by Adam Yoshida
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 g
round. 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.
That, reflected Green, had been five and a half hours earlier.
As it turned out the DC police had severely underestimated the number of people who were surrounding the Capitol in support of the position of the Congressional Republicans inside. Their intelligence unit had told them that there were no more than a thousand or so against a hundred thousand or more gathering for the demonstrations in support of President Bryan. However, by the time that they had moved in the numbers were actually more like ten thousand versus one hundred and twenty thousand. However, those ten thousand contained a disproportionate number of veterans and current and former law enforcement officials as well as people who had been preparing for years for violent confrontations with the tyrannical state. As a result the police had been repulsed at almost all points, the resources allocated to the effort having proven to be wholly inadequate to the task at hand. Instead, they had made the situation exponentially worse by triggering fighting between radical elements on both sides throughout the day.
Green took a step back to check his phone. In his haste, he had failed to bring a charger with him but, fortunately, a lot of the people who had come out to demonstrate against the President were well-prepared survivalists so there was no shortage of portable power and charging equipment for electronic devices and his phone happened to use a pretty standard connector. The latest rumors were that four people were dead in the fighting. Green didn’t want to believe it, but he did. Reinforcements had been making their way to the encampments of both sides throughout the day, with the overall gain being to the anti-Administration side, whose ranks had now swelled to nearly thirty thousand people.
The DC police had tried to use tear gas and other non-lethal weapons, but of no avail against a crowd of that size. The gas had wafted away from the people they were shooting and over the people they were ostensibly there to protect. How could, in such a situation as this, one reliably distinguish between friend and foe? Without other good options, the people in the crowd had been left to fight it out.
Now, drenched in sweat, Green stepped back from the melee to lock across the Mall and at the setting sun. A hundred thousand Americans had spent their day biting, punching, and scratching. Perhaps some of those were dead already. Certainly, Green knew, some would be before whatever was beginning here was over. The sun, he reflected, was setting on a different country than it had risen over.
U.S. House of Representatives
Unusually enough, almost every member of the House was on the floor. Normally this sort of activity was reserved for events like the State of the Union. Even during major votes, the norm was for members to drift on and off, for speeches to be given to C-SPAN cameras rather than colleagues. But, tonight, barely a seat was free.
“The House will come to order,” the Speaker Pro Tempore gaveled the session into being.
The Speaker of the House did not have the gavel, because he would not be able to speak from the chair. Instead he was in the front row, waiting to be recognized.
“Mr. Speaker!” shouted the Congressman Nelson of Colorado, straining to be recognized amid a chorus of shouts.
“The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota,” said the Speaker Pro Tempore, a carefully trained junior Congressman from New York.
“Thank you, Mr. Speaker,” said Halverson as he rose to speak, “tonight is obviously a moment of extreme importance...”
“Point of order!” shouted Nelson and around a dozen others.
“The gentleman from Colorado is recognized,” said the Speaker Pro Tempore after a moment of hesitation.
“Mr. Speaker, I request that I be recognized by the Chair prior to my colleague from Minnesota, as I intend to make a motion that is Constitutionally-privileged under the rules of the House and must, therefore, take precedence before other business.”
“The point...” said the Speaker Pro Tempore after a moment of consideration and a few whispered words from the parliamentarian, “is not well-taken.”
“I rise to appeal the decision of the chair,” said Nelson, as a dozen other members of the House rose to shout their seconds.
“Oh, come on,” said the Speaker, his voice laced with disgust.
“Very well,” said the Speaker Pro Tempore, “the question is whether the decision of the chair shall stand. All of those in favor?”
Approximately half of the House shouted their approval.
“And all those opposed?”
The other half of the House roared their disapproval.
“...The nays appear to have it,” said the Speaker Pro Tempore without any real conviction.
“Mr. Speaker,” said Congressman Nelson, “I demand a recorded vote.”
“Well,” whispered Nelson to Rickover as the electronic vote commenced, “this is really it.”
