On November 3, 2024, Ralph Walderson cast his ballot as he did all ballots, with his own name written in for the position of president. He had done this every year since ’76, when he found himself dissatisfied with both Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. His hatred for Jimmy Carter was born out of a disdain for legumes.
“I’ll be damned,” he said to his now ex-wife, “if I cast my vote for no damn peanut farmer.”
Ralph also refused to vote for Gerald Ford, since he had read somewhere that Ford had served as the House Minority Leader, and Ralph, having lived his entire life in a trailer, hated houses. And so, a long tradition of throwing away his vote was born. This year, though, marked a turning point both in Ralph’s life and the history of the country. On November 3, 2024, Ralph Walderson was the only person in the country to cast a vote.
In order to avoid a mass loss of faith in democracy, and to hide the fact that they themselves had not participated in the election, those counting the votes began to fabricate ballots. Out of a deep sense of civic virtue, every ballot contained a write-in vote for Ralph Walderson, as to preserve the actual results of the election. News quickly spread of Ralph’s startling 100% lead over his competitors via news networks covering exit polls. When other precincts heard of Ralph’s overwhelming victory elsewhere in the country, they too began to fabricate votes. Soon, every precinct in America was reporting that Ralph Walderson had won 100% of the electorate with record-breaking voter turnout, despite the fact that no one had voted.
Ralph was among the last to know that he had won the election. Just a month beforehand, the cable company had shut off his service. Ralph, ever the problem solver, had simply run a small wire under his neighbor’s mobile home, drilled through the floor, and connected to their cable. As an added bonus for his hard work, Ralph was also able to connect to the internet for the first time since the library had banned him on account of his terrible odor. Overall: a net gain for Ralph. His house of cards soon came crashing down when, three days later, the power company shut off his electricity. Because of his precarious financial situation, Ralph received most of his news through the phones on display at Circuit City. Luckily, this time the news found Ralph. Late in the evening, the day after the election, a black SUV arrived outside his trailer, and whisked him away to the airport. He boarded his private jet, and during his flight made excessive use of the air sickness bags, unaware that the plane was equipped with a bathroom.
When President-Elect Walderson arrived in Washington, he found himself in quite the position. His election had marked a never-before-seen level of both political engagement and unity in the country. A wave of national pride washed over the nation, and every citizen enthusiastically supported their new leader. No one could risk outing themselves as a non-voter, since civic virtue was all the rage, and since no one had voted against President Walderson, all political discourse became a shouting contest between pundits, seeing who could sing Ralph’s praises the loudest. Ralph Walderson became the most powerful man in American history. The only problem was that Ralph had no idea what a president actually did. Something about laws and wars, he recalled from Civics class. More than this, however, was a blur, on account of his paint fume addiction and his extensive high school football career. Having been held back six times in elementary school, he was 20 years-old by freshman year. All totaled, he spent seven years on his high school football team before dropping out on his third attempt at senior year. His patented “no hands, just top of head” style of tackling combined with his school’s lacking helmet budget led him to a record number of concussions and a lifelong battle with epilepsy. His memory issues were a far greater problem than he realized, because he had forgotten that he used to know more than he did. He had even forgotten his mother’s name. This would have saddened him, but she had died years ago, and he had forgotten that, too.
Luckily for Ralph, he would not have any real responsibilities for some time, as the current president, Jeb Bush, would still be in office for a few months. He took this time to figure out his platform. What issues did he want to bring to the forefront of the American political mind? He spent weeks mulling over various ideas, proposals, and declarations. He took diligent notes of his thought process, but was unable to read them because he was illiterate. He asked a Secret Service agent to read his notes back to him, but the agent was also unable to read the notes, on account of the fact that Ralph had written them, and Ralph was illiterate. “To Hell with speeches,” he thought. To his mind, politicians did a lot of talking and not much else. He knew that he had to show the American people that he was different. No one needed another politician. People needed a hero, and Ralph had to prove that he was the man for the job. He called an aide and order him to go find a skateboard. President Walderson spent his night searching the internet for “how to do a kickflip.” After watching 15 minutes of a tutorial video, he felt that he pretty much got the gist of it.
Before he knew it, Ralph found himself behind a lectern at the top of the White House steps. He stood there, gazing through inches of bulletproof glass at the largest crowd DC ever seen. He shifted his weight from side to side, and fussed with his ill-fitting tie. It was so long that it fell well below his waist, halfway to his knees. It was his father’s tie, “Ol’ Long Torso Walderson” they’d called him. Ralph had not inherited his father’s famously long torso. The issue was only compounded by the fact that the collar of his bowling shirt was not nearly stiff enough to support the weight of such a hefty tie. He may as well have had a noose tied around his neck. His foot brushed against the skateboard propped up behind the lectern. He knew he was ready.
“My fellow Americans, this is indeed an unprecedented occasion. I am, however, no longer an unpresidented man. You have chosen me to lead you, and that is exactly what I will do. Now, I know that you came here today to hear me speak, but I was not elected to speak. I was elected to act.” Ralph grabbed the skateboard, and took off in a dead sprint towards the stairs to his right. He tossed the skateboard onto the ground and jumped on top of it. He struggled to maintain his balance, wobbling side to side as he careened towards the steps. The crowd stood silent. Ralph approached the top of the staircase. He loaded his legs and prepared to cement his place in the annuls of history. The front wheels of his skateboard caught on a raised brick, and stopped dead in its tracks. Ralph, however, did not stop. He soared headfirst out over the stairs. There was a single moment where all the world stood still, and one man, one nobody from nowhere, cheated gravity as he had cheated democracy, and flew where men are angels, and there is no need for government. The moment ended, and Ralph hit the stairs teeth-first. He tumbled ass over end down all 365 steps. The entire incident thoroughly embarrased the nation, and only reinforced Ralph's hatred of houses.