Chapter 3: The 2016 Election

This chapter covers the 2016 U.S. presidential election, where a far-right wing Senator named David Harris captures the Republican Party nomination, and proceeds to narrowly win the election.

The 2016 Election

As the calendar flipped to the year 2015, it was time for the 2016 presidential race to start firing up. One feature of American politics, especially when it came to presidential politics, was that the cycle started far before any votes were actually cast, over a year and a half before, in fact. Various senators and state governors, as well as some former officeholders and even a few people who have never held any sort of political office before, made their decisions as to whether to jump into the intense atmosphere of a presidential campaign. After two full terms with Barack Obama in the White House, the Republicans were itching to recapture the presidency. They were feeling pretty confident, with President Obama’s approval ratings not being that great, and also the fact that the Republicans just had another great election in 2014, winning more seats in Congress and throughout state legislatures . Despite all their childish antics over the previous few years, and the fact that they had become more conservative than ever, they used a massive wave of campaign cash and played off people’s anger over the direction of the country and the weak economic recovery to give the Republicans an even bigger advantage in Congress. They retook control of the U.S. Senate, and added to their lead in the House of Representatives, giving them their biggest advantages in that lawmaking body in 85 years. The last time they had numbers like this in Congress, their ultra-conservative policies caused the Great Depression, causing voters to vote them out in droves and ushering in an era of dominance for the Democratic Party, which led to the beginnings of the creation of safety net programs designed to improve people’s lives. Nonetheless, once the new Congress came in in January of 2015, they set out a new, more conservative course. Yes, more conservative than before, which was a scary thought to many people throughout the nation, such as myself.

Like I said before, over the last few election cycles, the delegation of the Republican Party had become much more extreme than in previous years. Feeling emboldened, they demanded that Congress enact more of their agenda than before. The newly expanded far-right caucus of the Republican Party intensified their fight to wrest control of the party from the more mainstream, but still plenty conservative, Republican establishment. They wanted more of their agenda put in place, more opposition on social issues, more cuts in government spending. Within several months, the far-right would claim control in the House of Representatives, as Republican Speaker of the House (the leader of that legislative body) John Boehner of Ohio announced his resignation from Congress in September of 2015. The Speaker of the House since 2011, Boehner committed the cardinal sin in far-right circles, which was reaching across the aisle to work with Democrats. He wanted to prevent another government shutdown in the fall of 2015. He was also known for working with President Obama on issues such as deficit reduction. Compromise with the other side to solve the nation’s issues, a cornerstone of American government for generations, was seen as siding with the enemy to the ultra-conservatives. Starting in 2015, as the far-right gained more power, every single function of the government, especially functions that involved funding, became a drawn-out battle. Things like highway funding, or the food stamp program, or even Social Security checks for disabled individuals, came into the crosshairs of Republican lawmakers. Some even spoke out against the minimum wage, which had helped the lowest-paid workers since the 1930’s, calling for its elimination. It seemed nothing was safe anymore. Programs or laws that the Republicans wouldn’t dare to try to touch in the past were now targeted for cuts or sometimes even elimination. It seemed to many observers that, if the program helped regular people, the Republicans opposed it. This was just like the corporate world liked it.

The infighting between hard-line conservatives and the Republican establishment came to a head in the aftermath of Boehner’s resignation. During the fall of 2015, before Boehner left his office, he negotiated one last budget deal with Democratic Congressional leaders and President Obama. He had gotten some concessions on Social Security and Medicare, and got some increases in the defense budget, but also reversed some budget cuts the Republicans won a couple of years earlier. Of course, far-right members of Congress, as well as various conservative groups, were livid. Many of these individuals wanted to secure bigger cuts in social programs, threatening another shutdown of the government if they did not get their way. In the wake of the budget deal, which was struck in the final week of October 2015, Tea Party members, including a group of far-right conservative House members now calling themselves the House Freedom Caucus, vowed to play a bigger role the next time the budget came up, as this deal ran up to early in 2017, not long after a new president was to take office. Tea Party organizations such as FreedomNow and Americans for Liberty vowed to work with these far-right congress members to assert their will in Washington.

Now that the Republicans made these gains in Congress, and felt poised to get their wishes in major policy battles, they now set their sights on winning the White House in 2016. Many Republican politicians jumped at the opportunity at taking the highest office in the land, as a whopping eighteen Republicans declared their candidacies. Yes, eighteen. The bigger names ranged from U.S. Senators such as Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, to state governors such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida and younger brother of President Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. Even a couple of non-politicians jumped into the fray, most notably the bombastic real-estate mogul Donald Trump. Like a typical presidential race, most of the early coverage revolved around the big-name candidates, while not saying much at all about the lesser-known candidates. This was a normal occurrence for both parties, as the well-known candidates always got extra media coverage, and their connections led to more fundraising and more ads aired by their campaigns.

Looking to maintain their hold on the presidency, the Democratic Party put forth a few candidates of their own for what was sure to be a hard-fought race. The Democratic field included the biggest name candidate of them all, former First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton, who was seeking to be the nation’s very first woman president, was the odds-on favorite to be the Democratic candidate. There was nobody else in the Democratic field with even close to her name recognition or her fundraising ability, so it would be an uphill battle for anyone who tried to run against her. Other candidates included Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator from Vermont who drew a passionate following among more liberal, as well as younger, voters. Sanders, a grey-haired, grandfatherly Jewish man who originally hailed from Brooklyn, New York, was very inspirational to his base of supporters, as many people, including myself, felt that he had the best ideas of them all. His agenda was the exact opposite of the right-wing agenda, which was refreshing to those of us who felt that the growing inequality in society was a huge problem. He advocated for making college free, for raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars from its current seven dollars and twenty-five cents, a huge jobs program which would rebuild American infrastructure, and expanding the Medicare healthcare program from senior citizens to everybody, among many other things. There was one other viable candidate in the Democratic field, a then little-known U.S. Representative from Maryland named Robert Morrison, who also quickly became incredibly popular among liberals, but was also accepted by some establishment figures as well, something that help him greatly in the long run. Both Sanders and Morrison had little name recognition, and were at a huge monetary disadvantage versus Clinton. Clinton also had the backing of virtually all the establishment of the Democratic Party. It seemed insurmountable for any other candidate, but both Sanders and Morrison did gain traction, as Clinton was bogged down by the perception that she was too corporate-friendly, and a scandal revolving around emails she sent during her time as Secretary of State (the person who talked to leaders of other countries). By the fall of 2015, it looked as though the Democrats would actually have a two- or even three-way race on their hands. This was in contrast to the expected Clinton cakewalk that everyone anticipated at the outset.

