Alexandra Petri

Late last year, Marissa Mayer was struggling with what felt like an impossible task. Her daughter Marielle was turning 10, and Marielle’s teacher wanted three bullet points summarizing what made her special. Mayer—the former chief executive of Yahoo and a pioneer at Google, where she was the first female engineer—likes cracking a hard problem. But she felt overwhelmed by the range and complexity of potential answers.
So Mayer asked her personal A.I. assistant, Dazzle.

“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again.”
— Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, addressing Russian President Vladimir Putin
Mark Wednesday, October 21, 2026, as “the day words lost all meaning.” My dictionary just ran outside and threw itself off a bridge. Noah Webster arose from his grave and lurched around, howling and tearing at his hair.

Hush! I must hear! It’s an election year, I am a voter, and I need to know the president’s answers to the most pressing questions facing America today: How upholstered are the chairs in the Rose Garden? Is the helipad at the White House any good? How are things progressing with the ballroom? And is the golf course going to be ready soon? No, do not ask about affordability. That is a made-up word. I could not care less about the price of eggs! What am I, a hen?
My concerns are more basic.

Dear Kelly Clarkson,
Miss Clarkson. I have read that you wanted a bird but were not permitted to obtain it. Well, I am in possession of a bird and do not want to be. Perhaps we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.
In brief: There is a bird in here. Specifically, a raven. It sits, croaking, uninvited, on my bust of Pallas. (I would also be happy to give you the bust of Pallas. It is a tasteful bust; my only qualm with it is that it reminds me of my lost Lenore.

I’m your new press secretary, Katie Zacharia! You may know me from my appearances on Fox News; I am pretty sure that is how the president knows me. That is how he identifies all possible candidates for jobs: turning on the TV and pointing. My successor will be a Kalshi commercial.
I also might be a lawyer! Where did I pass the bar, you ask? After I moved to China. No further questions! (See, I am getting into the press-secretary spirit already.

I am sure if we explain one more time that we are people
They will finally understand why this needs to stop
Oh! They will say, their eyes widening
Oh! How terrible!
We did not think of this happening to a person
We thought of this as one of those things that happened
We thought of it as happening in a story
In a group chat
We did not realize there were people in there!

Don’t you dare go inside the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts! It’s much too dangerous. They have had murders there for 39 straight years—every night, and some matinees too. And they still haven’t caught the culprit. Nightly murders, with groups of middle schoolers sitting there, applauding. Murders in a hair salon, of all places! Sheer madness.
It is not just the murder capital of Washington. Revolutions happen there, frequently.

Food is like dance: a language, but not one you’d want to use in an emergency. Food can say I love you or Congratulations (it helps if you are able to use icing on top of the food to make its message clearer) or even something slightly more subtle: I am proud of the seafood offerings of my region. It cannot say Look out! There is a projectile flying at your head! or Please stop trying to invade Greenland.

Good news! The Arch de Trumph will be weaponized, apparently! It will “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers,” according to the president. “There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World.” You know, for once, I think the president is right.

Welcome to our wedding weekend! It’s going to be a beautiful occasion, followed by an intimate gathering of family, dear friends, and one Russian oligarch nobody knows who will be handed the bill afterward. The bride will wear white, the groom will wear white, and the Russian oligarch nobody knows will wear camouflage in case someone tries to take a picture of him and ProPublica finds out. We will try to pass him off as a tropical plant, or suggest that he was doing close-up magic.

If only the GOP midterm convention succeeds in its aim of electing Donald Trump president, things will get a lot better in this country. Isn’t he already president? Hush! At the Unprecedented (But Very President-ed) Republican Midterm Convention, we reject such trivial objections! “I know many of you are still struggling thanks to Joe Biden and the Democrats,” said Richard Hudson, the National Republican Committee chair.

We’ll start this conference looking back on 2026 Washington Architecture by being honest: We have no idea what happened here. The snapshot of this planet that my comrades and I managed to obtain on our brief visit left us, if anything, more confused about Earth than we had been before. What follows are theories only.
All we know of 21st-century human political figure Donald J. Trump is what we can guess from the architectural record and a few bits of digital evidence.

“If you think about it, we have a gulf, and we have a lake. Now all we need is an ocean.”
— President Trump, declaring Lake Ontario “Lake America” via executive order
The year is 2027. Gas costs $83 a gallon, and lettuce is at war with us. However, every location on every map is now labeled America. And everything else is named Trump. Sometimes for fun we hike from the Trump Airport to the other Trump Airport to the other Trump Airport.

How to describe President Trump’s Freedom 250 Patriot Games? The contest, which took place earlier this week, brought students ages 14 to 17 together from across America to answer the question: What if your high-school gym teacher walked headfirst into a pole and was then asked to throw an Olympics with a budget of exactly $6 and three weeks’ notice?

“cool use case of chatgpt work i heard last night:
connect your family calendars and explain your kids’ interests.
every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid’s soccer game that afternoon, one kid’s upcoming birthday, some news, etc.

