By Danny Tyree
Whether you read these words before or after Presidents Day 2021, be advised that I’m already thinking ahead to Presidents Day 2071.
If you get your jollies reading about the only bachelor president or the first bathtub in the White House, just think how many more milestones and tidbits of trivia will have built up over the next 50 years!
In the next five decades, we may very well see the first female president, the first Hispanic president, the first Asian American president, the first openly gay president
Thanks to medical miracles, we may see the record for “oldest president” broken more than once.
We may finally see the first openly atheistic president. I wonder if they’ll sound as conflicted as some of today’s religious politicians.
Maybe we’ll see the first president born on Mars (slogan: “Take me to your leader — oh, wait, I am your leader!”). Of course, the candidacy will trigger a whole new wave of “birthers” (“That’s OK. I’ve got the death-rayers on my side!”).
I suspect the biggest changes will come about if we drop the arbitrary “at least 35 years old” requirement for presidents.
Picture a chief executive who wears the nuclear codes in a nose-piercing! Or who uses the Space Force to target lasers at zits!
But why stop with presidents who have double digits in their ages? Maybe there will be a commander in chief who eschews the siren call of deep-pocketed donors and instead funds his own campaign — with lunch money “donated” by smaller classmates (“No swamp — just swirlies”).
Yes, there could be a time when ballots ask, “Do you like me like me? Check yes or no.”
Timeless speeches will include lines such as, “Fourscore and … fourscore and … are you sure I can’t use my calculator for this?”
Granted, youthful prejudices will make cabinet selection agonizingly complex (“Do I hafta take him? Well, can he play right field instead of being the secretary of labor?”).
Let’s all watch for exciting presidential developments in the years to come.
Danny Tyree welcomes email responses at tyreetyrades@aol.com and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” His column is distributed by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.