One man on the Republican side who was mostly overlooked at first, who epitomized the growing conservatism of this era, was a  U.S. Senator from Tennessee named David Harris. Born on April 10, 1969, he was a tall man with ruggedly handsome looks, blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, he was a the proud owner of a small grocery store in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, before being recruited by the local Tea Party group he was a prominent member of to run for a hotly contested Senate seat in his home state in 2010, the first Republican wave election. Being a small business owner, and a devout Southern Baptist, he fit the prototype that would appeal to economic, as well as to religious conservatives. Using a war chest of funding from local corporate executives, as well as millions in funding from outside groups located far from Tennessee, he toppled an establishment Republican candidate in the primary (where each party picks its candidate for the general election), before easily taking down the Democratic candidate in the general election. Harris had always had an interest in politics, but never considered a political career until catching the Tea Party fever in 2009, when he joined the ranks of the upstart movement. They clearly shared his vision of what America should be. He was well known in far-right circles, and the right-wing media crowned him “the most conservative member of Congress”. However, he wasn’t particularly well-known by a large swath of the American population.

Once he took office in January 2011, an office he was somewhat shocked to hold, he quietly espoused his deeply conservative beliefs. He joined the newly-formed Tea Party Caucus (a group of far-right members of Congress) right after he started in the Senate. On several occasions, he voted against Republican budget plans, because they didn’t go far enough for him. He published his own budget plan with a few of his Senate and House colleagues, which called for massive cuts in spending and balanced the budget, but that didn’t go anywhere, since Harris frequently butted heads with members of the party leadership. Another reason that Senator Harris didn’t get as much attention as some of the other candidates was, unlike many of his fellow conservatives, he avoided the verbal bomb-throwing that marked grabbed headlines for other lawmakers. He never bashed his critics, he never accused Democrats of tyranny or treason and he never openly questioned President Obama’s citizenship. Harris also never said anything that could be classified as racist or sexist, at least not publicly, while his fellow righties sure loved saying offensive stuff. It was often the people who said the most outrageous, most horrifying things that got the media attention, such as his fellow Senator Ted Cruz, or the billionaire Donald Trump. While his lack of headline-grabbing quotes kept him from being into the spotlight until he jumped into the presidential race, it also kept him from turning off entire segments of voters, like a lot of his fellow candidates.

David Harris announced his candidacy in June of 2015, making his declaration in front of the city hall in Knoxville, Tennessee. “It is time for the United States of America to return to the ideals of the great men who founded it, ideas of personal liberty and a limited government that protects that liberty.” Harris said when declaring his candidacy to a small, but enthusiastic crowd of supporters that warm, sunny June day. Within a couple of months of campaigning, he had begun to gain traction among very conservative voters, who were enthralled with his big ideas. The Harris campaign quickly built up an army of right-wing activists from all over the country who were eager to work for the campaign, knocking on doors, passing out flyers, passionately argue for him in various forums such as newspapers and on the Internet. These folks on the far right end of the spectrum were the most passionate, and were the ones most likely to stump for their candidate, as well as the most likely to get out and vote in the Republican primaries. Harris’ big selling point, which always made its way into his stump speeches all along the campaign trail, was his vow to balance the federal budget in his first year in office, and keep it balanced every year afterwards. “Sound fiscal policy starts with a balanced budget. We need to get our financial house in order, by stopping reckless spending in all its forms.” Harris would tell his raucous and rapidly growing crowds. Analysts from both the left and right bashed this balanced budget proposal as unrealistic, as it would involve budget cuts on a level never seen before. “Harris’ balanced budget proposals would flatline the economy for a long time to come”, said a report from the centrist Brookings Institute. “David Harris has supported budget plans that would cut spending by over a trillion dollars in the first year alone, and that is surely what he means when he talks about immediately balancing the budget if elected President. Cuts of that magnitude would have a catastrophic effect on the U.S. economy.” The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute declared. Harris himself usually made a point to never say exactly how he would balance the budget, since what he would say would turn off anyone outside of his far-right base. Other than the broad platitudes about cutting spending, he wouldn’t say exactly what would be cut.

On top of his balanced budget promise, Harris came under fire, primarily from left-leaning media outlets, for statements he had made while running for the Senate, calling for the elimination of the minimum wage. Harris addressed that head on, reiterating his desire to get rid of any wage floor. “A Constitutionally limited government has no right whatsoever to regulate wages, or many other aspects of business”, Harris would say. Harris gave several speeches on the issue, repeating the common claim on the right that the minimum wage actually hurts low-wage workers, that it caused employers to reduce the number of people they employed. Despite the fact that many minimum wage studies proved raising the minimum wage was quite helpful, putting money into the pockets of millions of individuals with little to no effect on employment, more and more Republicans called for the end of the minimum wage, including more members of Congress, as well as several of the Republican candidates for President. Senator Harris also got in trouble for making the false, but common claim that Social Security and Medicare contribute to the federal deficit. When called out on this, Harris backtracked, but still insisted that these programs needed to be reformed and cut dramatically. Harris was also known for denying the existence of climate change caused by the use of fossil fuels, and had the standard social conservative policies that most Republicans held. He opposed abortion (the termination of a pregnancy) and marriages for same-sex couples, and he often spoke of his devout evangelical Christian faith on the campaign trail. Between his stances on economic issues and his stances on social issues, there was plenty to not like about David Harris.

