Having met with top campaign contributor and social media guru Vladimir Putin, Trump came out glowing with the announcement that Alaska will be returned to Russia for “a full refund, cash!”
The United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million dollars. Effective immediately, the territory will be returned to Russia complete with all standing assets and infrastructure.
“I made one hell of a deal, didn’t I?” asked Trump, perhaps rhetorically. “No more will we have to burden the shoulder of that huge, huge drain on our economy, and look, it is a drain, everyone knows that. What’s it even for? Who knows, I don’t know. Do you know?”
Economist David R. Barker has argued that the U.S. federal government has lost money on the Seaward’s Folly, since by only the narrowest possible accounting, it hasn’t been a benefit to the country.
John M. Miller (no relation to Trump’s esteemed former spokesman,) has taken the argument further, saying that U.S. oil companies didn’t earn profits sufficient to compensate for the “risks” they have incurred.
Residents of Alaska were invited to make statements of support, and during the unannounced comment window of just under one hour, tens of millions of them did so online.
One Alaska resident, a Mr. Jason Adams of $CITY was excited, writing, “I think this will be good for struggline Alaska industry.”
Another resident, a Mr. Jason Adamson, also of $CITY posted a fraction of a second later saying, “I think this will be good for struggline Alaska industry.”
Comments like these were not unique, as the database in questions seems to have tens of thousand of this exact comment, posted with names ordered alphabetically, with a handful of other comments also posted verbatim over and over.
In fact, only seven unique comments actually appear. Former Secretary of State and incoming Russian Territory governor Rex Tillerson pointed out that, “This just proves how unified [the residents of Alaska] are in their support.”
Cargo ships flanked by a flotilla of battleships and destroyers is already steaming from Russia with short and medium-range ballistic nuclear missiles, expected to be installed at the southernmost tip of continental Alaska within days.