NEWT REX
PLOT: It is 2020 and Congress has just amended the Constitution, allowing President Gingrich to run for a third term, unchallenged. President Gingrich is also his own vice president, the only man he trusts. During his momentous run as President, Gingrich has narrowed the executive cabinet down to the Departments of War, Crime Fightin’, and Jesus. The “Soylent Green” program is both a profitable and successful way to feed the poor, who all have jobs digging graves for each other. The national debt is nonexistent, because the Federal government is a subsidiary of the largest company in the history of the world—Lockheed Exx-mart. After a brief and relatively harmless exchange of nuclear arms, China is now the 51st state. Gay marriage is against the law, but fashionable men may still brunch behind closed doors. Climate change, however, was confirmed as a national scientific fact, and it is now the official policy of the United States government to encourage the creation of new beach front property. ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” is the national anthem. The book ends with President Gingrich’s marriage to his fourth wife, his former intern.

One reason for the bustle was that over large parts of the continent people preferred to make money without working at all, and since [this world] had yet to develop a music recording industry they were forced to fall back on older, more traditional forms of banditry.