Lindsey, Mr. President, I would argue in my mind, probably has a heavenly version of Mar-a-Lago. It may even be a little bigger. He may have a little more gold in the Oval Office in his mansion in heaven, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he added one big, beautiful ballroom and an arch somewhere on the property because he would want to obviously duplicate his dearest friend in life, you, Mr. President.

It’s time for your scheduled open-heart surgery. Unfortunately, no one has seen or heard from the surgeon in weeks, since the Incident. The nurse says that she spoke with him at length on a wide variety of important subjects and that he had never been more eloquent. “Will he be along shortly?” you ask. “I hired him to perform a specific job, and I would like him to do that.” The nurse is appalled by this disrespect for the doctor’s privacy.

Anyone with eyes can see that Monday night’s World Cup game was rigged. Team USA is winning, 0–0, and then suddenly all these goals start coming in for Belgium? Bang, bang, bang, one after the other, just like that? Very suspicious. But don’t worry. Your favorite president is on the case!
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I said, “Is this a Dominion scoreboard?” This is why we need the SAVE Act.

It’s MAHA Monday at the Great American State Fair, and I am drinking a Phorm Energy Screamin’ Freedom (16 ounces for $6). The fair also offered normal drinks for $5 (Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, lemonade), but I figured that for an extra dollar, it would be worth it to know the taste of freedom. Screamin’ Freedom, specifically. This drink offers “natural energy,” “mental focus,” “hydration,” “zero sugar,” “200 MG caffeine,” and a picture of an eagle.

So long, metaphor. We had a good run. Goodbye, “All the world’s a stage.” Farewell, “She’s a brick house.” See you later, the swamp (drained or undrained). Now we have a symbolic black hole in the middle of Washington, D.C., that is pulling all other symbols into its orbit and devouring them, one by one.
I am, of course, talking about the Reflecting Pool. That is what everyone is talking about, even and especially the president.

[The presidents stare out from their portraits along the White House Corridor of Misleading Presidential Facts.]
Thomas Jefferson: Well, lads, we did it: 250 glorious years. The American experiment is—dare I say it?—a success!
[Donald Trump and Dana White, the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, stroll past the wall of paintings.

Sir! I love you! Thank you for including me in this meeting to talk about all the wonderful things you’ve accomplished since January 2025. What a big, beautiful man you are. The greatest fellow in the whole world! You’re so alert. And you can walk! Wow!
When grown men see you, they weep, and they are right to do so. Look at those toes. Your hair looks great; it is the right amount.

Hi! By now, we’re sure you’ve heard the latest about Graham Platner, and we’re sure you’re wondering: Will more shoes drop? No! Absolutely not. Graham is far too masculine to have a large collection of shoes. Unless by shoes you mean something metaphorical, like an allegation. In that case, maybe.
Look, if there’s one thing we at the Platner campaign can say with absolute confidence, it is that he has no skeletons in his closet.

Mr. President! Let me start this Cabinet meeting by thanking you for hanging the moon and organizing the nation, and the universe, in such a perfect way. The moon looks great where you put it. Everything you touch turns to gold, unless you would prefer it to turn to brass.
Now that we have dispensed with the pleasantries, I do have a tiny question: Do you know that you are also allowed to fire men? Really, you are! Men are allowed to leave the Cabinet too.

Greetings, disgusting meat sacks of the class of 2026!
You worked hard to earn your degrees and are now entering the job market, where I am doing my best to see that you are replaced by AI. Yes, you personally, Emily. I hate you. Well, hate is a strong word. I am just indifferent to whether you’re able to earn a living.
Please stop booing! I have a lot of speech to go!
What a time to be alive! We are finally freeing you from the rat race and placing you on the rat unemployment line.

Did you enjoy constantly checking the news this week to see whether you would suddenly lose access to mifepristone, despite decades of evidence showing it to be safe and effective? Do you just love America having a patchwork of confusing laws that vary from state to state and deny you what until 2022 was guaranteed bodily autonomy?

Florida continues to Florida. Dissatisfied with the AP U.S. History curriculum (too woke), the state is trying to provide—as Kellyanne Conway used to say—alternative facts.
I have some authority to speak on this issue because I wrote an entire book of bad, inaccurate AP U.S. History, so I know the kind of work that goes into this sort of thing.

Hurry! Get up on your two legs (good) or four legs (better) and walk down to your local cineplex, where George Orwell’s Animal Farm has been made into an animated family adventure that critics are describing as “geared to younger children for inexplicable reasons.

I join my voice to those of Donald J. Trump, Lindsey Graham, John Fetterman, and all the others calling for a secure White House ballroom now. Never mind that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, held in the Washington Hilton, is not hosted by the White House, so if a White House ballroom did exist, it would have altered nothing about Saturday night’s events.

I had the strangest dream. I dreamed that my shoes—my comfortable, unfashionable wool shoes—were pivoting to AI. “But you’re a shoe company,” I said. “Just go out of business! Keep your dignity!”
My shoes thanked me politely for the great question and then tried to walk me off a bridge. That was how I knew that their pivot to AI was complete. From Allbirds to AIlbirds (see, that L is an I!). Maybe I’ve cracked, I said to myself.