President Donald Trump’s campaign is demanding CNN retract a poll that showed Trump trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and then broaden their survey to include Americans from parallel dimensions.
The order came as a cease and desist letter riddled with quantum mechanics equations and metaphysical misconceptions. CNN’s legal team is still puzzling over exactly what the Trump campaign is proposing.
“They’re trying to move the goalposts outside the known universe.” said Matt Dornic, a CNN spokesman.
In the letter to the network, the Trump campaign argued the CNN poll skewed monoverse-centric and spat in the face of quantum psychics.
“Our position is simple.” Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said. “To quote Kanye West, ‘There are infinite and alternate universes.’ So to measure the president’s position accurately you need to count everyone across the multiverse.”
Matt Dornic scoffed at the press secretary’s reasoning. “We’re not having a quantum election. There’s no need to poll people from universe where Trump has acquired a sports almanac from the future, or the axis powers won World War 2, or Nixon served five terms. Those voters aren’t registered here.” Dornic threw up his hands. “And how the hell would we survey them if we wanted to?”
Kayleigh McEnany counted all the methods on her fingers. “You could use transwarp conduits. Apparition spells. Magic wardrobes. Desert doorways. The speed force. Warp whistles. Magic mirrors. Mage portals. Time tunnels. Primer boxes. Subtle knives. Slider timers. Spore drives. Portal guns. Sling rings. Farcasters. Hyperspace gates. Jump gates. Rift gates. Even Stargates. There are literally a ton of options.”
Matt Dornic rubbed his eyes as he watched footage of McEnany counting. “None of those things are real.”
“Maybe not here,” Kayleigh McEnany paused the footage of Matt Dornic’s response. “But in the Miles Morales multiverse, where there’s a samurai Spiderman, some of that stuff exists. Are you telling me people in Shi’ar Empire don’t deserve to have a voice here?”
Matt Dornic paused Kayleigh McEnany on his phone. He balled his hand into fist and set his flaring nostrils into his knuckles. “The Shi’ar Empire is autocratic. Their Majestrix wasn’t voted into power. Her brother was rendered comatose by the M’Kraan Crystal and she took over. Which is a moot point because D’Ken Neramani never even conquered Earth 616.”
“Neeerd!” Kayleigh McEnany cackled back.
Matt Dornic stomped around the rim of his office. “You’re the one telling us to toss the SSRS poll in favor of the many worlds theory. We don’t need to go looking for Schrodinger’s cat in the ballot box. It doesn’t matter how Donald’s doppelgänger Is doing against Bizarro Biden. Maybe Trump is kicking ass in mirror dimension where goatees and fascism are in fashion, but not in the one I’m standing in.”
“OK, Sheldon.” Kayleigh McEnany put her phone down on the desk. “We stand by our position. Any poll that doesn’t include infinite earths, the Twilight Zone, or Battleworld is phony and misleading.”
McEnany tugged the cord for a projection screen, revealing a network of yarn, pins, and newspaper clippings. “Imagine a reality where Trump didn’t hypothesize using cleaning products to treat COVID-19. Where he didn’t say, ‘We’re dominating the streets with compassion.’ Where he didn’t refuse to rename bases that had been named after confederate leaders. Where he didn’t schedule a campaign rally on Juneteenth at the site of the Tulsa race riot. Where he didn’t have attendees sign a waiver in case they contract the coronavirus. Where he didn’t eliminate non-discrimination health benefits for gay and transgender patients. Imagine how much better Trump might be polling over there.”
According to data aggregated by Nate Silver for FiveThirtyEight, Trump is polling well behind Bernie Sanders in the dimension where the Vermont Senator clinched the democratic nomination. What Silver finds interesting is how far back Trump lags behind Mitt Romney in a reality where Trump remained a Democrat, or how far back Trump lags behind Jesse Ventura in a reality where Trump stayed with the Reform Party, or how far back Trump lags behind Kanye West in a reality where West followed through on his plan to run for president in 2020.
Matt Dornic scrolled through FiveThirtyEight’s data, then turned to this reporter and asked, “How were they able to survey voters in other realities? What did they have? An interdimensional wrist watch? A copy of the Necronomicon? A recovered UFO? What?”
I shrugged. “Something to do with tachyon particles.” I really didn’t know.
Dornic took a deep breath, ran his fingers through the Zen garden on his desk, and exhaled. “CNN stands behind our poll. In this reality or any other.”
•••
Meet Noelle, a Hollywood transplant that’s been subsisting on instant ramen and false hope. She’s on the verge of moving back into her mother’s trailer when her agent convinces her to take a meeting at the Oralia Hotel. Enchanted by the art deco atmosphere Noelle signs a contract without reading the fine print.
Now she has one month to pen a novel sequestered in a fantasy suite where a hack writer claims he had an unholy encounter. With whom you ask? Well, he has many names: Louis Cypher, Bill Z. Bub, Kel Diablo. The Devil.
Noelle is skeptical, until she’s awoken by a shadow figure with a taste for souls.
Desperate to make it Noelle stays on, shifting the focus of her story to these encounters. Her investigations take her through the forth wall and back again until she’s blurred the line between reality and what’s written. Is there a Satanic conspiracy, is it a desperate author’s insanity, or something else entirely?