“It’s a test,” said Rickover, “the Speaker engineered this as a test of initial strength. He might be able to wheel and deal based upon the results of this vote. But, if we lose, we’re totally fucking done.”
“What are we going to do if we do get control of the House and the President still refuses to come to his senses?”
“Michael, my friend,” said Rickover, patting the Congressman on the knee, “I don’t have the first fucking clue.”
The White House
“No one is sure whether the votes are there, or whether a few stubborn people might throw off the result by voting on the actual question rather than the proxy question,” said Anderson quietly as the President watched events on a television in the residence, where he had gone to get some badly-needed rest.
“There are always those stupid fuckers,” said the President, his voice drained.
“We’ve gotten more word from the events at the Capitol today,” added Anderson as the vote count on the screen continued to see-saw, “there were actually seven deaths, three hundred and four arrests and perhaps a few thousand injuries.”
“Events, dear boy, events,” said the President distractedly.
“Macmillian,” said Anderson, “yeah, that stupid motherfucker at City Hall pulled one on us. Still, if this goes on through tomorrow, we’re going to have to consider sending in the Army to restore order and disperse everyone. The sooner the better. There have only been a few incidents of gunplay amid the protestors so far, but it won’t be long before someone opens up with an assault rifle on one side or the other.”
“Fuck,” said the President, raising his finger and pointing towards the screen.
U.S. House of Representatives
“By a vote of 213-217, the nays have it. The decision of the chair is overturned. The gentleman from Colorado may make his motion,” said the Speaker Pro Tempore.
“Mr. Speaker,” said Nelson, “I move that we declare the Speakership to be vacant and immediately commence a new election.”
“Is there a second?” said the Speaker Pro Tempore only be overwhelmed by shouts.
“Very well, is there any debate on the motion?”
The whole House exploded.
U.S. Capitol Grounds
The volume around the Capitol and across the Mall had dropped tenfold. But it was far from silent. All one could hear, wherever you went, were the sounds of a forty thousand individual devices streaming the events inside and a hundred and fifty thousands voices debating the implications of the events inside in hushed tones.
If the Congress would not yield...
If the President would not move...
What then?
Christopher Sorensen had been late to the day’s events. He had stayed at work until he was done for the day and then he had lingered a little longer, knowing what he had to do but also that it would be likely to have a baleful effect upon his personal life. Ye
t, at the same time he knew that there come moments in the destinies of nations when the desires of an individual shrink to insignificance. Shortly after arriving at the Capitol grounds, he was elated to spot a friend.
“Martin!” he shouted. For a moment Martin Green failed to look away from his tablet, transfixed on the events within. Then he looked across the grounds at his friend and waved.
“Chris!” he said in a low-toned shout as he waved him on over.
“No one has a new count,” he said as Sorensen walked up next to him.
The Speaker of the House was talking now, his voice eerily drifting across the night sky from thousands of small and slightly out-of-sync speakers.
“...This is not about ambition. Given a choice, I would gladly yield my place to another,” said Halverson, “but what this is about in the future and meaning of this country. I do not approve of the course that this President has taken, as I have not approved of many courses by many previous Presidents and just as I hope – and expect – to disapprove of many more in the days to come. You think that he has gone too far. I think that he has gone too far.”
“But I also know that the decision to oppose this President and this Administration in such strident and unyielding a tone is dangerous to the future of this nation. I believe that it will have terrible consequences. That – not my desire to retain the Speakership – is why I ask you to vote no tonight.”
“The gentleman from Colorado is recognized,” said the presiding officer, as Michael Nelson rose to speak.
“Mr. Speaker,” said the Colorado Representative, “I have heard my friend, the Speaker, say this evening that he fears that some in this nation have come to a place where they can only say “no.” I would put it to the Speaker, Mr. Speaker, that it is not a matter that we can only say “no”, but that we must say “no.” This is a nation born out of that one majestic word.
