When Emperor Donaldus Trumpius Maximus travels to Texania, he does not, naturally, visit an ordinary state.
No.
According to the imperial account, Texania is a combination of treasury, border fortress, economic oracle, cattle kingdom, and gigantic corporate parking lot where companies apparently sit with engines running until Trumpius personally raises the golden imperial thumb.
And so the White Palatium issued another triumphal proclamation so magnificent that even Roman historians would have ordered extra laurel wreaths before reading the second paragraph.
The Great Tax Liberation of Texania
First arose Trumpius, Reducer of Taxes and Protector of the Overtime Denarius, announcing that the hardworking people of Texania would finally be permitted to keep more of their own money.
A revolutionary economic concept.
Workers putting in qualifying overtime may now keep more of what they earn before the Imperial Treasury politely appears and asks whether any loose coins might still be hiding beneath the sofa.
Senior citizens, too, received imperial blessings through new tax relief.
Thus the Empire heroically takes less money from people and then holds a ceremonial parade celebrating the money it did not take.
At the Palatium, this administrative miracle is reportedly classified as:
“Historic Restoration of Revenue Never Collected.”
There are bigger refunds, enormous amounts of supposedly protected economic output, support for rural healthcare, preserved wages, preserved jobs, and sufficient numbers to keep several battalions of accountants occupied until retirement.
Trumpius allegedly pointed toward Texania on a map and proclaimed:
“Look at that prosperity! Tremendous prosperity! Possibly the most prosperous prosperity that prosperity has ever prospered!”
Pax Trumpiana Comes to the Streets
Crime, according to the imperial scroll, has also fallen.
Violence: down.
Murder: down.
Crime: down.
The statistics are so cheerful that one might assume even Texanian bank robbers have abandoned crime and retrained for semiconductor manufacturing.
Plano, Laredo, and Arlington emerge from the proclamation as nearly mythical cities of order, where lost wallets may soon voluntarily walk themselves to the nearest police station.
For Trumpius, naturally, this is no coincidence.
Where the Emperor rules, a new Latin principle applies:
Veni. Vidi. Crime Statistics Improved.
The Great Limes Trumpianus
Then comes the southern border.
According to the Palatium, it is now so secure that even an armadillo approaching from the wrong direction may soon be required to schedule a visa interview.
The wall continues.
Texania receives reimbursement.
Crossings decline.
And within the imperial court, officials already whisper reverently about the Limes Trumpianus Maximus — a fortification said to stop migration, win elections, stimulate concrete production, and perhaps eventually repel unfavorable weather arriving from Mexico.
For Trumpius, the border has never been merely a line on a map.
It is a stage.
A backdrop.
A shrine.
And possibly the future UNESCO World Heritage Site of Political Symbolism.
Water, Worms, and the Imperial Fly Legion
Texania would not be Texania without water, cattle, farmers, ranchers, and at least one agricultural parasite somehow becoming a matter of national destiny.
Mexico is expected to deliver water.
Farmers receive aid.
Ranchers receive protection.
And against the dreaded screwworm, the Trumpian Empire is supporting inspectors and a massive facility devoted to producing sterile flies.
Thus government has reached that rare stage of administrative maturity at which even insect reproduction becomes part of national security.
At the imaginary Department of Agriculture, Cattle Prosperity, and Strategic Fly Sterilization, an imperial official proudly declares:
“The flies may be sterile.
Our spending programs are not.”
Trumpius nods.
An empire capable of regulating the romantic prospects of its flies clearly has everything under control.
The Great March of the Billions
Then something happens for which even the imperial accountants were unprepared.
The billions arrive.
At first individually.
Then in groups.
Then in cohorts.
Then in full economic legions.
$2.3 billion.
$3.6 billion.
$3.2 billion.
$1.18 billion.
$1.25 billion.
$25 billion.
$16.8 billion.
Another $3 billion.
Then $500 million here, $160 million there, followed by $85 million, $71 million, $60 million, $50 million, $20 million and finally $6 million, which is now mentioned mostly so the smaller numbers do not feel excluded.
Eventually, the Treasury stops printing dollar signs and begins shoveling zeroes directly into the press release with wheelbarrows.
SpaceXus Muskovius alone announces $16.8 billion.
Sixteen.
Point.
Eight.
Billion.
A figure at which an ordinary citizen asks:
“How much money is that?”
The Palatium answers:
“Very.”
But then arrives Vantage Data Centurion Maximus carrying $25 billion.
Twenty-five.
Billion.
Dollars.
For a data center campus.
Spread across approximately 1,200 acres.
A data center so enormous that its servers may eventually require their own ranches, school districts, sheriffs, congressional representation, and perhaps a small regional airport.
