Orson Card - Empire

Only there wasn’t any yadda. Nielson asked them to sit and then half-sat on the edge of the college president’s desk and said, “The city council of New York met today in emergency session and voted by an overwhelming margin to recognize the Progressive Restoration as the legitimate government of the United States of America.”

“Under duress?” asked Cecily.

“UN. witnesses say there was no threat from the Progressive Restoration.”

“Except their troops all over Manhattan,” muttered Reuben.

“That’s only the beginning. San Francisco, Santa Monica, San Rafael—I can’t remember all the Sans in California that have passed resolutions recognizing the Progressive Restoration.”

“But those have no legal force,” said Cecily.

“I’m sure the Supreme Court would agree with you. The Attorney General certainly does. But so what? Progressive state legislators in California, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Rhode Island have all declared their intention to demand a quick vote in those legislatures. There are others calling for plebiscites in Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York state, Maryland, and Delaware. Let the people decide, they say.”

“They’ll fail,” said Cecily.

“Probably,” said President Nielson. “Probably the first motion will fail. Oh, and needless to say, all over the South and Midwest and Rocky Mountains there are political leaders demanding the immediate suppression by force of any political unit that goes over to the Progressives. Rural and suburban legislators in many of the states in question have been… fervent, let’s say… in their opposition to any movement to switch allegiance. But you see my predicament.”

“Is the Army loyal?” asked Cecily.

“Think about what you’re asking,” said Nielson. “Loyal? Of course. Willing to fire on Americans who do not fire on them first? What an interesting question. Wouldn’t it be better if we could avoid fighting?”

“There’s already been bloodshed,” said Reuben. “And they killed first.”

“Fort Sumter,” said Nielson. “And if I were Lincoln, I’d issue a call for 75,000 volunteers. But we don’t have such a clear Mason-Dixon line. The red-state/blue-state thing is actually deceptive. If you look at recent elections on maps of the counties, you’ll find that it’s an urban versus suburban and rural split. Even southern states show metropolitan areas as blue more than red.”

“But that’s the black vote,” said Reuben.

“Oh good,” said President Nielson. “Let’s make it a racial war as well as a philosophical one. But here’s the point. The New York City Council has legalized this invasion after the fact and now declares the armed forces of the Progressive Restoration to be the police and defense forces of the entire city, not just Manhattan. Under those circumstances, if we attack or occupy any part of New York City, are we liberating or invading? When we fire on their armed forces, are we killing traitors or shooting down New York cops?”

“I know who the New York cops are,” said Reuben. “They killed as many of them as they could find.”

“It’s public perception. They’ve played this beautifully. I have to admire it, even as it makes me want to weep for my country. They provided arms, plans, and information to terrorists so they could behead the country. Our strongest leadership wiped out in a stroke. Then they set up a right-wing coup to establish martial law and abrogate the Constitution during this time of emergency.” Nielson sighed and looked down at his shoes.

“A phony coup,” said Cole.

“Oh, yes,” said Nielson. “General Alton came into my office and told me that he and a large number of officers were ready to implement my order to establish martial law. He didn’t call it a coup. He was handing it to me. But I was so naive and so—what’s the word I want?—yes, so stupid … that I didn’t even recognize the veiled threat—that martial law would be declared anyway, with or without me. I was new at this. I was frightened. I was not well advised.” Nielson walked around behind his desk and finally sat in the president’s chair. “If it had not been for your broadcast, Captain Coleman, I would have announced martial law at nine p.m. yesterday. The President’s writers—oh, they would be mine now, wouldn’t they—were scrambling to write an appropriate speech. I was just about to read the final draft when Sandy came in and told me to switch to O’Reilly and listen to one of the soldiers who tried to prevent the assassinations.

“You reminded the soldiers of their duty. You reminded me of mine. I finally saw what Alton was doing. As God is my witness, it was never my intent to throw out the Constitution. I thought it was hanging by a thread, and I could save it.” He chuckled bitterly. “You don’t save it by cutting that thread.”

“You didn’t make the announcement,” said Cecily. “That’s what matters.”

“It’s more than that,” said Nielson. “I remembered how Alton talked. Thinking back on it, it was crazy. A paranoid version of conservative principles. It should have been obvious. It was like a parody, the Left’s version of the Right. But you see, I was a Congressman from Idaho. The people who fund my campaigns talk like that. It’s the looniest ones who pony up the most, sometimes—ideology opens the pocketbook. I’d been hearing their lunacy for so long that it didn’t sound irrational to me anymore. I was used to madness.

“Well, so is the Left,” he continued. “The wackos on both sides have controlled the rhetoric for so long that the Left really thinks they’re right when they call simple mistakes ‘lies’ and openly-arrived-at decisions ‘conspiracies.’ That city council in New York, if you said to them, ‘Will you secede from the United States and bring the full wrath of the U.S. military down on your city?’ they’d say no. They’d say hell no.”

“Actually,” said Reuben, “this is New York you’re talking about. They’d say—”

“I know what words they’d use,” said Nielson, smiling tightly. “But I don’t use them. Look, these Progressives, they’re playing it smart. Keeping the tempo up. They undoubtedly already had people on the council, ready to drive things forward. It’s not a coincidence that there are legislators and city councilors in all the blue states, calling for their city or state to get on the bandwagon. I think they’ve already counted the votes while we were napping. I think tomorrow morning we’ll find that Washington or Oregon, maybe even California, officially ceases to recognize me as President of the United States. If I had declared martial law last night, I think it would be a dead certainty that they all would. Because I would be out in the open as a tool of the insane faction of the extreme right wing.”

“Are you saying,” said Reuben, “that you intend to do nothing?”

“I intend to proceed carefully,” said Nielson. “The New York City Council has declared that their borders are peaceful—and open. Everyone who works in the city is invited to come to work tomorrow, and apart from some reconstruction work and traffic problems because of the damage caused by… ”

He picked up a paper on his desk and read from it. “’Caused by the illegal resistance of reactionary forces’… apart from that, it should be business as usual. But any attempt to restrict access to New York City will result in sudden, harsh retaliation. ‘We will defend ourselves.’ ”

Reuben shook his head. “You can’t let this stand. If you let people go to work, if you let trucks in with food and fuel—”

“If I don’t, then I’m starving perfectly good Americans as part of my fascist conspiracy to force theocratic antienvironmental—I can’t do their rhetoric very well, but you know what I mean. Remember the propaganda that Saddam got from the embargo, even after we were supposedly letting humanitarian aid get into Iraq.”