The Fiery Trial

by Adam Yoshida

  Sorensen held his tongue.

  "...the crowds out on the streets keep growing by the hour," said the CNN anchor, "the latest estimates from the DC police is that there are more than 150,000 people on the streets of the District tonight. Arrests as a result of altercations between elements of the crowd and attempts to breach security barriers now exceed one hundred."

  "I know that you don't like to hear this," said Sarah as she took a seat next to Sorensen on the couch, "but I really think that the Republicans are going to have to give in. The energy out there is electric."

  Sorensen muttered something unintelligible and buried his head in his tablet as the television droned on.

  "I am told that fights between members of the crowd have been multiplying as the day has gone on and tempers have been rising," said the reporter on the scene as the camera panned across the now-massive crowds that ringed the Capitol and spilled across every inch of space on the National Mall.

  "The police are trying to do their best to keep the groups separate from each other, but the problem now is that both groups are constantly attempting to outmaneuver one another to try and grab the interior position closest to the Capitol itself. It's a very turbulent situation here."

  The Oval Office, The White House

  "Mr. President," said Jamal Anderson, "what I'm hearing from the Minority Leader and Speaker Halverson – who is now working out of some space that we provided him and what remains of his staff in the OEOB, is that they think that a vote in the House tonight would be a jump ball, at best. The Republican rebels are well-organized and have been bringing in more and more of their members. A lot of the people who ought to go to Halverson are considered doubtful right now. The Speaker thinks that we'd win a vote, but the Minority Leader is privately doubtful."

  "And still no progress in the Senate?" asked the President.

  "No sir," confirmed the Chief of Staff, "there are now twenty-one Republican members of the Senate who have joined in the filibuster there. The Minority Leader tells me that, while the Majority Leader is sympathetic, he doesn't think that he will even dare to call it up for a vote. It might have majority support, in other words – but we're losing out on the technical side of this. Badly, for the time being."

  "But isn't time on our side here?" said the President, "after all, the longer this goes on, the more the crowd surrounding the Capitol grows and the grimmer the overall economic news gets."

  "That's definitely true," said the Chief of Staff, "at this point, the Secretary of the Treasury tells me, there's basically no one buying bonds except for the Federal Reserve or entities that are, in essence, straw buyers on behalf of the Fed. We're getting more and more reports of layoffs and closures by the hour."

  "Then we just need to say the course," said the President.

  Washington State Conference Centre, Seattle, WA

  Governor Mitchell Randall eyed the other luminaries in the room. In addition to himself, the Governors of twenty-six states, along with a hundred other state officials, had gathered in Seattle to discuss preparations for an Article V Convention to amend the Constitution. The Governors of sixteen other states had sent regrets. Six had refused to attend. The Governors of Rhode Island and Hawaii had not bothered to respond at all.

  "Well ladies and gentlemen," said the Governor as he stood on the dais, "since I called you folks together, I suppose I ought to kick things off."

  "Here's what we do know: Washington – DC that is, not the great state that I have the privilege of being the Governor of – simply doesn't work. We can see that today in the chaos that has descended upon the Capitol. That is a visible manifestation of the sickness that afflicts our country. But, I ask you, does anyone here – does a single solitary soul among those of you present – think that any of this began today or simply with this President or, depending on your point of view, with this Congress?"

  There was a general murmur of assent.

  "Alright then," said Randall, "then let's not let ourselves get bogged down in partisan bickering. I want to talk about how we fix this, not how we got ourselves here.

  "As the circumstances are urgent, I hope that I will offend no one here if I am very blunt: the primary problem that America faces today is that the Federal Government has become too large and too powerful. I know that this isn't news to any of you. I know that this isn't a new thought. The government exercises control over all aspects our lives, in ways both visible and invisible. This was always a destructive evil, but now it has become a fatal one.

  "Put simply, the state is the great seducer. We all know that it's wrong – don't you know it – to expect to appropriate the work of others and to put it to your benefit. We know that. Just like we know that it's wrong for us to break our marriage vows and to go to bed with the seducer, we know that it's wrong to use the state to extort value from others and keep it to ourselves. But, little by little, more and more of us were seduced. At all points on the spectrum – the poor by free benefits, the middle class with jobs and perks, and the rich with tax breaks, subsidies, and special deals. No class is immune. No one – including myself and all of you here today – is wholly innocent."

  "The problem we are confronting today is a mathematical one."

  Showily, the Governor walked up to a blackboard that had been set up on the stage and picked up a stick of chalk.

  "First, the various clients of the state now constitute a majority – ensuring that power will eternally remain in the hands of those in favor of the redistributionist state.

  "Second, in order to secure this majority, the redistributionists have made promises that have exhausted all of their resources: those real, those borrowed, and now even those hypothetical. They spent every dollar they had and then, when they couldn't do that anymore, they borrowed and spent everything that anyone would give them. And, in the last resort, when that was no longer enough they just started making money up out of the air.