Despite the controversy around his past statements, and the many criticisms of his policy proposals, Harris continued to rise in the polls, and now was challenging the much better-known candidates on a national level. He now had the far-right base on his side. If he were to get the full support of this very passionate voting bloc, he would actually have a chance, his supporters would say. The Harris campaign gained more steam in August, with a strong performance in the first debate of the primary season. The first debate between the Republican presidential candidates was the most-watched primary debate ever, due to the meteoric rise of the billionaire Donald Trump, who had shot up to the top of the polls after some controversial, and frankly very racist statements he had made about Latinos. Trump gained a lot of support among the Republican base, as much of the base held very deeply anti-immigrant sentiments. Trump played to the mostly white, nativist voters to the point where he was getting thirty percent of the vote, which was amazing, considering it was a field of eighteen candidates. However, David Harris made his case for a much smaller government in the debate, which surely appealed to the Republican primary voters. While the other politicians on that crowded debate stage seemed interchangeable, with highly similar proposals and beliefs, Harris came off as different, more genuine to those who viewed the debate. Just like during his campaign speeches, Harris always spoke in terms of freedom. He always claimed that his policies would make America freer, that they allowed individuals to forge their own destiny and take responsibility for their own lives, free from any outside interference, especially from the federal government. Though any glance at a history book proved this viewpoint to be total hogwash, it really appealed to the conservative voters who would pick their candidate in several months. Various talking heads in the right-wing media were ecstatic with Harris’ debate performance, claiming him the undisputed winner. They saw that they finally had the guy who was going to lead them to the promised land, and give them everything they have wanted for decades. Conservative talk radio did nothing but sing his praises, and would continue to do so, as he was now the favorite candidate of most of the talk show hosts. Media sources, both left and right, were cranking out articles about him. The National Review, a popular right-wing magazine, dubbed David Harris “The Chosen One” in a glowing article about him, and how he was the future of the conservative movement. Left-wing media saw him as “out of touch”, “unfit for office”, “completely crazy”, and as a website named Salon put it, “a clear and present danger”. In the wake of that first debate, I saw him as a growing presence in the Republican primary, and though I did feel that his proposals were dangerous, he should be taken seriously (one thing my fellow lefties liked to do was completely dismiss a crazy-sounding conservative candidate, then act shocked when said crazy candidate won the election). After that first debate, David Harris emerged as the guy who seemed most likely to stop Donald Trump dead in his tracks. He shot up to fifteen or so percent in the polls immediately after the debate, in second place behind Trump. The debate allowed Harris to make his case to voters who had never really seen or heard about him before, and many of them liked what they heard from him. The momentum continued for Harris in the following months, his campaign events drew bigger and bigger crowds, full of people who shared his beliefs, and after a few more of these strong debate performances, Harris climbed in the polls throughout 2015. By the time the calendar flipped to 2016, and the primaries neared, he was near or at the top in every poll that was put out by the numerous polling organizations. It was around this time that progressives, and some centrists started realizing that this kook actually had a chance to win it all. Many editorials and lead stories on various left-wing magazines and websites revolved around a central theme: David Harris must be stopped, at all costs. If he were to win, it could spell doom for our great nation.

On top of his appeal to the right-wing base, there were other forces at work behind David Harris’ rise. He got a huge push from some big-money backers, using the new climate of political finance. The disastrous Supreme Court decision in a case known as the Citizens United case in 2010 paved the way for the wealthy, as well as huge corporations, to give unlimited amounts of money to candidates and political causes. They could give to a group called a Super PAC (political action committee), which was supposed to not coordinate with the official campaign. Despite that restriction, the group can put out as many ads in the mail and on TV as they wanted, supporting the candidate of their choice. Though both parties raised plenty of money this way, the Republicans benefited much more from the new rules, being the party that helped the wealthy and all. Within just a few months, Harris’ Super PAC, which was called Restoring American Freedom, had raised huge sums from a few billionaires (most Super PAC funding came from a handful of super wealthy individuals), including Harold Norton (a Texas oil billionaire), James Helton (a Wyoming discount store magnate), and most prominently, the Reed brothers. The Reed brothers had made a bold statement at the outset of the campaign season, saying that they were going to raise and spend nearly one billion dollars (yes, that’s billion, with a “b”) for conservative candidates, with most of that money going to the Republican presidential candidate. The Reeds were going to pour money into the campaigns of the candidates who, if elected, work to implement their agenda. Though the Reed brothers said they wouldn’t choose or donate to any candidates during the primaries, they found David Harris to be exactly what they were looking for. They had been following Harris’ career in the Senate (they also donated a few million to his Senate campaign in 2010), and voiced their support for his balanced budget proposal from a few years earlier, which he kept submitting every year. Once he seemed to be a viable candidate in the presidential race, the Reeds knew they had their man. Harris shared their far-right vision for America, and their passion to put this vision into action. As a result, the Reeds gave Harris 100 million dollars in early September 2015, followed by another 50 million dollars in December, less than two months before the primary season kicked off. Between the Reeds, and their fellow millionaires and billionaires, David Harris now had the most campaign cash working for him. By the end of 2015, Restoring American Freedom had raised over 250 million dollars, more than enough to get Harris through the rough-and-tumble primary season. Most of the Republican candidates had one or two ultra-wealthy folks propping them up, except for Donald Trump, who was financing his own campaign for the most part, combined with small donations from his formidable support base. Harris, however, had at least four, and possibly more, since the donors of these Super PAC funds could stay anonymous if they liked. Several of the national Tea Party groups also endorsed Harris early on in the race, sending mailers and airing ads imploring their supporters to back the Harris campaign. This gave Harris another boost, as Tea Partiers all over America were now showering the Harris Campaign with donations. Not only did Harris have the most Super PAC money, he was now bringing in the most in regular donations than any Republican candidate, as he was now pulling in plenty of small and medium-sized donations as well.

The primary season for both major parties finally began on Monday, February 1, 2016, with the Iowa Caucuses. Iowa was a predominantly rural midwestern state (now part of the Dominion), but despite their relatively small population, they relished their outsized influence as the first state to cast their votes in every presidential election. Before the primaries, the candidates usually crisscross the state for months, meeting voters, and participating in fundraisers. Now it’s time to actually start the process of picking the candidates who would square off in the general election in November. Going into the Iowa Caucuses, both parties had tight races brewing. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton led in the national polls, with Robert Morrison quickly closing the gap, and even taking the lead in some of the early states. By the time Iowans voted, only a few percentage points separated the two nationally. For the Republicans, David Harris had a small, but growing lead over Donald Trump, who remained popular despite bashing, in no particular order, Latinos, African-Americans, women, Muslims and the disabled. Trump continued to poll well, even after calling for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., something that his supporters cheered, but almost everyone else was appalled by. Despite not having much in the way of substantive ideas, and running what could be described as an incompetent campaign, Trump remained popular, due to his appeal to voters who harbored similar ideas, as well as his purported business acumen. Trump wanted to run the country like he ran his businesses, which I imagined wouldn’t be a good thing, since he had declared bankruptcy four times. Trump proved to be caustic to the campaign, as he liked to bully and criticize the other candidates and the media, and he often whined if he didn’t get his way. The few ideas he had came off as impractical, and he proved to be too similar to a typical schoolyard bully, not a serious candidate for the White House.

