Description

Written during the 2020 presidential election campaign, this ‘flash’ novel takes a tough look at the then coming election. It asks what would happen if the president loses but contests the result. Told like a TV drama in 22 episodes, it chronicles the impact on two families, one liberal, one evangelical. Unfortunately, it is as relevant today as it was then.

Completed six months before election day, it predicts that the president will lose by narrow margins in six states. (Four were correctly predicted.) It imagines the steps taken, from election day to inauguration day, to overturn the results.

The legal mechanisms described are real. They come from election law scholars and what happened in the 2000 presidential election contest in Florida. As it turned out, they were a pretty accurate forecast.

Also described are actions taken by others, both insiders and outsiders—especially outsiders: Those seeking to defend American democracy, those who think they’re defending American democracy, and those willing to attack it in defense of goals they deem more important.

At the heart of this are two families, linked by tragedy and happenstance. Each is sympathetically portrayed.

All 22 episodes are available here without charge.

Excerpts

Half the country was glued to Fox News, the other half to CNN, because everyone knew it would be close. They had hung on the latest poll numbers, but no one believed them, not really, not deep down. Too much was at stake.

“Brian,” said Dick Clafferty on Fox, “I wonder if even the pollsters really believed the polls.”

“Susan,” said Ryan Sickel on CNN, “I’d be willing to bet that not even the pollsters really believed the polls.”

At campaign headquarters across the country, in bars and in living rooms, everyone grew even more tense at the approach to midnight, eastern time. The banter and the bragging and the meaningless commentary all dropped away. When at last voting ended on the west coast, all the networks, even Fox, called it for the Democrat, even though the margins were tight in some battleground states. Republicans were outraged by voting irregularities, Democrats held their breath, waiting for the now-outgoing president to concede.

He didn’t concede.

__

When she reached her dorm, there was a cop there, not a campus cop, a city cop. He checked her photo ID and stared at her before letting her pass. When she reached her floor, though, there were more cops, and one of them walked her to her room, but when he saw which room it was, he wouldn’t let her in. She couldn’t have gotten in anyway, because the door was guarded and the small room was full of cops.

“Lieutenant,” called the guard at the door.

A man came out, dressed in plain clothes. “You the roommate?” She nodded. “What’s your name?” She told him, but it caught in her throat because he scared her. She wanted to ask what was going on, but he asked if she would talk to an officer.

“About what? Joanne’s my roommate. This is my room.”

“Hudson,” he called over his shoulder.

__

“Twelve days after the election, the president addresses the nation this evening from the Oval Office.”

Reading from a teleprompter with his ‘presidential’ voice, he charged that the election had been marred by ‘gross irregularities and frauds,’ and claimed that ‘a foreign power sympathetic to the Democrats’ may have conspired to affect the election. Here he clearly left the teleprompter to add that many people believed this was exactly what happened. “Top experts are telling me this. Smart people. Good people.”

Returning to the teleprompter, he itemized the various defects and frauds, without distinguishing between them. This way, even a slight, inadvertent defect became evidence of massive fraud. He began with the design of certain ballots.

__

Even though Memorial Park is inside the rim-road around central Houston, it’s far enough away from downtown to be in an upscale residential zone. And because it’s so large (and partly wooded), one can escape from the city’s noise and bustle. At noon a man was sitting on one of the benches, eating lunch, when a woman, taking a break from walking her dog, sat at the other end. They didn’t even seem to notice each other at first, she talking to her dog, he focused on his sandwich. When he finished it and sat back, he noticed her. “Not too bad, right? The weather?”

“Not too bad.”

After a pause, he asked, “Come here often?”

“Not really.”

After another pause, he said, “If you don’t mind me asking, do you always walk your dog in high heels?”

“I believe you have expression, ‘a girl likes to look her best.’” She had a Russian accent.