ArcaMax

An attorney I used to know told me how he figured out when to go home.

"When I can't pronounce 'judiciary,' I should pay my tab and leave," he said at the 8 p.m. end of his "after-work drink."

"Habeas corpus?" I said to him.

He laughed.

"You can say habeas corpus when you're too drunk to walk," he said.

What you can say when you're drunk is more or less a guide to 2025 political life.

That's why "Make America Great Again," got chopped down to "MAGA." You can say "MAGA" when you're eight beers deep.

It's why we say "DEI" instead of whatever the hell it stands for.

"Communist" has that troublesome "s" in it. The letter "S" responds very poorly to bourbon, so it's best to screech "Commie!" and not trip over your numb tongue.

The more coffee I drink, the clearer it gets that everything President Donald Trump says can be said and understood by people who've stayed at the bar too long.

The sloppy or misstated facts, the sweeping generalizations and the short, hard words, are the dialogue of two guys who should have pinched off the after-work drink at maybe two light beers.

But they didn't and now, in the soft glow of a shamrock-shaped neon sign, a hand slaps the bar.

"I'm tellin' you, Ray, it should be the GULF OF AMERICA!" Bob says. "I mean, it's right ON America. You go down there to Arizona, and that ocean gulf touches our country right there!"

"It's like Canada," Ray says. "You go across this imaginary line, and it's like you're in another country, but everyone is speaking English, and they got indoor toilets and McDonald's and everything. That probably shouldn't even be its own country. It should be like a state or something."

Of course, "LGBT" is the sobriety test for all political drunks. Say it like the cops make you say the alphabet after you get pulled over. Be honest -- you don't know if the "T" or the "Q" is the last letter, do you? Better to use one of the shorter, harder words.

Pronouns are worse, especially after the political equivalent of four vodka rocks.

You have two pronouns -- that's going to be fine. You start switching' them around and throwing in "they," and you'll never make the last call. The only time "they" is of use as a pronoun is when you're seeing two of him/her.

If you want to sound sober when you're not, you keep your words short, you keep your sentences short and if you must abbreviate, make sure you don't pick something with too many words.

Once you realize half the country is drunk, trying to sound sober, and that Trump is staying away from the words that are too long or too easy to slur, you're pretty much ready to live in the last-two-hours-of-the-party landscape that is America right now.

Beware of the short words.

To find out more about Marc Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.