In the Iowa caucuses, candidates with more energetic supporters usually do well. For instance, President Obama used his highly energized base to score a big win in Iowa in 2008, a victory which served as his springboard to winning the Democratic primaries, and then the presidency. In 2016, David Harris used his far-right message to win over the state’s conservative activists and win a fairly sizeable victory over Donald Trump, by a margin of 30 to 20 percent. No other candidate cracked 12 percent, with most of the candidates that had not dropped out yet polling in the single digits. That night, in front of his campaign’s state headquarters, and in the bitter February cold, David Harris gave his victory speech to a throng of adoring supporters, who were undeterred by the freezing temperatures as they listened intently, and cheered loudly. They knew they had their candidate, the man who was gonna restore their vision of what America is meant to be.The talk after Harris’ big win after was about the final takeover of the Republican Party by the far right. Among the Republicans, the more establishment-friendly commentators saw Harris as the downfall of the party, that he was “proof that the inmates were taking over the asylum”, but those voices were drowned out by the voices of the uber-conservative members of the party. Lance Rushman, perhaps the most well known commentator in conservative talk radio, was ecstatic at the result. Rushman exclaimed that Harris was “the one who was gonna take America back from the takers”, and the “messenger of freedom”, before launching into one of his trademark tirades about liberals and welfare recipients, to whom he boasted “your free ride is soon to be over, you will have to stop complaining and hand over your EBT cards. Time to get a job and not be a useless parasite”. Rushman, an overweight, pill-popping bloviator of a man who had dominated talk radio for a couple of decades before going too far one day and losing some of his audience and many of his sponsors, saw a final victory for conservatism. To him, and to many of his listeners, David Harris was the man who was going to bring about that victory.

The Democratic side had been turned on its head as well during the Iowa Caucuses. In a shocker, Hillary Clinton was upended by Robert Morrison, by a relatively close margin of 31 to 28 percent. Morrison gave his victory speech that night as well, but he did it inside his Iowa campaign headquarters in Des Moines, to a much smaller and less boisterous crowd than Harris drew. Morrison surely had his energetic, dedicated supporters, but they weren’t as entranced as Harris’ supporters. The Democratic side had plenty of post-caucus commentary as well. On their side, the talk was about Hillary Clinton failing once again to win in Iowa, where she came in third in 2008 after being the frontrunner. Both times she ran for president, she started out as the heavy favorite, even considered to be the inevitable candidate by the talking heads, before losing ground to lesser-known rivals. This time was even more embarrassing for Clinton, as Robert Morrison was even lesser known at first than Barack Obama was. Robert Morrison was a tall, lanky, brown-haired fellow in his mid-40’s. He was previously a college history professor at the University of Maryland, and had only been in politics for a little over a decade, getting elected to his House of Representatives seat representing the city of Baltimore in 2002. He was your standard-issue Democrat these days, talking big about helping the poor and middle class, even though his biggest contributors were big banks like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. He sure talked a big game, making big proposals to help the middle class, somewhat expanding the safety net, raising the minimum wage and some further health care reform. Morrison’s proposals did endear him to working class voters, as well as much of the liberal wing. Despite his progressive rhetoric, Morrison was probably going to be pretty corporate-friendly like the last couple Democratic presidents. He was more liberal than Hillary Clinton, but less liberal than Senator Bernie Sanders, who was my choice to be president but unfortunately whose campaign wasn’t favored by the Democratic establishment like Clinton’s and Morrison’s. Sanders got far less campaign coverage than the other two, and despite the incredible energy of his supporters, the large crowds he was drawing, and his formidable fundraising operation, struggled to win over other Democratic constituencies. After gaining in momentum throughout the summer of 2015, he began to fade as 2015 closed, and he ended up finishing third in the Iowa Caucuses, with 21 percent. Perhaps if Robert Morrison had not come along, Bernie Sanders might have gained more traction, and maybe he would have been the one to put up a fight against Hillary Clinton instead. Either way, Robert Morrison was the man of the moment for the Democrats, and establishment figures, including many of his fellow Representatives who already knew and had deep respect for him, started lining up behind him, much to the dismay of the Clinton campaign. Could she possibly lose the nomination she supposedly had locked up twice in just eight years? It certainly looked like a possibility after Iowa.

The two winners of the Iowa Caucuses emerged as the frontrunners in their respective parties. Both men saw a surge in media coverage, as well as an infusion of cash from increased donations. David Harris got a big boost in his fundraising totals to his official campaign, which was already doing well, to go along with the big money he already got from his billionaires. Harris used the new energy he got from his Iowa win and scored a huge win the next week in the next state to vote, the tiny northeastern state of New Hampshire. He squashed Trump once again, who had pinned his dwindling hopes at the nomination to winning the state, by a margin of 39 to 19 percent. Harris’ support continued to grow as candidates began dropping out. On top of the four candidates who dropped out before the primaries even began, four more dropped out after Iowa, including big names such as Mike Huckabee, a preacher and former Arkansas governor who lost a lot of his religious conservative voter base to Harris, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who lost a lot of his fiscal conservative voter base to Harris. The field dropped by three more after New Hampshire, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who started out strong before Harris took the Tea Party vote from him. The Harris campaign was now looking unstoppable, as he was wiping out candidates who were once seen as major contenders. The Democratic primaries were quickly becoming a two-way race between Robert Morrison and Hillary Clinton, with Morrison scoring a slim 36 to 34 percent win. The Democratic field dropped to just two after New Hampshire, as Bernie Sanders, who had made a big play in New Hampshire (located next door to Vermont, who he served in the Senate), dropped out after a disappointing third-place finish in the state. The election was now really looking to be a Morrison-Harris contest. My thoughts turned to making sure Harris lost, at all costs. I wasn’t particularly crazy about Robert Morrison. He wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t that great either. However, he was likely going to  run against a far-right lunatic in the general election. After nominating relative moderates in the previous two elections, the Republican party was now set to give their most conservative candidate the nod. Indeed, Harris was seen by observers as the most right-wing presidential candidate in many years, if not ever.