  "So, that's the first element of this problem. X equals the resources required to fuel the demands of all of the client of the state. Y represents the maximum resources available to the state. When X is Greater than Y, there are just a few options: either reduce the value of X or increase the value of Y. Let's call that gap Z.

  "For the statists, reducing X is out because the whole of their power depends upon it. They can't spend less, because their coalition isn't held together by any guiding principle, it's held together by money and a mutual interest in looting the treasury. So they have to find a way to increase the value of Y by adding some Z factor.

  "They've spent all of their money. They can't borrow any more. They've exhausted their ability to just make it up. Yet the math doesn't lie – if they wish to maintain their power, they must find a way to add Z to Y. Where do they get it from?

  "Simply put: they have to steal it. And that's just what they are trying to do in Washington today.

  "These issues that we face are fundamental. I know that there's been this effort in the media to draw some sort of line between so-called "moderate" Republicans such as Terrance Rickover and myself and the rest of his allies in Washington. Let me set the record straight: we may disagree about many trifling issues, but there is no daylight between us on this fundamental question: this government must live within its means or this government will cease to exist.

  "Now, some of my friends in the press might label that last statement as being "radical" or "inflammatory", but it is simply the truth. One way or another the end is coming for the welfare state and it will not be pretty. The math, as it stands, just does not work. In order to maintain its power, the welfare state will have to engage in the greatest and boldest act of theft in history. I use the word "theft" advisedly, for that is what the President's proposals today are – theft cloaked by pseudo-legalistic nonsense.

  "I desire peace. I wish for nothing more deeply that the peaceful adjustment of all of our differences. But let us not transform a desire for peace and tranquility into a willingness to surrender unc
onditionally on points of principle. There are some lines that must not be crossed, there are some compromises that must never be made."

  John A. Wilson Building, District of Columbia

  Rodney Tate, the Mayor of the District of Columbia, was furious.

  "Why are we letting these white interlopers take over the streets of our city!" he shouted at his staff across the open-plan office that they shared.

  "Mr. Mayor," his Press Secretary whispered, "please don't say things like that where someone might hear."

  "Nonsense!" roared the Mayor, "I'm not going to have these white motherfuckers come in here and tell us what to do."

  "Mr. Mayor..." said the Mayor's Chief of Staff gently. He had served with the Mayor during his many years on the DC City Council and during his time serving as a Department head during a previous Administration and he generally knew how to handle the man's late-night rages. However, the intensification of the Mayor's tendency towards drink had somewhat diminished the utility of that long experience.

  "Fuck no!" shouted the Mayor, "Fuck no!"

  "I think that this is a matter best left to the White House..." said the Chief of Staff.

  "That lily-white cracker in the White House might run the country, but this is my motherfucking city," insisted the Mayor, stabbing his finger forward as he spoke.

  "Get me the Chief of Police," insisted the Mayor.

  "I think that we need to take some time to consider the implications of this in full, even if we rule out how it will play with our friends in the Administration," said the Chief of Staff.

  "No. N. O," replied the Mayor.

  "Alright," said the Chief of Staff after a long pause, "alright."

  U.S. Senate

  Senator Meghan Russell of Kansas was holding the floor when the news came in.

  "Mr. President," said the thirty-four-year-old blonde ex-Attorney General, "the actions of the actions of this Administration have violated all political norms that this country – and this Congress – have ever respected. I am astonished as those, like the Senator from Illinois, who would dare to lecture us on the political protocols of such a situation while they abet the greatest violations of the Constitution in the history of this nation..."

  As she spoke she heard a single phone buzz. This was so common that she took no notice of it as she continued speaking.

  "...The doctrines being advocated by this President and this Administration would utterly and permanently obliterate the separation of powers..."

  More phones began buzzing. A few staffers, on checking their phones, broke into a run.

  "...That is why we must resort to such extraordinary measures in order to stop this rush towards a radical reconfiguration..."

  Now every phone was going off at once and everywhere people were whispering and running.

  "Ok," said Senator Russell in a moment that weeks before would have made her a national figure overnight, "what the fuck?"

  The Oval Office, The White House

  "What the fuck?" asked President Bryan as he digested the latest reports from the scene.

  "The DC Police went in – our guys got no more than a few minutes worth of warning – and tried to arrest the "Republican" protestors," explained the Acting Attorney General.

  "Why the fuck did they do that?" asked the President.

  "Apparently the Mayor of DC ordered it overnight," said Jamal Anderson.

  "Goddamnit," said the President, punching the desk in front of him with his fist, "why?"

  "Well," said Anderson, "I can surmise... But we haven't been able to speak to the Mayor directly yet. Apparently he's sleeping one off and I am informed by his staff that, even if we were to compel him to come to the phone, we probably wouldn't be able to get too much out of him for a few hours."

  "Jesus fucking Christ," breathed the President, "how much stupidity must we endure? What does this do to our position on the Hill?"

  "The Speaker is furious," said Anderson, "so, even, as some of the Democrats. It'll definitely cost us votes up there. It might push some more of the Republicans in the Senate to join the filibuster. We've even losing a few Democrats on that one. Simpson – from West Virginia – looks doubtful now, for one."

