The Second Civil War- The Complete History

by Adam Yoshida

“I think that,” replied the Secretary of Defense, “that there is a general consensus that there is no longer one American government and that the rule of a single government over the whole of this nation cannot, at this juncture, be established by force.”

  “You’re asking me,” shot back the President, “to go down in history as the President who lost America.”

  “I’m asking you,” said the Secretary, his voice almost pleading now, “to go down in history as a man who recognized that one thing was over and something new was about to begin.”

  “I want your fucking resignation,” demanded the President.

  “No, Mr. President,” replied Ransom.

  “Then you’re fired,” said the President.

  “No, I don’t think I am,” replied the Secretary as he leaned back calmly in his chair. The President glared at him for a moment, contemplating his options. After a pause whose duration seemed to be practically infinite, the Secretary got up and buttoned his jacket.

  “If that will be all, Mr. President,” he said, “I believe that I am needed at the Pentagon.”

  Bryan and everyone in the room sat and remained still as the Secretary, followed by his cadre of aides, turned and left the room.

  No. 10 Downing Street, London, United Kingdom

  The Prime Minister sat at his desk and reviewed the latest round of reports on his notebook as he waited for the rest of the members of the conference call to come on the line.

  “We have a direct line to the Cubans?” he asked the Foreign Secretary as he reviewed one briefing document.

  “We’ve been in touch with Havana the entire time,” replied Sir Gavin, “even when they were taking orders from the Mayor.”

  “Alright,” said Blunt, “let them know that all of this is approved.”

  The automated voice on the call announced that another party had come online.

  “I think that’s everyone,” said the Foreign Secretary.

  “Very well,” said the Prime Minister, “do we have everyone on the line?”

  “Ja,” replied the Chancellor.

  “Oui. I’m here,” said the French President.

  “I’m also here,” added Aldo Scotti.

  A chorus of voices followed their own, indicating that the entire panoply of European officialdom was present.

  “Alright,” began the Prime Minister, “as the United Kingdom presently has the honour of holding the presidency of the council, I will begin. Before I say much, I will tell you that some of what you are about to hear will come as a very deep shock. I regret that it was not possible to inform you earlier, but events have moved at a very rapid pace. This rapidity has prevented us from engaging in the sort of through and democratic consultation that we would normally prefer. That being said, this is still very exciting news.”

  “Myself, Chancellor Solf, and President Cuvier have, acting with the very able assistance of our own foreign ministries and ministers, as well as that of the European Commission, have developed a plan to end the war in America and to restore peace to the world. We will do this while expanding the rule of just and equitable government to even more lands. Together we have charted the way towards a progressive future for the human race.”

  “We have spoken to many senior government officials in America, all of whom have indicated to ourselves their profound desire for peace. Based upon this desire, we have negotiated a framework for that peace. If certain element in the former United States wish to continue to resist the modern world until the bitter end, then that is their right: we will not assail them and we know that we cannot conquer them. We will not try to do so. Instead, we ask no more than that those states recognize the fact that the states arrayed in opposition to them have the same rights as they do.”

  “There can be no final victory in the war between the American states. Both sides recognize this in their own way. The Rebel forces can never conquer their opponents. The Rebels will never submit to force. So be it. Let us recognize that a stalemate exists and, proceeding from that recognition, let us move forward.”

  “Therefore, I am very proud to announce that, as of this evening, representatives of the European Commission have concluded agreements with the Governors of California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Illinois, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, as well as the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of the Republic of Quebec. Together these will form a new entity, to be known as the Federation of North American States. All of them have agreed, pending the ratification of this agreement by both all of the involved parties, to become a member of the European Union which would, upon the accession of this entity, become hereafter known as the Democratic Union. We expect that more jurisdictions will likewise conclude similar agreements in the days to come. We welcome this development.”

  West Houston and the Avenue of the Americas, Manhattan

  At first Colonel Durham and the rest of his officers had written off the reports coming to them as the sort of wild rumors that tend to spread in any war: the notion that the better part of a brigade of enemy soldiers had suddenly shown up in Hell’s Kitchen and were now marching towards Lower Manhattan and the primary base of his Marine battalion was simply too absurd to give any credence to. But then the pictures and footage had begun to tumble into the headquarters, proving that the threat was a reality.

  “Jesus,” said Major Latifpour, “where the fuck did they get Cubans from?”

  “The fuck if I know,” replied Colonel Durham, “the S-2’s best guess is that they were loaded onto one or more of the cruise ships that were docked, but that’s just conjecture for the moment. We’re trying to get something into the air that way to get a better look, but all we have in those terms are a handful of borrowed traffic and medivac choppers. Anyways, they’re here and they’re coming - the why and the blame that follows it can probably wait.”

  “And now,” said Latifpour, “I hear that they’ve got their own fucking helicopters.”