Another development in the early months of 2016, something that perhaps had just as much significance as the rise of David Harris, was the massive reach of the far-right political machine, led by uber-rich benefactors such as the Reed Brothers. On top of bankrolling the now-frontrunner Harris, the Reeds filled the coffers of Senate, House and even state legislature and gubernatorial candidates of their choosing. The Reeds saw their opening to get the government they wanted, and poured in even more money than they originally planned to get these individuals elected. These candidates, who all had similar ideals to David Harris, as if they all came off some factory assembly line, ran in safely Republican districts, where all they had to beat was an establishment-friendly Republican candidate in the primary, and then they could coast in the general election, since the district lines were redrawn by Republican-controlled legislatures in many states to where in many of the districts, the Republican candidate had little to no chance of losing the general election. This process, called gerrymandering, had been practiced by both major parties throughout the nation’s history, but the Republican Party perfected it in the wake of the 2010 elections, right after that year’s Census, using modern technology and more precise data to get districts that they wanted. Anyways, dozens of these hardline conservatives used the millions of Reed money to overwhelm their primary opponents, defeating dozens of Republican Representatives and several Senators along the way. This was sure to solidify the hold of the far-right over Congress, as most of these uberconservatives would coast in their general election fights, especially when infused by more billionaire cash. More right-wing millionaires and billionaires began following the Reed’s lead and started pumping more and more money into the same candidates. In their eyes, they finally had a chance to get everything they wanted. They were poised to secure the Congress that they wanted, with the President that they wanted, and would get to have the country that they wanted.

As the race dragged on over the next few months, and the frontrunners continued to win the majority of the primaries and caucuses, it looked like that it would be Robert Morrison versus David Harris. David Harris had wrapped up the Republican nomination by late April, as he had become the standard bearer for the party, the most conservative candidate in many decades. Liberal commentators ratcheted up the articles and television segments about him. He was unelectable, they said, because he would rip up the entire American social compact (which he would). They saw that the social safety net was in grave danger, in ways it hasn’t been before. They predicted the dire consequences of a Harris victory, which usually revolved around the ideal of America reverting to a feudalistic-type of society, with a few ultra-wealthy and everyone else living a miserable existence. “This man cannot win, he will undo over a century of social progress. What he calls freedom is actually a path to mass poverty. His plans will lead to massive job losses, and the remaining jobs will pay subsistence-level wages. Those who do cannot find a job, or afford medical care, or do not make enough money to get by, they will be out of luck. This great nation will slide into third-world status, with misery in store for the masses.” Declared the June issue of Mother Jones, a long-running liberal publication.

One prescient voice during this time belonged to a fellow named Bob Martin, a left-wing commentator who had a television show on the premium cable network HBO, when he wasn’t doing stand-up comedy. Martin made a different prediction during a May episode of his show, which was titled “Real Talk With Bob Martin”, that a Harris Administration, if it got its way and implemented the entirety of the right-wing wish list, would cause a catastrophic collapse of the economy, the likes of which have never seen before. Martin dubbed the pending collapse “The Great Depression on Steroids”, saying it would affect everyone in a negative manner, even the rich. Martin, a funny, short, gray-haired man in his early 60’s, was in comedy for a long time and had a tendency to not hold back anything, especially with his political commentary. He ripped Harris mercilessly during multiple episodes, calling him a dangerous man, and a puppet of the Reed brothers. Despite the fact that Martin could be rather obnoxious and bombastic at times (he had a way of rubbing even his fellow liberals the wrong way at times), he did often raise good points throughout his shows during the years he was a commentator, and he was, shall I say it, spot on when it came to David Harris. He was a puppet for his rich benefactors, who shared his views that there should be no sort of government intervention, especially on the economy. That would mean no welfare programs, no retirement programs, no health programs, no environmental laws, and no laws to help workers. Those views made him a danger to this nation. “David Harris would be the end of the United States, and perhaps the world as we know it.” Martin said in his closing remarks at the end of that same episode.

As for the Democrats, the battle for their nomination dragged all the way to the end of the primary calendar, which stretched into June. In a shocker, Robert Morrison ended up defeating Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nod. It was a result that nobody predicted at the outset of the campaign. After dispatching Clinton, Morrison geared up for the tough general election fight that was to follow. He sounded upbeat, despite the fact that David Harris had a massive war chest ready to go, which by this point had already amounted to over half a billion dollars, when combining his prodigious official campaign fundraising and the massive infusion of money he was getting from the few dozen rich families that were bankrolling Restoring American Freedom, led by the Reeds. Morrison, upon securing the Democratic nomination after a narrow victory over Clinton in the California primary, immediately launched his main line of attack at Harris, calling him the candidate of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy. Morrison also painted Harris as out of touch, whose policies would inflict great harm. Robert Morrison also proclaimed himself as the candidate for the people, who will stand up for the little guy. It was sure to be a fascinating race, too bad not many were paying attention, other than those who paid close attention to politics. Most people don’t think much about it, the level of attention paid wouldn’t go up more until closer to the election. The head-to-head polls showed a pretty close race, as the two candidates were neck-and-neck. Some polls showed Morrison in the lead, and some showed Harris in the lead, still others showed them completely tied. This was much to the delight of dozens of media outlets, who preferred the drama of close elections, or as they would like to call it, the horse race. Close elections meant better television ratings, more newspaper sales, more Internet page clicks. All of that meant more money for the media outlets.

The 2016 election did turn out to be a close, hard-fought election. The polls continued to remain close throughout the entire general election season, as the candidates criss-crossed the country to meet with voters and hold rallies, where they gave their standard stump speeches, which sounded similar every single time, to the point where I can almost recite them, word for word. Also, by criss-crossed the country, I actually mean they went back and forth to the ten or so states where the state could go for either candidate, the so-called battleground states. Virtually all of the campaign stops made by either Robert Morrison and David Harris were to places like Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia or Iowa, among a few others. You see, the United States had a strange, outdated way of electing its presidents. Each state had its vote, and the candidate who got the most votes in that state would get a certain number of votes, which were called electoral votes (the number for each state was determined by the number of members of Congress the state had). Some called for presidential elections to be determined by whoever gets the most total votes (called the popular vote), but for some reason, the powers that be wanted to maintain this relic of a voting system, which originated in the 18th century. As a result of this system, the states where the voting was supposed to be close got the vast majority of attention from the candidates. Voters in most states never so much as saw an ad for a presidential campaign. My home state was one of the states that didn’t get much attention in the presidential election. Here in southern California, you didn’t see many yard signs for either candidate, and campaign bumper stickers on cars were few and far in between. I didn’t even see an ad for either candidate until just a few weeks until Election Day.

