Echo Chamber

by A. C. Fuller

  I'm early, so I find a shady spot under a tree and check the TrueSecret app for the hundredth time today.

  Still nothing.

  Bottling my frustration, I open Twitter to get a sense of how the events are playing online. Before I get far, though, I stop on an article from Politico. The headline reads: Unexpected Endorsement Not Enough to Shake Up Ameritocracy Rankings.

  Politico has been covering major developments in our competition and publishing the daily movement in our polls. I usually don't read them, but the words "Unexpected Endorsement" get me to click.

  In a surprise, 1988 Democratic Presidential nominee Payton Rhodes appeared at Avery Axum's town hall meeting and gave the law professor his endorsement.

  Calling Axum "the strongest candidate in the field," Rhodes became the most prominent Democrat to make an official endorsement in the upstart political competition.

  But his endorsement doesn't seem to carry much weight with Ameritocracy voters. Overnight, Axum's position remained unchanged. Currently, the top seven stands at:

  1. Peter Colton—The well-known tech billionaire appears to be in the driver's seat as the competition enters its last day.

  2. Maria Ortiz Morales—The veteran turned congresswoman keeps fighting, though questions about her past keep her out of the top spot.

  3. Tanner Futch—Despite a slew of arrests at a BBQ gone awry, Futch's loyal following is keeping him steady in the rankings.

  4. Justine Hall—An impressive event yesterday has pundits and voters alike calling Hall "presidential" and "electable," two words every politician loves to hear leading up to a vote.

  5. Beverly Johnson—The common-sense conservative from Western Washington has a clear message: Do It For The Children. And despite her lack of political experience, it's a message that seems to resonate with Ameritocracy voters.

  6. Avery Axum—Despite the endorsement from Rhodes, Axum's wonkish brand of intellectual conservatism seems to have a cap at number six. But give it to the old man for sticking around this long in the Twitter age.

  7. Marlon Dixon—The fiery minister from Abilene led longer than any Ameritocracy candidate, but the recent controversy over his stance on abortion has left Dixon barely clinging to the seventh spot.

  Since the article came out this morning, our rankings have changed little. On the strength of his interfaith event and softening from a few women's groups, Dixon climbed from seven to six, dropping Axum to seventh by a very small margin.

  The article is right about Axum. In the Twitter age, with shorter news cycles and dwindling attention spans, it's a miracle that a professor who thinks in paragraphs instead of sound bites would stick around this long.

  Honestly, I'm proud I helped get his ideas out there. He won't win, but maybe he's influenced someone. Maybe they'll fight their own battle for carefully-considered, complex ideas. And maybe they'll win.

  I look up from my phone as a man adjusts a microphone on stage. Morales stands behind him, waiting to speak.

  The Politico article has me thinking. Given that Axum has no chance of winning, why would my father endorse him? It's possible he told me the truth—that he was compelled by a pang of conscience—but I don't think so.

  Politicians don't make endorsements lightly, even retired ones. The more I consider it, the less likely it seems that my father would endorse Axum purely out of a sense of patriotic duty.

  I consider whether he's doing the bidding of the Democratic party, supporting a right-leaning candidate in hopes that an Axum win would help the Democrats in the general. The fact that he's attending the Democratic convention in Philadelphia supports this theory. But if that's the plan, why not support Futch or Johnson, right-leaning candidates with a much better shot of winning Ameritocracy?

  Another thought occurs to me: surely the Democratic party knows Peter is likely to win. Everyone knows this. Assuming my father is working with the party again, maybe it's not an attempt to sway Ameritocracy to a candidate to pull votes from Republicans in the general. Maybe it's something else.

  Why do politicians make endorsements?

  The microphone crackles, then pops. "Is this thing on?"

  The audience yells "Yes!" in near unison.

  Maria Ortiz Morales steps to the microphone.