  “Well,” said Durham, “we do have our own MANPADS.”

  “For what little good they’ll do,” spat back Latifpour.

  “We’ll do what Marines do,” replied Durham, “fight them for as long as we Goddamned can.”

  The Oval Office, Washington, DC

  “I don’t know how they could do that,” said President Kevin Bryan contemplatively as he threw back another shot from the bottle of vodka that he’d hidden in his desk.

  “Mr. President…” said Jamal Anderson gently.

  “No, Jamal,” said the President, “don’t bother. Sit down and have a drink with me.”

  “Sir…” said Anderson. The President met his eyes.

  “Drink with me, Jamal.”

  The White House Chief of Staff sat down in front of the Resolute desk. The President poured him a healthy helping of Grey Goose and slid it across the desk.

  “All I wanted to do is to help people,” said the President.

  “I know, sir,” said Anderson as he took a tentative sip of his vodka.

  “I said drink with me,” said the President as he tossed back another shot. Anderson took a longer sip of the vodka and sat the glass down on the desk.

  “I never trusted that fucker,” said Bryan as he pointed towards the television.

  “He wasn’t such a bad guy,” replied Anderson, loosening his tie and leaning back in his chair, “he just wasn’t up to the job. He either couldn’t make up his mind or he was firmly fixed behind half-considered positions on issues that he didn’t know anything about.”

  “In other words, he wasn’t evil, but he was shitty as his job.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way, but someone could,” said Anderson.

  “And what are people going to say about me, Jamal?” said Bryan, as he got up from his chair and walked towards the window.

  “What will they say,” he said as he squinted at the fading sun off in the distance, “about the last President of the United States?”

  “I wouldn’t say that just ye
t, Mr. President,” replied Anderson, “after all: there is another.”

  “Hadn’t thought about that,” said Bryan with a slight chuckle, “the only hope that there will be another President of the United States - of all of the United States - is that Terrance Fucking Rickover wins. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “I keep looking at the door,” said Anderson, “do you think that they’ll come through that door?”

  “I don’t know,” replied the President, “I think that they’re going to be content just to let us wither on the vine so long as they’ve got the Pentagon and most of the rest of the actual government.”

  “I think he’s about to be on,” said Anderson, gesturing towards the screen.

  Chicago, Illinois

  The former President adjusted his tie just before he stepped before the cameras. He’d spent the entire afternoon rehearsing his short statement, working with multiple aides to get it just right. Even then, he’d had to quickly inhale a large portion of a joint just before be stepped out to get himself right. Even with all of the preparation work completed in advance, he was nonetheless grateful that his trusty teleprompter had been set up, as it had been during every day of his Administration, to tell him just what to say.

  “Good evening, my fellow Americans,” began the former President, “it is with a truly deep sense of sorrow that I find myself before you tonight. I thought that I had laid down my duties and ended my days in political office long ago. Public necessity, however, requires that I once again step into the light.”

  “I have, over recent years, attempted to avoid intervening excessively in politics. I believed that I owed at least that level of deference to my successors, to let them find their own way in office - and their own way to lead this nation forward.”

  “And yet, we now find ourselves at an impasse. Now, allow me to be very clear: the blame for this impasse does not rest equally upon both sides. There is now, as there has been for many years, a fanatical faction in this country that is willing to entertain no compromise and is willing to go to any length to defend their privilege. I did my best to fight them and I gave at least as good as I got. This faction, however, is unyielding and impossible. They would not stop fighting, no matter the evidence and facts that went against them. My successors proved incapable of stemming the tide of their advance, as I might well have if I had still been in office.”

  “Today we find ourselves with a choice to make about the future. Do we hold on to the discredited ideas of the past - ideas that bind us to backwards obstructionists - or do we agree, here and now, to set out to build something new and fresh?”

  “My fellow citizens of the world: the time has come for all of us to break with the past and look forward, together, towards a newer and freer future for all humanity.”

  “And what sort of future would that be? May we find some compromise between ourselves and those in Colorado and elsewhere who insist upon blind adherence to literal interpretations of ancient doctrines and documents? Even if we were to find ourselves again contained within a single country, how could we ever agree? And, if we were to find such agreement and unity - perhaps by the adoption of the new Constitution proposed by the Rebels - would we be moving towards a better future or a repressive past?”

  “Throughout this crisis, certain officials of both the existing Federal Government as well as senior officials in the states have been preparing for the worst even as we have been hoping for the best. We have known for quite some time that it would take a miracle to reunite the states on progressive lines. That miracle has not materialized. Given this, we have to make hard choices about the future.”

  “Do we cling to the things that we love - the principles, the flag, the history - and endure the intolerable? Or do we forge ourselves a new way forward.”