Despite having more popular views on issues such as the economy, healthcare and immigration, Robert Morrison had a hard time staying on top of the polls as the election approached. A big reason for this, I am sure, is the fact that the Harris campaign was dramatically outspending Morrison’s campaign. Using the donations from his official campaign, as well as the amounts being raised on his behalf by his Super PAC, David Harris’ campaign became the most-expensive campaign ever, by far. His Super PAC had raised close to one and a half billion dollars, the vast majority of which came from just a few hundred individuals. The lion’s share of this came from those sinister industrialists, the Reed brothers. Once the general election hit, the Reed brothers had kicked their already prodigious fundraising into overdrive, as they decided to raise, and give, even more than the 900 million they originally set out to give. Not only was David Harris the recipient of this largesse, but hundreds of super-conservative Republican House and Senate candidates all over the country got a shot in the arm from their cash as well. They were using their vast wealth to swing seats in the favor of their chosen candidates, on a scale never seen before. They saw their opportunity to get a government that was going to completely do their bidding, and they would make sure to make it a reality. They wanted something in return for the investment they put in, much like any other campaign contributor. All of this money was used to flood the airwaves with ads, which were usually of the nasty attack ad variety, where you would see a picture of the target candidate with some dark, negative-sounding tune in the background, and some intimidating-sounding voice imploring the viewer not to vote for said candidate because of some proposal, or a vote that they cast, that is supposed to be a bad thing. The conservative groups and Super PACs carpetbombed the airwaves with these ads all over the country, saying to vote for their candidates. The ads aired day and night, for seemingly months before the election, primarily in the all-important battleground states, but most of the ads that I saw as Election Day approached were from Restoring American Freedom. “Don’t vote for Robert Morrison, he is an enemy of freedom.” The ads would say.

On top of the copious ads, and the vast Harris media operation, was the fact that Robert Morrison ran a relatively weak campaign. Though his fundraising operation paled in comparison to Harris’, Morrison was also no slouch when it came to raising campaign cash. Despite denouncing the existence of Super PACs, Morrison saw that he had no choice to have one of his own, which was called Moving America Forward. Despite having a large campaign of his own, Morrison struggled to make his case to the people. Morrison was not a particularly good communicator, and he couldn’t really convince voters why they should vote for him, or connect with them in any meaningful way. His policy proposals were more progressive and populist when compared to President Obama, and to Hillary Clinton, his vanquished Democratic rival, he wanted a modest raise in the minimum wage and wanted to make modest reforms to education and health care, but he struggled to get voters excited like David Harris did. One common knock against Robert Morrison was that he was just a bit too cozy with Wall Street, as the list of his top contributors was dotted with big banks and investment firms, which was in contrast with David Harris, who Wall Street largely shunned. In the eyes of some voters, it seemed that Morrison was the candidate of big business, and Harris was talking for regular people, despite his kooky views. This was in contrast to previous election cycles, where the Republican was seen as the big business candidate, who was showered with Wall Street money. Perhaps Morrison’s biggest failing was that he would not stand up and forcefully call out the highly dangerous agenda of his Republican opponent. Now, I don’t care for attacks against candidates, but there is a line between highlighting a candidate’s views and attacking them. Yeah, he would make the point that David Harris’ policies were dangerous, and he did highlight Harris’ connections with the Reed brothers and other super-wealthy folks, but Robert Morrison didn’t effectively make it known to the voters exactly what David Harris’ version of freedom actually entailed. There were plenty of statements and proposals that Harris had made in the past that Morrison could have used, like his calls to eliminate the minimum wage (which Harris would actually talk about on the campaign trail from time to time), or his echoing his fellow conservatives’ claims that Social Security was a “bankrupt Ponzi scheme”. Harris’ true beliefs were known to progressive voters, by way of progressive media outlets running endless articles about him, and that is what kept them supporting Morrison. Morrison was far from perfect, but he was still much better than Harris. I just wish that more voters saw it that way. Many undecided voters were swayed by the stump speeches, and the glossy campaign ads showing Harris with his kind-looking blonde wife and his two young, blonde, pigtail-wearing daughters, describing what freedom meant to them, and what it should mean to the voter, too. The big takeaway from the typical Harris ad was that he “believed in small government, that shouldn’t interfere in anyone’s life.”

As the election approached, and the prospect of a Harris victory looked more and more realistic, I grew increasingly worried. I knew exactly what David Harris stood for, and what he would do if he won. Sure, he came off as this nice, folksy guy, someone who could easily be your next-door neighbor, but that masked an insidious agenda that was bought and paid for by his campaign contributors. Whenever any conversation I was engaged in turned to politics, I went to a similar theme. I would tell anyone willing to listen that if Harris won, our country was screwed, worse than anybody can possibly believe. Some would agree with me wholeheartedly, such as Leann or my old buddy Jimmy Sanchez or my new neighbors Juan Morales and Frank Jackson (I had finally saved up enough money from my new job to get my own place, a small one-bedroom apartment in south Ontario). I even got my mom on board to vote for Morrison, though she wasn’t too fond of him. It was okay, neither was I. I had rather quickly talked myself into voting for Robert Morrison, despite the reservations I had about him. I didn’t much care for his past support for our conflicts in the Middle East, or the fact that he got millions in donations from big banks and financial firms, or that he didn’t support improving our healthcare system, but at least he wouldn’t do away with our social safety net or shred worker’s rights or completely wreck our economy. I usually abhorred the thought of voting for the “lesser of two evils” candidate, but this time was different. The stakes were simply too high this time. If the Republican candidate were just about anyone else, I would have voted for one of the smaller party candidates, just like I did in 2012. Heck, even if it was the lunatic racist billionaire Donald Trump, I would have voted third party. But with Harris, I simply couldn’t, so I held my nose somewhat and supported Robert Morrison.

I would get some resistance whenever I went on one of my rants. “What’s wrong with balancing the budget? We need to get out of debt, and Harris will do that for us. We need to not spend more money than we take in, just like a household” A girl from my office named Hannah Erickson, the Accounts Receivable clerk for Milton Plastics who sat right in front of me in the office, retorted referring to Harris’ balanced budget proposal. “He speaks to me on the issues, he wants freedom for America. Our economy will be better off if people are free to start businesses and do what they want. Our government crushes people’s dreams by regulating everything”, replied my uncle Paul in an online conversation when I asked him why he was supporting Harris. The disagreements I would get from other individuals would generally sound similar, whether it was my boss Ken Milton, who I did have a civil disagreement with at my desk concerning the election. Or  there were my cousin Morgan and her mother, my aunt Jean, both of whom lived in Arizona and would get in online arguments with me when I posted something criticizing David Harris, something I found myself doing more and more. I think I got in arguments with them close to every day, but since we were family, we stayed civil with each other for the most part, which was far more than can be said if I got into it with a stranger online. They were both very outspoken in their support of Harris, but I would not give in, no matter what. Even if I got pushback, I remained undeterred. I would usually refer to Harris’ past statements and proven facts for my ammunition in my arguments, but sometimes even I couldn’t help with the partisan rhetoric, calling him a disaster or an idiot. I would predict gloom and doom, predicting a collapse in the economy if he completely got his way, something I didn’t really feel with past Republican presidential candidates. Guys like John McCain or Mitt Romney (President Obama’s two general election opponents) would cause some damage to us, but they wouldn’t have wreaked havoc on anywhere near the scale that I felt David Harris would. The Harris agenda, which was dubbed “The Freedom Blueprint” by the Harris campaign, was rather vague on many issues. This was perhaps to hoodwink the low-information voters as to what he actually planned to do. He spoke little about what his exact plans were, he gave platitudes to balancing the budget, restoring opportunity to the people and protecting freedom. His blueprint spoke of terms such as “welfare reform”, “entitlement reform”, and “shrinking and streamlining government to work for the people”. He wouldn’t say exactly how he would do the things he talked about, perhaps because he knew the voters wouldn’t care for his solutions. Best to keep them in the dark, so they would vote for him.