Imperial geographers are already examining whether the project can legally remain classified as a facility or whether it must eventually be admitted to the Union.
Working name:
Serveria.
Capital:
Cloudopolis.
Population:
38 humans and 6.7 million graphics processors.
Then Teslius Muskovius brings billions for chips, Toyota Maximus marches billions into San Antonio, Saronicus Navalis prepares a multibillion-dollar shipyard, and Bristol Myers Squibbius lays another mountain of gold upon the imperial altar.
This is no longer an investment boom.
It is a weather system.
Meteorologists across Texania begin issuing warnings for severe localized billion-dollar showers, accompanied by strong capital gusts and an elevated probability of spontaneously forming factories.
Houston:
Billions.
San Antonio:
Billions.
Brownsville:
Billions.
Northlake:
Billions.
Austin:
Millions — which continue to exist only because billions cannot be everywhere simultaneously.
Eventually, a figure appears so large that Trumpius himself reportedly becomes silent for nearly two seconds.
Imperial historians immediately classify the event as unprecedented.
An adviser finally dares ask:
“Caesar, how many billions are there now?”
Trumpius surveys the golden horizon.
He slowly raises both hands.
And answers:
“All of them.”
Since that moment, “all the billions” has reportedly become an officially recognized unit of measurement inside the White Palatium.
One Trumpius represents approximately the amount of money at which a press secretary stops calculating and begins using the word “historic.”
The Treasury is already experimenting with a new imperial measurement system:
$1 billion = one billion.
$10 billion = many billions.
$25 billion = Vantage.
$50 billion = tremendous.
$100 billion = historic.
Unknown quantity = Trumpius Maximus.
By the end of the corporate parade, so much money has marched through the proclamation that one fully expects the Moon itself to announce the relocation of crater manufacturing to Texas.
NASA has denied such plans.
So far.
Texas First, Trumpius First, Everything First
And so the message from the Palatium becomes wonderfully simple.
Lower taxes.
Safer streets.
Closed border.
New factories.
More jobs.
More billions.
More triumph.
And naturally, the warning that every achievement might instantly collapse into dust should a Democrat wander within ten feet of a legislative document.
Trumpius Caesar therefore raises the Golden Megaphone and declares:
“America First means Texas First!”
This immediately causes a constitutional emergency inside the Imperial Office of Ranking Things.
Because if America is First...
and Texas is First...
then who is actually first?
The court mathematicians are summoned.
They calculate.
They draw charts.
They consult Euclid.
Aristotle.
Several economists.
And eventually one gentleman from Florida described by the Emperor as “fantastic with numbers.”
Their conclusion is devastating:
Two separate things cannot both be the single first thing.
Trumpius studies the mathematics.
Then he studies the mathematicians.
Then he eliminates the mathematics.
A new imperial ranking system is proclaimed.
Trumpius First.
America comes next.
Then Texas.
Then the economy.
Then the border.
Then the factories.
Then the billions.
And somewhere far behind a sterile fly in Edinburg comes conventional arithmetic.
The Palatium announces that this arrangement is “historically accurate.”
Historians object.
They are immediately renamed Historicus Fakeus.
Yet one dangerous question remains.
If America succeeds because of Trumpius...
Texas booms because of Trumpius...
the border is secure because of Trumpius...
crime falls because of Trumpius...
farmers receive money because of Trumpius...
corporations invest billions because of Trumpius...
and even the reproductive prospects of screwworm flies have deteriorated because of Trumpius...
what exactly is Texas still needed for?
The Imperial Department of Self-Congratulation conducts an emergency review.
Its conclusion:
Texas is the place where Trumpius is right.
America is the place where Trumpius is even more right.
And the rest of Earth is merely the portion of the map that has not yet officially admitted that Trumpius was right all along.
At that moment, the proclamation reaches its final and perfect form.
It was never really about taxes.
Or the border.
Or crime.
Or farmers.
Or factories.
Not even the billions.
Those are merely supporting scenery in the greatest infrastructure project ever attempted by the Empire:
the construction of a universe with Donaldus Trumpius Maximus permanently located at its center.
In this universe, even the Sun rises over Texas only because the Emperor has authorized it.
Every evening it disappears beyond the horizon.
Not because of planetary rotation.
That would be science.
No.
It retreats so Trumpius can personally win the sunset.
And should the Moon eventually relocate its crater division to Texas, the White Palatium will naturally announce that this, too, was part of the plan.
Because under Trumpius Caesar there are no coincidences.
There are only victories that have not yet received their press release.
Veni. Vidi. Vici.
Trumpius came.
Trumpius saw.
Trumpius won.
And Texas?
Texas was allowed to attend.
