Why the US ‘does not get to assume that it lasts forever’
(CNN, 7/4/2023)
“As the United States marks its 247th birthday Tuesday, questions about how many more the nation will celebrate in its current form have become ominously relevant.”
The President sits alone in the Oval Office, the soundproofed room eerily quiet. Once, you would have heard the gentle hiss of air conditioning through the floor grates, but even that’s gone at this stage. It’s all more reminiscent of a sealed tomb than the seat of a global power.
He leans forward, hands running across the oak surface of the large desk, pitted and worn from over a century of use. Originally, these boards had been part of the hull of the H.M.S. Resolute, a British ship that had been abandoned at sea after it became trapped in ice during a rescue mission. The Americans had recovered it, refitted it, and returned it to Queen Victoria as a symbol of friendship. From its weather-worn planks, she’d had a desk made and gifted it back to the U.S.
The desk had been used by nearly every President since, becoming one of the most recognizable trappings of the office, nearly as well-known as the Oval Office itself. The sheer tonnage of history that it had silently witnessed, from secret midnight phone calls for last-ditch diplomacy to marital indiscretions and declarations of war, imbued the massive slab with the numinous aura of a holy relic.
A knock at the door pulls the President from his reflections.
“President Baker, sir? I have it.”
Baker sits back in his chair, takes a deep breath, and calls his aide in.
The journey from door to desk takes only a few seconds, but for the President, it seems to stretch on for eternity.
Funnily enough, he’d never wanted to be President. That fact put him in rare company. Only a few such reluctant souls had ever been picked from the dustbin of history and foisted into such brash limelight.
His story started decades ago, in a small township at the edge of the prairie. Or at least, that’s the way his official biography told it. In truth, his once moderately sized town had faded to little more than a stoplight on the edge of Interstate 70, and the prairie was only a memory for even his grandparents.
By the time he’d arrived, most of the once wide, rolling fields had been reduced to paved industrial tarmac or had withered away to dirt. Too many years of drought, topsoil stripping windstorms, and overly hot summers had eaten away everything but the toughest lichen.
What had once been America’s breadbasket had become a no man’s land of desolation. The few families who’d tried to cling to small town life, his included, had been forced to make do with miserable service industry jobs, mostly caring for the elderly or working online in dead-end service centers for some massive conglomerate based in a far-away city.
His father had been a teacher, 7th-grade biology, as the local population had slowly dwindled away. The school had started by combining classes, then subjects, then grades. In the end, his father was the last teacher at a one-room schoolhouse, teaching a smattering of children ranging from 6 to 16. He’d finally retired when his body had started to fail him and, even then, trying not to think about what his absence would mean for the kids still trapped in this dying corner of the map.
Baker’s mother had worked a series of customer service jobs. He could remember her sweet, sing-song voice through the closed door of the extra bedroom. She’d claimed it as her office and, because her employers had customers around the world, had worked whatever unusual hours the scheduling algorithm had assigned her on any given day.
He had many fond memories with his father but few with her. His memories of his mother tended to be sitting on the floor outside of her room, ear pressed against the hollow-core door, listening to her processing a return or reciting some corporate FAQ and silently wishing her a Merry Christmas.
Better that silent wish than the real-life wrath that she’d reserved for him and his brother whenever she was off the clock. As an adult, he understood her struggles all too well. Being barked at by angry customers all day, the low pay, the erratic hours with no hope of a better job. The drinking and the anger both made sense, but still, he found it hard to forgive her.
Eddie Baker had been lucky to get into college, and he’d known it. He worked hard. No one could ever deny that. With a sterling record and a few well-earned recommendations, he’d been selected as a congressional aide, which had unlocked a new world for him.
In the years that followed, he’d moved in the halls of power, meeting Congressmen, judges, and Heads of State. When he was approached to run for Congress in his home district, he’d immediately agreed, renting the smallest rat-trap studio apartment he could find in his hellhole of a hometown for the residency requirement and sailing to victory. He’d been so happy watching the election returns from his home in D.C.
As they do, years had passed, and he’d run unopposed in every election. His marketing team had created a myth of political genius, and his generally affable nature had earned him a reputation as a party man among his colleagues. On the eve of his 75th birthday, they’d elected him Speaker.
That’s when everything had started to go wrong. Sure, he would admit that things hadn’t been going well for many years. Unemployment had crept higher and higher, a combination of the impact of terrible weather patterns across the U.S. and the ever-present hunger of corporate titans to squeeze value out of the pockets of everyday people.
But he’d mostly been on the winning side of that equation. The right votes at the right time had meant easy campaign donations and some all-expenses-paid vacations (off the books, of course) that he’d enjoyed with various paramours throughout the years.
