Long ago, when the world and smartphones were new, there lived a fox who had inherited his father’s fleecing business. He had spent many happy years sexually harassing vixens and grifting chickens out of their eggs and cows out of their milk, but as old age approached he began to wonder what he was doing with his life. To make his mark on natural history he decided to play the greatest con that had ever been seen in the history of Animal Farm: dressing up as a mother duck to trick all the ducklings into following him. His plan was to boil them in a giant soup pot, along with some luckless frogs.
In reality, all the ducks in Animal Farm had died of starvation during the previous market correction, but the goslings all flocked to the fox in his feathery disguise, neither he nor they being smart enough to tell the difference between a hawk and a handsaw, no matter which way the wind was blowing. “Don’t be a bunch of sheep!” cried the fox as he waddled about the barnyard, tailed by a growing flock of excited goslings. “Follow me, for I alone can fix it! I will make Animal Farm great again!”
“Make Animal Farm great again!” the goslings echoed. “Mother Duck alone can fix it! We’re not sheep!” Fox News sent a camera crew to follow these thrilling developments and entice other dumb clucks into following the nascent duck-tator.
After waddling aimlessly around the farmyard all afternoon, hoping to tire the goslings out so they would be easy to manhandle into the soup pot, the fox realized he needed a better strategy. So he beckoned the Fox News cameras closer and bellowed, “You’ll never get your Animal Farm back by showing weakness! Storm the farmhouse right now, kill Deep State Farmer Jones, and I’ll be right behind you!”
The goslings all honked hysterically as they charged into battle for their ersatz mother. “Down with Deep State Jones! Mother Duck alone will fix it! We’re no sheep! Keep Animal Farm great!” they squawked, until Mrs. Jones, who had run downstairs to find out what was causing all the racket, seized them all, wrung their necks, and tossed them one by one into her own soup pot. Fox News said it had been nothing more than an overexcited group tour of the farmhouse, and the other foxes prevented the rest of the animals from punishing the Grifter Fox in any way, except that they forbade him from ever tweeting again.
Moral: Neither a sheep nor a gosling be.
Emanuel Goldstein 