By D. K. Holm, M.E. Russell and State Sen. "Chap" Buoy (R-Prineville)

Illustrations by M.E. Russell

Y our worst nightmare came true. You woke up on Wednesday, November 6, and the world had changed.

It was, dear Lord, a Republican world.

As the Senate, the House, and most American states fell like dominoes to the GOP, everything that liberal fellow travelers had hoped for--a world in which welfare mothers fed their children the plentiful pap of the state; where all potential pollutants were replaced with the invigorating aromatherapy of self-righteousness; where corporations were choked on a regulatory leash gripped by idealistic sages--was gone. Vanished. Flushed down a gold toilet with an elephant embossed on the lid.

While checking out Canadian immigration laws with one hand, you dialed up like-minded friends with the other. "How could Americans be so STUPID?" you bleated. You closed your eyes, blinked, and opened them again; still it was a Republican World. Now we're on the brink of war, a Republican House and Senate were sworn in on January 7, and you're quaking like a Dutch schoolboy with a combination of impotent rage and despair.

There's only one thing to do, of course.

Give up.

Accept the New World Order. Join the GOP. Why fight it? You can't do a damned thing about it. Republicans always win. Kennedy, the '60s, the Yippies, the anti-war movement, progressive health, and welfare laws? All flukes! Artifacts from a rare period in human history--a human history largely defined by misery and degradation for the masses and free champagne for the well-fellated rich!

You have no choice but to face a simple, hard truth: Conservatism is the new black. Lefty, postmodern irony has "deconstructed" itself into a self-suckling round of "Why me?/Who cares?" To successfully twist the teat of elitist cultural commandos these days, one must dismantle the cults of collectivism and victimization and yell, loudly, "Get over it!"

And so we ask you--the fuming, left-leaning, Volvo-anarchist, crypto-blue-collar victim--the following question: Why not be on the winning side for once?

We know what you're thinking: "Surely the august Merc is making with the ha-ha! They can't seriously be suggesting that we make our ideological home in the party of Trent Lott, Wall Street, racism, jingoism, globalism, both Hoovers, and the Daughters of the American Revolution?"

But we are suggesting exactly that.

For one thing, some of the less varicose-addled DARs look pretty hot in visors and pleated golf skorts. For another, as a member of the GOP, you will shed your underdog pose and become a winner. You will be in control of the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. You will be setting policy that dictates how we'll live for the next two generations.

And, Trent Lott's remarks aside, you'll be joining the party of Abraham Lincoln--that well-spoken, Amish-bearded hipster of yore who married a crazy chick, freed the Negroes, and got shot by an actor. The Republican Party is also home to such vital creative artists as Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnston, Ted Nugent, David Lynch, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stallone; Renaissance men with several hit movies and/or rock albums between them and their mulleted kin.

Of course, joining the GOP isn't as simple as getting a frontal lobotomy, reading Brainstorm NW, and pissing on the legless. Thus, for the numb, befuddled Democrat looking to change his or her rainbow stripes, we present this exclusive guide to living in a Republican world.