A few years back, an intrepid scholar with an advanced degree from Yale uncovered the actual form of government then practiced in the United States. The shocking truth he revealed was that representative democracy in this country was simply a facade. Instead, we lived in what scholars call a pussocracy.

He explained, "We're effectively run in this country — via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs — by a bunch of childless cat ladies, who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too."

Like so many Americans back then, I was unaware that childless cat ladies (or CCLs as experts now refer to them) sometimes ran the government, and the insidious threat they posed. The childless cat ladies I knew all seemed so nice. I'd never heard of a childless cat lady joining ISIS or buying an AK-47 and shooting up a school or a movie. I'd never even heard of one starting a war with a Middle Eastern country. Not even a small war. Maybe once in a while a childless cat lady wouldn't keep the litter box as clean as it might be, but that seemed about as bad as it got. It pains me to admit I was so ignorant.

The central problem with a pussocracy is that those in charge clearly lack the cajones necessary to govern. Can you imagine a CCL putting even a minimal tariff on, for example, banana imports? Even as, under their rule, we fell further and further behind in the critical battle for banana self-sufficiency. Not a single new banana factory was opened anywhere in the United States in their entire four years. And the unemployment rate among U.S. banana planters rocketed to a staggering 100%.

Chiquita Banana is not our friend. And the fact that she's been inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame is just another sellout to the banana oligarchs. Bananas, of course, are just one egregious example. Pussocracy is all-encompassing. Most of us couldn't see it. But, once alerted, I quickly realized that would-be pussocrats were everywhere. I'm not primarily talking about Democrats or corporate oligarchs. I do spot the occasional Democrat. Except on TV, they're usually fairly quiet. And, with the exception of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, most corporate oligarchs are clever enough to keep out of sight. (There may be hygiene issues.)

But cat ladies — the woods are full of them. And the cities. And the voting booths. Clearly, they're the real power in this unholy trinity. Seemingly nice, seemingly harmless, solid citizens, a credit to the community. But what are these women really up to?

Their very childlessness is highly suspect. I'm childless too, but I'm male. Having children is not my central function. Men simply have kids as a side effect of having as much sex as possible. It's not something we do deliberately. Men have a time-honored purpose beyond procreation, hunting the food and protecting the family — with automatic weapons and, if possible, tanks.

My wife is also childless, but she's at least married. Which is sort of partway to having children. It's a step on the path anyway. And she doesn't have a cat. She's actually a dog person. We don't have a dog, though. I love my wife, but I wouldn't follow her around with a plastic bag, cleaning up the landscape after she responded to nature's call. So, I'm certainly not going to do that for some schnauzer. Put that way, you can see the advantage of a cat.

Even during their reign, childless cat ladies were reportedly miserable and trying to make everyone else miserable too. Some of them may have seemed happy and well-adjusted. But either it was an astonishing pose, or perhaps they didn't realize how miserable they actually were. That's just one more reason that we're lucky we've had a regime change and they're safely out of power. Believe me, for the next few years, none of us are going to have the slightest difficulty realizing just how miserable we are.

Check out Barry Maher's dark humor supernatural thriller, "The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon on Amazon. Sign up for his Substack at www.barrymaher.com.

To find out more about Barry Maher and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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