  "I think that the time has come," said the President, "for us to consider what our Plan B is in the event that we cannot bounce this measure through the Congress. How much more executive authority can we assert in a genuine emergency? I think that we need to be looking at Lincoln in 1861 and Roosevelt in 1933 as examples here."

  "Before we do that, Mr. President," said the Acting Attorney General, "I think that we need to make some decisions about what we're going to do about what's going on outside of the Capitol right now."

  "Meaning what?" asked the President.

  "Sir," said Anderson, "the situation there is ongoing. The DC police went in and they set something off. The Republican protestors resisted being arrested and then a lot of the rest of the mob got involved in the situation as well."

  "Ok, ok," said the President, standing up and beginning to pace the room, "then what is going on, exactly?"

  "Anarchy," replied the Chief of Staff.

  Office of the Speaker of the House, U.S. Capitol

  "Look at what you've done!" said Michael Halverson as he stabbed an accusatory figure in the direction of Terrance Rickover.

  "What I've done?" said Rickover.

  "The whole of the Capitol grounds are a damned warzone," said the Speaker of the House, "with people engaged in running fist-fights, with the police trying to step in where they can but with the crowd too big to disperse without a lot more force than the DC police have – even if the Capitol police were to be sent in to join them. We'd need soldiers to restore order at this point."

  "That's an accurate description of the situation," said the Majority Leader, "but you are misplacing the fault. All of the responsibility for what has happened here rests with an out-of-control President who has tried to take the office he inherited and to transform it into a dictatorship."

  "All of this," said the distraught Speaker, "could have been resolved through ordinary channels and in the fullness of time. With compromise and common sense. But you had to have everything and you had to have it now. You stirred up passions that never ought to have been and this is the result."

  "It would be helpful," said the Senate Majority Leader, a grey-haired Republican from Arizona, "if we could call upon people to leave. If enough heed those calls, the crowd might be reduced to such a degree that ordinary law enforcement could bring it to heel, without having to do something as extraordinary as call in the Army to secure the Capitol grounds."

  "No, gentlemen," said Rickover.

  The Speaker threw up his hands and marched over into the corner of the room, theatrically leaning up against the wall.

  "You have to listen to reason, Terrance," said the Senator from Arizona, "we have a duty to the country that transcends partisanship."

  "You're Goddamned right that we do," said the House Majority Leader, "and that is why I will not back down or equivocate. I believe that we should deploy the Capitol Police to defend the legitimate rights of American citizens to demonstrate upon the Capitol grounds."

  "That would mean," interjected the House Minority Leader, "potentially putting the Capitol Police force up against the DC police! That could lead to fighting between two difference police agencies upon the Capitol grounds."

  "I hope that it does not," said Rickover, "but I think that we should be prepared for that eventuality."

  "This has not been a very productive conversation," said the Senate Minority Leader.

  "Mr. Speaker!" said Rickover, turning towards the corner where Halverson was standing.

  "Yes," said Halverson with a deep sigh.

  "Are you telling me... Telling us, right now that you will do nothing to assist those American citizens out there who are being assaulted by a so-called police force that, acting under the color of law, is aiming to deprive them of their civil
rights?"

  "What I'm telling you, Terry," replied the Speaker, "is that the time has come to bring this dangerous experiment to an end, before it gets out of control."

  "It is already out of control," said the Majority Leader.

  "Then end it!" shouted the Speaker, taking a step towards Rickover. Rickover stepped towards Halverson and leaned forward.

  "No," he hissed, then turned about and marched out of the room.

  US Capitol Grounds

  Martin Green wasn't sure exactly where he was. The sounds of the crowd were deafening as myriad chants and shouts combined into a single indistinguishable cacophony of noise.

  The DC Police had come in during the middle of the night and ordered his group and others to disperse.

  "Are we all being ordered to disperse?" the leader of the encampment that Green had joined had shouted, loud enough for everyone around him to hear.

  "I don't know, sir," the police officer had declared, "I just know that my orders are for you to disperse and that I will execute those orders."

  "I don't see anyone approaching any of them!" the leader shouted, pointing at the nearby mob of pro-Administration protestors with whom they had been trading insults.

  "Sir, I am ordering you to move immediately," the police officer robotically repeated.

  Reluctantly and slowly the defenders of liberty, largely being people accustomed to obeying the rules, prepared to pack up and move under protest. But then, in Green's area and countless others, something had happened. Someone had thrown a rock or another object at one of the police officers. Within seconds events escalated beyond control. The local leader said something that, in the opinion of the police officer just feet in front of him, had gone too far and the police officer responded by employing his taser against him. In response to that, or perhaps to some other provocation, another one of the protesters threw a punch and a scramble had begun, with two police officers working to wrestle another one of the protestors to the ground. That had been too much for the pro-Administration forces, just a few dozen feet away, to resist and they had charged in to attempt to confront the pro-Congress demonstrators, resulting in a string of new fist fights that the most dutiful of the DC police officers were now forced to attempt to break up.