  I want to listen to her speech, but I can't get the question out of my head. If my father is working with the Democratic party again, it's in the service of their nominee, Joaquin Herrera. So if he's ultimately serving Herrera, what does the endorsement accomplish?

  Pushing this to the back of my mind, I tune into Morales's speech for a moment. "Since the first Gulf war, over sixty thousand Purple Hearts have been awarded to U.S. service men and women and their families. A better number would have been zero. I was awarded a Purple Heart myself, and I'm honored to have it, but I'll be honest: I'd rather have my leg back.

  "Despite what you may have heard from lying online attackers, I lost my leg in Afghanistan, and I'd do it again. I'd give my other leg if we could get rid of the Taliban and the terrorists who took thousands of lives on 9/11. But we didn't get rid of them. They, and their spiritual successors, ISIS, control more territory now than in 2001. We went to war and they won."

  Morales gives that a moment to land in the crowd. Grumbling and even a smattering of boos bubble up, along with quiet applause.

  Perhaps Morales feels she needs to focus on the topic of the military because her own experience has been so publicly called into question, but I can't help but contrast this event to Hall's. Telling voters we lost a war—even if true—isn't an effective way to win their support.

  As she continues, I listen with half my mind as my reflections on the Democratic ticket swirl through the other half.

  I picture Herrera, along with Evan Westbrook, the Republican nominee. Both cling to the center of their parties. On many issues they agree. Westbrook chose far-right evangelical Christian Michelle Harris as his running mate. That will solidify the Republican base and lock up some southern states.

  To appease the Democratic base, the rumor is that Herrera will choose liberal Oregon governor Cynthia Bell, who would serve the same function on her ticket as Harris does for the GOP. She'd turn out base states like Washington, California and Oregon, while energizing progressives all over.

  Some pundits—including my Zimbabwean Uber driver—argue that Herrera would be better served by choosing a moderate Democrat. Since Herrera will win the western states anyway, why not double down on the center and focus on the need for stability and compromise? If Herrera selects a moderate, the Democrats can effectively paint Michelle Harris as an out-of-touch radical. Whereas if he selects Bell, he opens himself up to the idea that he's controlled by the far left of his party.

  I keep coming back to my father's support for Axum in particular. The more I think about it, the more I see there's no way he could support Futch or Johnson. They're too far outside the establishment. Futch because of his views, and Johnson for her lack of political experience.

  If my father supported either of them, it would come back to bite the Democrats in the general. It would be painted as an irresponsible effort to tip Ameritocracy toward a spoiler candidate. Axum is a moderate. An establishment voice respected on the left and right. Thinking ahead to the general, an endorsement of Axum could play as a responsible move. A prudent, reasonable action by a reliable centrist.

  Morales is still talking. I'm half-listening because I need to hear it, but my mind is far away. "If we're going to keep saying the troops defend our freedom, as we ought to, we need to be more careful about how we deploy those troops. We need to stop getting our bravest and most loyal citizens killed and wounded for cheap political points, for war profiteers, and for meaningless macho rhetoric. Today I'm here, at the memorial honoring the women who served in Vietnam, to unveil a new doctrine for the use of American military force around the world."

  I stop listening suddenly as my chest constricts.

  An image appears in my mind an
d hangs there. Like a shocking video on YouTube, once I see it, I can't unsee it. It's as though it's been there all along, like a memory I unearthed.

  But it's not a memory. It's a vision of the future.

  It's the image of Joaquin Herrera accepting the Democratic nomination. The crowd screams, balloons and confetti fall from the ceiling as he drapes an arm around his nominee for vice-president.

  My father, Payton Rhodes.

  17

  "Sauvignon blanc, please," I tell the bartender.

  I'm sitting at a wide mahogany bar off the lobby of the hotel, waiting for Steph.

  The bartender turns to a small fridge and returns with an open bottle.

  "Just leave the bottle," I say as he pours a glass. "It's been one of those days."