  “Furthermore, senior officials of the Federal Government - from Secretary Ransom on down - have, I am very sorry to say, concluded that President Bryan is no longer capable of leading this nation. Yet, at the same time, due to the absence of a Vice President, the use of the 25th Amendment to remove the President from office is not possible. Nor, given the present state of this nation, is an election a practical alternative.”

  “Given this, the best alternative is to establish a new Federal Government. If the Rebels want the name of the United States so much, let them keep it. Let us begin something new. This is a proposal that has already been accepted by the Governors of numerous states. The creation of a new Federation of North American States will allow our country to get a fresh start - and for us to begin a Second Founding with new principles that include human needs and empathy at the core of everything that we do. Membership in this new Federation will be open to any group of people who vote for it. I fully expect that the populations of many states will do exactly that in the months ahead.”

  “However, we are still faced with the vexing matter of what to do with today. Hostilities continue across multiple fronts. Major battles are being waged at this very moment. Someone must act today.”

  “In this spirit it is with great reluctance, but also great hope for the future, that I have accepted an offer extended jointly by the Governors of New York, Illinois, and California, endorsed by the members of the existing European Commission, to return to public life and to serve, in a temporary capacity, as the first American commissioner to the High Commission of the Democratic Union, an organization that will be formed to bring unity between all peaceful and progressive states. Part of my duties, as the Commissioner, will be to oversee the orderly end of hostilities on this continent. As such, the Governors of all of the states who have already agreed to join this new nation have agreed to, on a temporary basis, delegate to me the role of Commander-in-Chief of all military, intelligence, and other forces here in North America prior to the creation of a joint Democratic Union command and to the complete organization of the Federation of North American States.”

  “Now, allow me to be very clear: we do not reject America. We aren’t going to stop being Americans. What we reject is the poisonous politics of the past. What we reject is the notion that the wealth of this nation should be concentrated and owned by a very few. What we reject is the long and awful history of discrimination based upon race, preferred gender, and sexual orientation. That is what we reject.”

  “There will be those - even those who otherwise support our cause - who have concerns that we do this thing not alone, but in partnership with our many friends in Europe. I say to you that that is something we must reject as well. Xenophobia has no place in the twenty-first century.”

  “My fellow Americans: let us choose peace. There are fanatics on both sides who would choose war now and war forever. Let us reject those voices. That isn’t what the overwhelming majority of the people of the United States want, whatever their ideology might be. Let us reject those voices that demand unending war and instead accept peace on the terms that are on offer today.”

  Temporary Seat of the Government of the United States, Colorado Springs, Colorado

  Acting President Terrance Rickover watched as the clock in front of him slowly ticked down. There had been much debate about exactly what how the President’s office in the Colorado Springs complex ought to look. A clone or near-clone of the Oval Office, some argued, would feel immediately inauthentic - it would make the government in Colorado look exactly like what the Loyalists claimed it to be: a pale clone of the real thing in Washington. On the other hand, a too-temporary or excessively-austere approach could give off the appearance of impermanence. Eventually, the small committee charged with this peripheral-yet-important task had decided to take wholly another tack: they had turned the office of the (Acting) President in Colorado into a modern technological marvel, a wholly functional place where bare metal walls were augmented by technology and furniture that was entirely functional in nature. It was meant to evoke, in those who saw it, a sense of awe and majesty. It had, in this, been a less-than-complete success, with one critic describing it as, �
��a cross between the bridge of the Enterprise and the office of a Wall Street CEO.” Rickover, however, rather liked it: the office was functional and yet it had gravitas.

  The count on the screen hit zero and it was time for the Acting President to speak.

  “My fellow Americans,” began Rickover as he began to deliberately echo Churchill, “I address you today in a solemn hour for the life of our country, of the world, and of the cause of liberty. Tremendous battles are raging in Arizona and New York. The forces of the enemy have, by soliciting the intervention of third parties in our civil conflict, managed to assemble a vast host with which to engage our forces in the Southwest. It was only by the resort to the most extreme measures that our forces overseas managed to escape destruction by treachery. And now it would seem that some of those same enemies which have intervened in our internal conflict have now announced that their intention is to divide our nation forever.”

  “There are those who say that the division of America is already an accomplished fact and that the proposal announced today by the leaders of the European Union is an inevitability. I do not for a moment believe that. America is one and indivisible. I will - and I believe that I speak for the overwhelming majority of Americans when I say this - carry on the fight so long as there is an single ounce of strength remaining in my being. America will never be divided and those who attempt to destroy it will pay a fearsome price indeed.”

  “The fixed policy of this Administration - and this country - will be to carry on this fight to the bitter end. We will never abandon America, even if this fight lasts for decades, even if the war goes on forever.”

  “Yet,” added the President, “I have confidence that it will not be so. Americans - all Americans - love our nation and will not allow it to be subsumed by some awkward and ungeometric blob. We will never surrender ourselves to the regulation and government of foreign commissars.”