Then came the election itself, on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. It was finally time for Americans to cast their ballots. Like many people, I was tired of hearing what this or that guy said, and tired of the ads that kept popping up to vote for this candidate, or vote for or against that ballot proposal. Unfortunately, the attention paid to the election was relatively low compared to recent presidential elections. I admit that I was pretty nervous as the day went on, and there were a few conversations in the office about it. Even the office seemed pretty evenly divided between Morrison and Harris supporters. I just wanted to get finished with the work day, so I could get home to obsessively pore over election returns, which wasn’t exactly what a lot of others were doing. A few of the guys in the office were going to go to the bar, like it was a regular day. One of the guys, a fellow new employee in the accounting department that I had become friends with named Reggie Wallace, invited me, but I told him I was gonna stay in that night. Once the work day ended, he headed off to one of the bars in downtown Brea with a couple of the guys from Sales who I didn’t really know or talk to, while I headed straight home.

I got home to my apartment, a small one-bedroom apartment located in an eight-unit complex near the intersection of Mission Boulevard and Euclid Avenue in Ontario, as soon as the work day ended. After making it home, I grabbed a bag of potato chips to snack on until I built up the willpower to cook the chicken that was thawing in the kitchen, and plopped down on couch and nervously turned on the TV and turned on CNN (the main mainstream news station) for their wall-to-wall election coverage. I also fired up my laptop, as I felt that I may have finally gone over the edge, as I was probably paying too much attention for my own mental well-being. As the hours passed, and state-by-state results rolled in, something disheartening, and disturbing, was going on. This was looking to be another one of those “wave” elections for the Republicans. I cringed whenever it was announced that another far-right Republican candidate, a Harris clone, won a key Senate race. CNN proclaimed that in virtually every hotly-contested Senate or House race, the Republican candidate vastly outspent the Democratic candidate, and it was showing in the results. The Republican Party’s endless television ads and mailers were paying major dividends for them, and it now looked that they were going to pad their advantage in the Senate, when it was forecast at the outset of the election season that they would lose seats, possibly to the point that the Democrats would take control of that chamber once again. The Republicans also added to their already large advantage in the House. We were going to get the most far-right Congress in a long, long time, possibly ever. Dozens of Tea Party members would enter both houses of Congress in early January, hailing from states from Florida to California, from Maine to Alaska. They may have been from very different places, but they all had the same goal, to dismantle the federal government and fulfill their vision for the country.

But the most coverage of all went to the biggest race of the night, the race for the White House. I got a sinking feeling whenever it became apparent that David Harris was going to win a key state. I let out a big string of curse words when it was announced that he won the major battleground states of Florida and Ohio, so loud that my next door neighbor Juan knocked on the door and asked if I was okay.

“Hey Will, are you okay? I heard a lot of commotion in there! What are you yelling about?”, Juan asked, clearly concerned about my mental state.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just watching election results”, I answered back, with a pained look on my face and shaking my head. I looked like I actually did injure myself.

With an expression that started off as puzzled, but turned into worry, as he was also a Morrison supporter, “Oh, is Harris winning?”

“Yeah, it looks like he just might win, unfortunately. We are so fucked if he does!” I replied in a calm voice that turned into a somewhat loud yell by the end. “Oh my God, oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening. We’re done for man!” I was now truly sounding like a crazy person, and at that moment, I felt that I was. I couldn’t help it.

After that exchange, I invited Juan in to watch results, an invitation that he accepted after letting his wife know he would be next door. Juan was a good, family-oriented man who worked in construction, primarily working on building commercial buildings, like a lot of the nice new business buildings near the Ontario Mills mall on the eastern end of town. He was a short, pudgy, but very strong Latino man with scruffy black hair. He was in his early 30’s and lived in the apartment next door (I lived in apartment 5, he lived in 6, both located upstairs) with his lovely wife Lucia and their two sons, Juan Jr. and Marcos, who were nine and seven years of age, respectively. He was home from work earlier than usual today, as he often worked very long hours in order to provide for his family (he often didn’t get home until 7 P.M). Once Juan decided to stay over here to hang out with me and watch election coverage, Lucia brought me an amazing plate full of enchiladas and Spanish rice. I was planning on either cooking the chicken that lay on the counter or ordering a pizza for dinner, but changed my plans once she brought over that glorious plate of food. Her cooking was just too good to pass up, as the Morales family would sometimes invite me over to dinner at their house. I ate while watching the state-by-state returns, but I ate slower than usual, as I normally did when nervous. I usually eat Lucia’s cooking like I’ve never eaten before, devouring her dishes, seemingly without even chewing. Yes, it was that good. That night was different, though, I picked at it, and ate it slowly, even though it was as delicious as always. I was just too nervous to eat those wonderful chicken enchiladas with the delicious red sauce this time. After another close Harris victory, this time in the state of Virginia, I saw that a Harris victory was now rather likely. He was going to sweep the conservative deep south and midwestern states, which was probably enough to claim victory. The hammer finally dropped around 9 P.M. Pacific time, when it was announced that, after the polls closed in Alaska, that Harris’ victory in Alaska gave him 272 electoral votes, when 270 was needed to claim victory. It was over, the unthinkable had happened. David Harris beat Robert Morrison, 272 to 266, in the 2016 presidential election. I turned to Juan, who had stayed with me even though it looked like he was bored at times. I think he just enjoyed having a friend in the complex, no matter how odd or quirky that friend was. Moments after the networks declared a Harris victory, I finally conjured up the ability to speak.