  He tilts his head back, trying to figure out whether I'm serious. "I'll keep it right here in the fridge for you, ma'am."

  The guy looks late twenties, so the ma'am stings, but I chalk it up as another slight to put the cap on a couple terrible days.

  I made appearances at the final events of every candidate other than Peter, and that's about all I have going for me. I have a paranoid vision of my father re-entering politics as the vice-presidential nominee. Peter may have caused the suicide of a famous actor because he was our leading candidate. And now he appears to be doing something so shady I'm not even sure it's technologically possible.

  To top it off, Steph is still pissed at me, though at least she's coming to meet for a drink.

  I declined my invitation to Peter's final event, but it's my duty to know what's going on with every aspect of the competition, so I pull the livestream up on my laptop. I slide to the corner of the mostly-empty bar so the sound won't disturb anyone if I listen quietly.

  The event is called Designing a Global Future, and seems to be about international business and foreign policy. He's rounded up business and political leaders from half a dozen countries, mostly European and Asian, along with a few retired diplomats and even some international movie and sports stars. Like Justine Hall's event, Peter's final speech has a "presidential" vibe.

  As the video feed begins, Peter says, "I want a world in which countries don't make war, they do business. Where international competition means racing to invent the most revolutionary technologies to serve mankind, not the most devastating weapons to destroy it."

  His speech is so well written it sours my mood another note, and I minimize the window, leaving the volume on, while opening my email program.

  To keep my sanity, I deleted the email app from my phone, so I now read email only on my laptop. The upside is that I'm not constantly checking emails throughout the day. The downside is, on days like today, I have six hundred new emails, and I'm already way behind responding to emails. At this point, it's quite possible I owe everyone on earth an email.

  My strategy is a quick scan, where I locate any urgent emails, forward any that someone else can handle, and delete all the ones that aren't relevant. Usually, that's over half of them. I scan down from the top, the most recent emails.

  Death threat.

  Death threat.

  I forward the first two to Damon, a part-time security guy we hired to organize all the threats made against Ameritocracy and report them to the local police, the FBI, or whoever the appropriate authorities are. They used to bother me more. I guess I've learned to live with them.

  Question for Justine Hall.

  I forward to her campaign manager.

  Question that's answered in FAQ.

  I paste in a pre-canned answer, referring them to the FAQ.

  Death threat.

  Rape threat.

  Death threat.

  Again, I forward these to Damon, shaking my head at the way "fans" of the site can threaten violence, usually because of a perceived slight against their favorite candidate.

  Job offer.

  I've gotten a lot of these over the last few months, but the number increases as we get closer to the finale. This one is from Encounter Books, a six-figure offer to write a memoir about Ameritocracy. I pause to fantasize about life after Ameritocracy, sitting with a coffee and working on my magnum opus. I add the email to the Job offer folder, mentally subcategorizing it as Book deal offer.

  Dad.

  His email thanks me for meeting with him, wishes me good luck with the finale, and concludes with what seems to be a job offer. "The winner of Ameritocracy would have to be crazy not to offer you a job, but if someone you don't want to work for wins, you could come work for the Democrats. They need sharp political minds like yours, and I could get you a position."

  I won't throw myself down the rabbit hole by asking him why he endorsed Axum. I add the message to the Job offer folder.

  Marriage proposal.

  I read this one, embarrassed when I find myself hoping the sender attached a picture. No photo, and he appears to be an inmate at a maximum security prison. I add it to the Job offer folder.

  Skipping past more death threats, I come to something interesting. The subject reads:

  Peter Colton's Secret Past and Secret Plans

  I scan the email once, as usual. I get many emails with alluring subject lines, then click through only to find they're "cleverly" disguised death threats. I'm about to dismiss this one when a phrase pops out that stops me.

  …the first king of the United States of America.

  As Peter's speech continues on low volume in the background, I read the email slowly, from the beginning.

