This is an excerpt from a satirical one-act play entitled “How We Repeated History,” and is a dramatized depiction of actual, real-life current events:

[Former disgraced sheriff and human rights offender Joe Arpaio is conducting an interview with a local Arizona TV station, YYWX, in Mesa. Tension builds, and toward the end of the conversation Arpaio does not commit to ruling out ever being a concentration camp director if one was ever built in the United States.]

YYWX: So, if Trump ever begins to jail political opponents or public dissidents, could you see yourself getting involved?

ARPAIO: I don’t want to comment on hypotheticals.

YYWX: But if the President ever turned more fascist, would you personally get involved and ask to be appointed as some kind of head of corrections, or whatever it would be called?

ARPAIO: It’s all hypothetical, and frankly—

YYWX: Excuse me, if I may, sir, but you have in the past called prisons that you personally have run, quote, “concentration camps,” and you’ve been accused of violating human rights, and you’ve been sued and cost the state of Arizona millions and millions of dollars for the fascist-like practices of your jurisdiction as sheriff—

ARPAIO: As you know, that is being debated still, so I can’t comment of course on an ongoing trial and investigation—

YYWX: You accepted a pardon, sir, from President Trump, and, as you have been educated in other interviews, you realize that accepting a pardon means you accept the fact that you’re guilty. All I need is a ‘no’ here, sir. All you have to do is say you are not interested in running any concentration camps if Trump ever asked you to and if America continues going down this fascist road.

ARPAIO: Uh… again, I won’t comment on hypotheticals here—

YYWX: It is the easiest thing to say on public record you’re not interested in running hash prisons for Trump—

ARPAIO: I’m not into Gotcha Journalism, so I won’t answer this line of questioning—

[YYWX reporter bursts into flames from frustration. The funeral is the following Tuesday, though Arpaio chooses not to attend.]

—Curtain—

(Picture courtesy of Gage Skidmore.)

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