‘I Think I’m Gonna Hate It Here’ — Randy Rainbow introduces the clown-car cabinet of MAGADU

Empires of Tedium

天下大亂 形勢大好

 

On Halloween 2024, we joined Randy Rainbow, one of America’s most artful political satirists, to mark the crescendo of the 2024 presidential election in the United States. Taking as his theme Xanadu, Olivia Newton-John’s 1980 hit song, Randy warned that MAGADU — a country ruled over by MAGA, Make-America-Great-Again Republicans — would be ‘a place where nobody wants to go’.

China Heritage first featured Randy Rainbow’s work with Gurl, You’re a Karen, a parody based on the song Dentist sung by Steve Martin in the horror-comedy musical film Little Shop of Horrors. Included in Who Goes Nazi Now? — an appendix to the series Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium published in April 2022 — Gurl, You’re a Karen took aim at Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) and Lauren Boebert, two radical gun-totin’ right wingers in the US Congress.

In the lead up to Christmas 2024 as president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration took shape, Randy Rainbow released I Think I’m Gonna Hate It Here, a parody of I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here, a song in the 1977 Broadway musical Annie. In that show, Grace Farrell, the assistant to the billionaire Oliver Warbucks, invites Annie, an orphan, to spend Christmas at her employer’s mansion. Enthusiastically welcomed by the staff at the mansion, Annie responds to the song outlining all of the luxuries that she will be enjoying with the refrain ‘I think I’m gonna like it here’.

In frumpy drag and sporting a wig that pays homage to Annie’s signature bright red curls, Randy Rainbow sings ‘I Think I’m Gonna Hate It Here’, a chilling break down of billionaire Donald Trump’s staff — his ‘clown car’ of cabinet picks:

Zeldin will keep your water clear. — A climate denier heading the EPA, cool!
Health Secretary’s RFK. — The brain worm anti-vaxxer? We’ll all be dead by March.
Meet shady Vance, the new Mike Pence, but
What about our National Intelligence?
Tulsi will handle Vladimir. — Oh, good, a Russian asset! Was Ethel Rosenberg not available?
This FOX news host [Pete Hegseth] will run Defense. — I hear he’s a misogynistic drunk, but
just look at that smile!

(See if we can get Lil Wayne for attorney general.)

Rubio — thirsty ho — scored himself a seat.
Homeland threats? — Hide your pets, Kristi Noem’s packin’ heat.

… All politics aside, these hacks ain’t qualified. I know I’m gonna hate it here.

For FBI, we’ll have Patel. — The QAnon conspiracy theorist? …
Vivek and Musk will make life hell.
Roseanne for Press Secretary? … Hulk Hogan, I think. …
I hear Hannibal Lecter’s the new Secretary of Education.

All hope and joy now doom and gloom.
All checks and guardrails disappear.
They’re all just sycophants — he only hires sycophants.
No sane adults left in the room.

The MyPillow Guy … CIA director? — Jeepers! …

Lift your chin, don’t give in to your stress and strife.
Dry your tears, it’s just four years. — Oh my God!
Fuck my life!

Make way for Donald’s New Regime,
Here comes a clown car of a team
That’s built on chaos, crime, incompetence, revenge and fear.

He kicked his don’t-give-a-fucks in high gear.

I love the USA, I’ll never go away but, gurl,
I’M GONNA HATE IT HERE.

Happy Holidays!

— Editor’s transcription

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The Chinese rubric headlining this installment of Trump Redux 2024 — 天下大亂 形勢大好, ‘chaos reigns and the situation is excellent’ — is a reference to Mao Zedong’s 1966 autogolpe and the nationwide attack on China’s ‘deep state’ that he pursued, with disastrous consequences, in its wake. Like Trump today, Mao believed that the salvation of the nation lay in its destruction. For more on the ‘horseshoe relationship’ of Mao and Trump, see A Monkey King’s Journey to the East.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
16 December 2024

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America’s Empire of Tedium — Trump Redux 2024

Contents

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The Interregnum

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Promotional poster for the UK movie release of Annie, 1982

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亂 luàn, ‘disorder, chaos, confusion’, in various hands