  Dear Ms. Rhodes,

  I know this message comes to you from out of the blue, but I think you need to have the information I have. I won't give you my name, and the email address from which I've contacted you is untraceable.

  This message regards the secret plans of Peter Colton, your leading candidate and, unless you stop it, the first king of the United States of America.

  I know this sounds insane, but hear me out.

  Nine years ago, an anonymous writer posted a document on Reddit entitled The Technomonarchist Manifesto. From there, it spread online and became the foundational document in a fringe movement favored mostly by young, techy libertarians.

  I recall the document he's talking about. It's a weird outlier that moves around the fringes of the internet, like the carefully-compiled YouTube videos that "prove" our government is run by alien reptile shapeshifters, and other such nonsense.

  The argument of The Technomonarchist Manifesto is that democracy is inefficient, and only the free market, specifically as manifested in the technological sector, can produce the perfect leader who will make firm and correct decisions due to his (and it always says "his") superior intelligence, without the "inefficiencies" of voting, representation, or judicial review. It's got a lot of desperate justification about how technology, rather than finance or resource extraction, is the only industry that can produce a true all-powerful leader.

  I continue reading.

  Because the Manifesto was posted anonymously, fans have been trying for years to figure out who wrote it. It's also been a preoccupation of people like me, those who recognize the possibility that information technology, while excellent for many things, has the potential to be used by tyrants and dictators to achieve domination and control on a global level.

  Many speculate that your former candidate Orin Gottlieb wrote the document. He's a prominent libertarian, but I don't believe he's fundamentally power-hungry. And I don't believe he's insane.

  Others believe PayPal founder Peter Thiel wrote it because of that line of his about how democracy and freedom are incompatible. I spent two months comparing the word choice and sentence structure in the Manifesto to everything Thiel has said, and I can say with confidence that he's not the author.

  The textual analysis led me to another conclusion. The author of The Technomonarchist Manifesto is almost certainly Peter Colton.

  Attached, you'll find a PDF containing my research. I've used a custom-designed algorithm to locate word choices, syntax, and ph
rasing patterns in the Manifesto and in Peter's speeches. I've also used old-fashioned textual analysis and found patterns of metaphor use that match as well.

  Peter Colton wrote the document. He plans to use Ameritocracy to become president and, eventually, king.

  If you think this is impossible in America, I ask you to re-think how much you know about technology. I ask you to re-think how much you know about the vulnerability of the human mind and the vulnerability of the democratic institutions it created.

  I urge you to do everything you can to stop him before it's too late.

  -Anonymous

  In the early days of Ameritocracy, we had a candidate who openly stated that he followed the tenets of The Technomonarchist Manifesto. His arguments were a mess. He blended the worst aspects of libertarianism with old-fashioned feudalism, arguing that efficiency in government is the highest ideal. And what's the most efficient government? A small government. What's the smallest government? "A single ruler operating with executive authority and an enforcement apparatus to ensure compliance."

  The theory was that corporations are "self-evidently more efficient" than democratic government. And since CEOs don't run their decisions past low-level workers for approval, democracy is therefore a ridiculous waste of time. If elected president, he promised to eliminate the tripartite checks-and-balances system that he called "make-work BS designed to slow down mission-critical decision-making." He was a foaming lunatic-fringe weirdo, like a lot of our early candidates, and to the surprise of no one, he didn't gain much support.

  I open the emailer's textual analysis, which stretches eighty pages long and is hard to follow. I switch back and forth between it and the livestream, where Peter is still delivering his big speech.

  "In the next year, Colton Industries will open five satellite campuses, complete with high-paying jobs and on-site job training to support workers who want to make the transition from old industries to new ones. The campuses will be in regions hit hardest. Detroit. Pittsburgh. Madison. Cleveland. Atlanta. At the same time, we will continue the work we've already done with High Speed Freedom, the charity founded by Colton Industries to bring high-speed internet into the most impoverished rural communities in America."