Most Hated Man in American Politics

[Protag is watching the news. Two reporters interview a respectable looking politician with a grey beard and cowboy hat. He looks very gruff, but somehow still very cheerful. His personality is strangely infectious, but as soon as he talks it becomes obvious it's more like a cholera type infectious.]

Reporter 1: "So, what's it like being the most hated man in American politics?"

Congressman: "That's the thing they don't tell you about being the most hated man in American politics. Everyone hates you! They all talk about how cool it is to be a maverick, and to stand up against everything, just for the sake of standing up against something, just to be a thorn in the side of the government. What they don't tell you, is no one likes you! Not your colleagues in government, not your friends and family. When you take up the mantle of being the most hated man in American politics, everyone treats you like it. Which is weird, you'd think they'd like you for being a solely oppositional force. And I say, "What, you haven't heard of Devil's Advocate?" And they just have the gall to say things like, "Even the Devil himself isn't as much of an annoying piss ant as you," and, "There's a difference between being constructive and telling me my wife's necklace looks like a ballsack, and I should be impeached for it.""

Reporter 1: "Gosh you're so brave."

Reporter 2: "No one's job is as difficult as yours. Just wow."

Reporter 1: "So you have a wife and kids, and wow, I feel like they are just so lucky. What are they like?"

Congressman: "Oh, my wife and kids are great. I also have a dog. But they hate me, too! I say, "Honey, I'm home!" and then my dog, well, his name is Golden, he comes right up and bites my calf. He starts tugging and shaking, and I'm screaming in pain and there's blood everywhere, and my wife runs up as fast as she can, and she's screaming her damn head off, saying, "Golden! GOLDEN!!! Good boy, good boy, bite Daddy, tear him up!!!" and he's snarling. Yeah, I love em."

Reporter 2: "Oh my gosh, that's just so beautiful."

Reporter 1: "Wow, if that doesn't say American Dream, I don't know what does."

Reporter 2: "Well, everything must come to a close and the torch has to be passed on eventually. When that day comes, what do you plan to do next? So many Americans are begging to hear."

Congressman: "Y'know, that question, it really is existential. I've had to do a lot of soul searching, which, for me, includes going to beaches, gambling tens of thousands of dollars away, private jets, rocket launcher collecting, meth, touring cattle slaughtering factories, hanging out with billionaires, going on some big game hunts during safari expeditions, hiring servants to repair my heating and air conditioning, buying land in small countries to store radioactive waste upstream from major cities... Y'know, I've done it all. And after all that, and all those taxpayer dollars. I think I want to become the most loathed."

Reporter 1: "That's- oh my gosh, no wonder they call you a maverick!!! That's truly groundbreaking. What gave you that amazing idea?"

Congressman: "Well, earlier I said meth, which was actually a strategy to gain a better understanding of some of my constituents, but during that 1 month meth marathon, I got really impulsive and swallowed a whole blotter sheet of LSD."

Reporter 2: "Isn't that 900 doses?"

Congressman: "Yeah, which really isn't that much LSD if you think about it. I've had moonshine way stronger than that. Anyway, after I swallowed that a 9000 ton apparition appeared to me whose skin was bulging with the anguished faces of everyone I feel guilty of having wronged, which is mostly just lobbyists. His paws were the heads of my family, mouths torn open 180 degrees and their teeth extended hellishly into razor sharp claws, tongues wagging limply implying all life left them aeons ago and it was merely their bodies that had been preserved in perfect condition just so they could be used as puppets to further strike fear into my heart. As he opened his crystal blue human eyes, waterfalls of garbage poured out of his pupils, and I could see it was all things I'd thrown away, including receipts for nail salon appointments from my crossdressing phase, which I thought no one knew about. When they cleared, his penetrating gaze struck me. Nobody had looked through me like this since that cashier at the sex toy shop when I told him the batteries were for my reading glasses. After 10,000 years, during which my limbs slowly turned to mist, which is as painful as it sounds, his mouth creaked open, spilling wet gore to the ground and splattering me with the bile it was coated in, which burned terribly. He spoke to me, but I heard it both inside my head and through my ears, with a disorienting delay. In the voice of that humiliated pedestrian I ran over with my truck a few months prior, he said, "Aging, aging is irreversible. The alphabet is not. Rend your heart." He then clawed my eyes out with the teeth of my family, leaving me in pure emptiness besides the sounds of political opponents laughing at my sorry state. I woke up on a fold out couch on a derelict cruise liner adrift in the ocean, perfectly alone, with only the waves slapping gently on the sides of the boat to accompany me. I then woke up a second time, this time for real, lying on a lounge chair under the umbrella next to the pool of a billionaire friend of mine, sunglasses on. All of my limbs were asleep, and a supermodel next to me said, "Oh, you're awake?" Gazing into her beautiful eyes, way more beautiful than my wife's by the way, though not as much as the apparition, I threw up profusely for three hours. When I finally recovered, I thought about what he could have meant. So I recited backwards from H, until I reached L, and realized loathed starts with L so I should make that my next goal. Honestly, the whole thing was basically just like my time in Congress."

Reporter 2: "That's so insightful. I think the American people will love to have you as the most loathed. Your story has touched millions of viewers. I personally can't wait to read the fan mail we get from this!"

Reporter 1: "Well, it looks like we're out of time. As always it's just so good to have you on the show."

Congressman: "Oh, I love being on here. Next time I'll have to tell you the story behind my "My other ride is a cellular biologist's swarming petri dish‽ 😏" bumper sticker. Till then!"

Reporter 2: "Ooh, an interrobang!!! Alright, till then! Now for the weather."

Joke attribution:

After sending a friend a draft of this, she returned this possible ending, which picks up right after what was the ending at that time, "If that doesn't say American Dream, I don't know what does."

Reporter 3: So, your time as the most hated man is gonna come to an end at some point. What comes after?

"Well I've done some soul searching, and I think I have my answer. I can't make any promises, but... I think I'm on track to become the most loathed."

Reporter 3: ...What's the difference?

"Only the nerds who know what that word means will remember how awful I am! I am truly living a wonderful American life."

I liked the idea, but of course had to take it a step further. ;^)

You can read more about my Attribution Policy under the Info section on the left bar.

And yes, L is not before H if you recite the alphabet backwards. ;^)