“Holy s**t, man. He did it, he actually won. What the hell? I think I’m gonna be sick.” I said to Juan. I started to turn pale and began breathing hard, as if I were actually becoming physically ill. At this point, I also started to look like I might start crying.

“Don’t worry, you will be okay”. Juan replied to me. Then he continued. “So Will, is he gonna actually get rid of the minimum wage? Did he really say that?” He had recalled that little tidbit from a conversation we had a couple of weeks earlier. He then continued “That might hurt me and the guys I work with, most of them don’t get paid that much. A lot of the new guys make around minimum wage, and they mostly struggle right now. Will my pay go down? Because if it does, I might not be able to afford food and rent and clothes and all the other stuff, and my boys won’t be able to play soccer anymore. I might have to use my savings, which I don’t wanna do, I want to save that to buy a house and maybe put the boys through college when they get older”.

“You might get a pay cut, but I hope not. I guess that decision will be made by your boss, and now bosses will get to pay their employees whatever the hell they want. I truly hope you guys aren’t hurt by this, you are a good family” I told him. “I want to see you guys succeed, especially your boys, they’re good kids. They’re so smart, they can do great things someday. I want them to have a good, comfortable life, where they don’t have to worry, just like I want for my sisters or the children of my other friends”.

“Damn, maybe I might see my pay go down, my boss Scott is an a*****e! He has a David Harris sticker on the window of his big pickup truck.” Juan chuckled. “I guess if my pay drops, me and the family can get like some food stamps to make up the difference. I really don’t want to go to the government for help, but if it means I can feed my kids, I’ll do it”. Juan now seemed really down. He was a proud man, proud that he can feed his family and keep a roof over their heads. I feared of what was in store in the future for the Morales family, for my family, and for everyone else as well, in the wake of David Harris’ victory. But I had to tell him another thing, something that would crush that idea he just mentioned to me.

“Um, from what I’ve heard, I think Harris wants to get rid of welfare and food stamps and all that other stuff too. He spoke of it sometimes on the campaign trail. Then he would follow it with lines about people being free or whatever.” I told Juan, my voice taking an increasingly depressed tone. I saw the life seemingly disappear from his face for a second, just like it already had from mine. He had a look of despair on his face, which quickly turned to anger.

“Are you serious man? Does he want people to starve in the streets? Because that might happen now! You know what man, I think I might be sick now too!” He shot back to me, his voice wavering up and down, now he sounded kind of like he was gonna start crying. He was clearly shaken up by tonight’s result, by what I told him about the President-Elect. After taking a minute to gather his things, and gather his emotions (he didn’t want Lucia or the boys to see him so upset), he shook my hand and headed back next door to his family. I closed the door behind him after our goodbyes and plopped down back onto my small but nice and comfortable brown couch that my parents found at a yard sale and gave to me when I moved out. I only had one word at this point, as I let out a loud “S**t!!!!!” that people probably heard the next town over. After a couple of minutes, with everything running through my head, I started to weep. I didn’t think that the result of a political election could have that kind of effect on me, but this one did. I tried to convince myself that, hey, maybe it won’t turn out as bad as I thought, maybe the coverage and news stories and articles I saw on David Harris were overblown, maybe he will be rather moderate once he assumes office, or maybe Congress would stop him from passing everything that he wanted. No matter how much I tried to tell myself otherwise, I still knew deep down that the United States of America was now truly, hopelessly screwed. I had thoughts in my head of how a hypothetical economic collapse would play out, what would happen to me, or my parents, or my sisters, or my friends, or society in general. Those thoughts had been with me for some time, of what exactly what would happen, but now they were coming to a head, and that caused me to weep more, and more profusely than before. That night was a long, sleepless night for me. I did attempt to sleep, but just tossed and turned to the point where I probably didn’t sleep more than an hour or two.

I had to call off of work the next morning, as I told Mr. Milton that I had become ill. Due to the lack of sleep, I was is no condition to focus at work and be productive, so I used one of the sick days I had saved up, sick days that I probably wouldn’t have anymore soon. Still in a semi-catatonic state, I grabbed my laptop, and opened up some election news. Looking at the figures, I noticed that voter turnout was quite a bit lower than in previous presidential elections. A meager 51 percent of registered voters bothered to cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election. down from 57 percent in 2012, and 62 percent in 2008. Voters came off as apathetic this election. Perhaps some of this is due to the fact that regular people felt they had no voice, that the rich had completely taken over our democracy, to which I thought, that if more regular people voted, maybe we would have a voice. Perhaps some of us were turned off by the vast numbers of ads that aired, as there were far more of them than during previous election cycles. Maybe it was the fact that the candidates weren’t that great. Many people, such as myself, don’t really want to vote for a “lesser of two evils”. The only people who were really inspired and energized were the far-right conservatives who were enthralled by the Harris campaign. This army of folks knocked on doors and sent out mailers and made phone calls on behalf of their candidate, making sure that their man won the election.

Another thing I encountered when sifting through the post-election coverage was the fact that conservatives were absolutely ecstatic today. These individuals completely looked forward to what the incoming Harris Administration would bring. Right-wing commentators such as Lance Rushman and Annie Coulson freely gave their suggestions as what they felt David Harris should do. Rushman quoted on that day’s show little nuggets such as “those lazy bums who mooch off the government won’t get anything with my money anymore” and “do you just smell the freedom today?”. Coulson titled her nationally-syndicated column that day “Finally, America Says No to the Welfare State, and Yes to Liberty”, where she suggested that President-elect Harris “completely abolish” the social safety net. I saw similar suggestions from a few of my friends on Facebook (an online social media site that many people went on before the Collapse), especially my conservative relatives. My cousin Morgan, a hard-working single mother of four who was several years older than me and lived in Phoenix, Arizona, wrote out a whole essay of a post, pretty much parroting the points made by the right-wing talking heads that day, you know, “freedom” this and “lazy bums” that. The righties were just having a field day that day, and the day after, and for several weeks after that. I wouldn’t unfriend my own family members just because of political differences, but I sure was tempted to by the endless posts and pictures about “freedom” or “liberty” or “no more free stuff for people who refuse to work”. I mean, the righties were really too happy about this. Oh, if these conservatives knew what destruction they had set in motion.

Reviews

[wordman]

the makings of a great book,it was very interesting

[DGordon]

Thank you. I'm glad you liked it! I will be posting the next chapter soon.

[wordman]

you are welcome ,i will look for it