But then the violence had started. Rumors of war were no longer about foreign adversaries, they were about one’s neighbors. And while Congressman Baker and his colleagues had spoken about a metaphorical ‘moral war’ that they were all committed to waging, it seemed that too many of their constituents had taken them literally, sparking a daisy chain of public attacks and subterfuge aimed at destabilizing the federal government.
The real spark had been the assassination of, then-President, Harriett Gains. Just the act itself would have jolted the national psyche, but the brazenness had been overwhelming. It seemed that the group, Men Against Governmental Authority, had infiltrated the Secret Service. At the pivotal moment, the President’s guards had simply disappeared, leaving the President alone in the midst of surging handshakers and snapping cameras.
As the gunshots sounded, the crowd had quickly broken apart, revealing the shooter, later identified as Terrance Brown, a disaffected ex-machinist who’d joined MAGA after receiving a random recruiting email. He’d only participated online, posting to message boards and joining video conferences, until the group had tapped him for this special honor.
Brown had nearly escaped before a different firefight erupted. Several members of the crowd, it seemed, had brought their own weapons to the rally, and both political supporters and opponents had begun to exchange bullets, quickly gunning down Brown, but also upping the body count by a few dozen as friend and foe failed to recognize sides.
The emergency crews had retrieved the President’s body, but the funeral at the White House had to be closed casket. The carnage was too much to display.
Two days later, Speaker Baker had been summoned to the White House. He’d yet to hear from the newly appointed President, but he’d assumed the former VP would want to circle the wagons and coordinate a plan.
Instead, he’d been shown into a secure room, called a SCIF, not only soundproof but electronically sealed as well. Across the table was a smattering of intelligence officers, a few of the former President’s staff, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
“Eddie,” The Justice had told him, “we’ve got a problem.”
They’d told him that the Vice President couldn’t be located. Best case scenario, he’d fled the country, fearing for his own life after the failure of the Secret Service to protect his former boss. Worst case, he was complicit with the separatist group, being held somewhere, or already dead.
“The line of succession falls to you, Eddie. And things are getting bad.”
After the very public death of the President, several states and a few of the larger cities had begun to talk about secession. Soldiers, police, and first responders had gone AWOL, and the intelligence agencies were concerned about threats both foreign and domestic.
In a whirlwind of signing, they’d sworn him in, effectively handing him the keys to whatever kingdom they had left, and he’d been surprised to see the relief on all of their faces. He got the sense that they believed so deeply in the Office of the President that as long as the chair was filled, things would work out somehow. But Eddie Baker wasn’t as sure.
In the weeks that followed, things had gone from bad to worse. The infiltration was even deeper than they’d feared, and whole segments of the national infrastructure had begun to go dark. From military bases to power grids and nuclear research labs, the U.S. government was slowly bleeding to death.
Several states had severed communication, and reports on the ground were that they were actively sealing their own borders against instate traffic. Flights had been grounded, and domestic aid to communities across the country had completely ceased.
This morning, the final straw had dropped. With communications in shambles, they’d received a written report, drafted by an intelligence agent who’d used a motorbike to navigate the mayhem of the interstate system as citizens fled D.C. The agent had seen a convoy, slowly but surely inching towards the capital, and making it very clear that they intended to end the U.S. federal government, once and for all.
Irony of ironies, they would arrive in the capital on the 4th of July.
“Here you are, President Baker. For your signature, sir.”
The President lowers the paper to the desk, impressed that even the heavy oak slab can support the historic weight of the document.
“What do you think you’ll do next?” He looks up at the aide.
“I’m sorry, sir? Next?”
“Yeah, you know, after this? Where will you go? What will you do?”
The aide nervously checks his watch, no doubt wondering if they’ll make the evacuation timeline that has been highly recommended by their few remaining intelligence officers.
“Oh…um. Go home, I guess. Oregon, if I can get through. I’ve heard they’re letting refugees across the border in Canada. I figure I can head west and try to come back through, find my parents.” There’s a beat of silence. “What about you, sir?”
The President thinks for a moment, threatening to get lost in his thoughts again. “I…I don’t know that there is an after for me.” He watches the aide’s face screw up in confusion and smiles at the silence.
He scans the document, “Dissolution of the United States of America.” It’s surprisingly short. Turns out that all of the words of the Constitution and several hundred years of stacking legal code could be much more easily undone. With his signature, he’d remand all remaining power to the states. Let them figure out what union would even be possible after the dust settled.
He signs in blue ink: Edward L. Baker. Dates it. Hands it back to the aide.
“Thanks, Bill. Thanks a lot. For everything. Sorry….sorry, we didn’t do a better job of it.”
There’s no response, just a quick nod as he turns, rushing to give the signal to announce to the press. A last ditch hope to avoid the mob that’s barreling towards them.
The door clicks shut, returning President Baker to the tomb-like silence. He sits there for a few more moments, relishing the history of the room, its trappings, this moment. Then he says a silent thankful prayer for the second amendment, opens the upper drawer, and lifts the cold pistol to his temple.