“What would you say if you saw it in another country?”

For years, professor Brendan Nyhan has asked us “what would you say if you saw this in another country?”

This Twitter thread, using a fictional nation in Africa that President Trump invented, is how a foreign correspondent might report this dire moment in the politics of “Nambia.” I’ve pulled the tweets together, below.

The world is waiting to see how — or if — the United States of America checks a corrupt, illiberal president whose inability to execute his fiduciary duties to the nation makes him unfit for office.

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COVFEFE, (October 1, 2019) — “In Nambia, the President compared a lawful whistleblower to a spy, & called for the person who told Congress about his abuses of power & efforts to cover them up to be identified. He publicly suggested a member of the opposing political party should be arrested for treason.”

“Members of the president’s party are calling the investigation of abuses of power under Nambia’s constitution a ‘coup’, & trying to undermine the credibility of the press & legitimacy of the opposition, which won control of its lower house of Parliament in an election in 2018.”

“Nambia has been in turmoil for years after its president, a corrupt businessman & former reality TV star, rode xenophobia, racism, & faux populism to surprise election, & then obstructed a ministry of justice investigation into his business & campaign ties to Russian government.”

“Parliament has now subpoenaed the records of the former mayor of the nation’s largest city, who has since worked as the president’s personal lawyer & agent for foreign governments. The former federal prosecutor questioned the legitimacy of the MPs & called the press ‘corrupt.’”

“After misleading the public about an investigation, Nambia’s top law enforcement official held private meetings overseas with foreign officials seeking help in a Ministry of Justice inquiry the president hopes will discredit Nambian agencies’ disclosures of his ties to Russia.”

“A 2nd whistleblower said someone has secretly meddled with a government audit of presidential tax returns. Nambia’s president has kept them in secret, in defiance of decades of democratic norms, & receives payments through his businesses, which he refused to divest from in 2017.”

“Nambia’s foreign minister vowed to block the government officials from testifying in Parliament about the president’s abuses of power, in which he has pressured foreign governments to investigate his political opponents & erode trust in the ministry of justice’s investigation.”