned frequently in spirit — and court filings – and then by reelection. His greatest magical trick was convincing millions that he alone could fix a country he had spent four years breaking like a piñata at a toddler riot.
His successor, Joe, spent much of his term trying to clean up the rubble with a broom made of bipartisan hopes and executive orders written in cursive. He was blamed for everything, thanked for nothing, and asked regularly why he could not fix Congress, the Court, the weather, or his own poll numbers with the wave of a hand.
And so the Executive Branch marched on.
Each morning began with a national security briefing, an angry op-ed, and at least one question about whether the Vice President still existed.
Each afternoon brought a new scandal, a revised budget, and a bold announcement that would be quietly reversed in court by sundown.
Each evening, the President returned to the Residence, looked out over the Potomac, and wondered whether anything he signed would outlive his presidency—or whether it would be erased by the next ruler, whose campaign slogan was already trending on Truth Social.
And the people?
They watched from their couches, their cubicles, their kitchen tables littered with unopened student loan bills and expired COVID tests. They argued about whether the President was too old or too compromised or too weak or too powerful. They mocked the Cabinet. They quoted the memes. They ignored the fine print. And then they forgot.
They forgot that the President had no power to pass a law. That the agencies were run by political appointees selected for loyalty, not literacy. That every order signed could be unsigned, re-signed, or declared illegal by courts stacked like partisan pancakes.
They forgot that real change takes more than signatures. It takes memory. And effort. And follow-up.
But do not worry.
The Tower still stands.
The orders still pile up.
The agencies still function—mostly.
The President still smiles, waves, and signs.
So grab your flag, refresh your feed, and prepare your outrage.
Because in the United States of Amnesia, every day is a new decree.
Every speech is a bedtime story.
And every President is temporary.
But the illusion of power?
That is forever.
