Rasputin Swims the Potomoc
by Ben Fountain, published by Flatiron Books
Imagine Succession meeting the WWE in a political thriller that reads like a Black Mirror episode directed by Andy Warhol. In this wildly satirical ride, reporter Clarence Thomas Jr. is desperate for a story juicy enough to survive the fifteen-second attention span of the modern internet. Meanwhile, former country music teen star Faith Spack has successfully parlayed her fading pop fame into a high-stakes gig as a White House media strategist, mostly because the administration values anyone who understands how to optimize a TikTok algorithm during a constitutional crisis.
The crisis in question is the president’s stubborn refusal to leave. The two-term incumbent is treating the constitution like a terms of service agreement that everyone just scrolls past without reading. He is aggressively campaigning for a third term, framing the presidency less as a public service and more as a prestige television drama that simply cannot be canceled. He has even rebranded his entire administration as a reality television franchise called The Real West Wing, complete with dramatic confessional interviews from the Situation Room.
The ratings are spectacular until a campaign rally takes a terrifyingly dystopian turn. A mysterious new pandemic known as the weeping sickness breaks out, sweeping the nation faster than a leaked celebrity voice note and leaving millions of citizens crying uncontrollably at their screens. With his poll numbers cratering and his hold on the Oval Office slipping, the president realizes a standard policy pivot will not save his syndication deals. He needs a ratings stunt. He needs a miracle.
Enter the mystical pro wrestler known to the world simply as Rasputin.
A mountain of a man who wears velvet trunks and sports a beard that looks like it harbors its own ecosystem, Rasputin is brought into the inner circle as a special advisor on national vibes. At first, the collaboration is a social media manager's dream. The wrestler cuts WWE-style promos against the pathogen, screaming into the microphones that the weeping sickness is a jabroni that will soon be pinned to the mat of history. The public absolutely eats it up, and the reality show sees a massive viewership spike.
But the campaign machinery soon finds itself trapped in a spandex-clad destiny that no executive order or public relations spin can fix. Rasputin’s appeal begins to massively exceed the president’s. Worse yet, the wrestler's supposedly fake supernatural powers start to look terrifyingly authentic on live television. The apprentice is rapidly becoming the master, and both Clarence and Faith are compelled to play increasingly large, dangerous parts in a script being written by a man who definitely knows how to execute a perfect vertical suplex.
Hilarious, compelling, and tragically relevant, Rasputin Swims the Potomac is both an escape and a warning. It is a scathing satire that explores the twists and turns of American democracy as it hurtles toward authoritarianism, offering a wild ride through the absolute absurdity of modern fame where the line between a cable news broadcast and a pay-per-view match completely dissolves.