A Political Thriller
I've been thinking of writing a novel, a political thriller. The story goes something like this.
There's this guy — not a terribly bright guy but easily managed — who comes from a rich, political family. Then there's this group of reactionaries, behind-the-scenes types who conspire to get the Guy elected president through a mixture of election shenanigans and extorting a Supreme Court judge. Later the Guy gets re-elected entirely through electoral shenanigans, but that's just a subplot.
So, while this Guy's president there's this big terrorist attack that he exploits to pass some laws that let the government — really, the reactionary, behind-the-scenes types who are always worried that the government is overrun with communists or liberals or what not — start keeping the people (basically, only the liberals, who can't be trusted because they always want openness and fair government) under surveillance. President Guy starts a war with some small, middle-eastern country, the thinking being that war-time powers will let the government get away with some of this stuff but it turned out that it wasn't really necessary, since most of the electorate wanted him to do whatever was necessary to keep their kids safe, including killing them in an unnecessary war.
Besides, the media moguls and heads of telecommunications are all part of the reactionary, behind-the-scenes group and they make sure that nothing serious gets in the way of setting up these censorship / surveillance strategies, only they don't have to be real conspirators because having government on their side is what they want anyway — that's the beauty of the plot (pun intended). Between that and President Guy getting the power from congress to detain citizens arbitrarily and declare them to be enemies of the state keeps the electorate subdued, Well, that and the continuous stream of supportive propaganda from the media moguls and appropriate censorship and meticulous record-keeping of the telecommunications giants, of course.
Now, President Guy — actually, the reactionary, behind-the-scenes conspiracy — writes a secret plan for how to keep the government going in case of another serious terrorist attack and President Guy refuses to share any details of the plan with congress or the electorate because of — obviously! — national security. Then they wait.
Sure enough, there's a big terrorist attack. It might be real, it might be contrived by the government; it's probably best to leave that ambiguous in the book. But anyway, in the immediate aftermath the secret plan is put into effect and involves President Guy declaring martial law and suspending the Constitution in the name of national security. People are shocked but acquiesce, in part because televangelists proclaim it's what Jesus would do. In an ironic touch, the National Rifle Association even helps round up citizens' personal arms when the 2nd amendment is declared un-American, and citizen's militias set up collection centers. Congress squirms but since it gave President Guy all these powers without demur, there's nothing much they can do. Before long President Guy dissolves congress anyway because they just get in the way deliberating and debating and slowing down the work of the state in keeping itself safe.
Now, it happens that martial law comes along just a couple of months before the next presidential election that would choose his successor, so President Guy suspends the election — temporarily! — in the name of national security. The reactionary, behind-the-scenes conspiracy is happy because they accomplished what they wanted: a permanent, presidential puppet and a suspended Constitution. Finally, what's good for large corporations is manifestly good for America!
Of course, someplace there's a lone blogger who knows the behind-the-scenes story and has details and documentation, but he has trouble getting the story out because the media moguls and telecommunications giants are able to suppress all his efforts because of the laws congress passed killing net neutrality and letting the government "monitor" all his electronic communications. Soon the entire country is convinced that he's enemy-of-the-state number one, probably even more convinced when the the media moguls try to smear him with details about his gay relationship of seventeen years. Perhaps they even kidnap one the seven children that he and his partner adopted to try to hold him back.
Just how he gets his message out and saves his beloved American democracy, not to mention his adopted child, I haven't quite worked out in detail but I'm sure he manages somehow. However he does save American democracy, though, it will probably have to be through nefarious inside nastiness because the American people almost surely wouldn't believe anything he tells them until after it's all well over.
The problem I'm having with working out the plot is not the plotting per se, but I'm not so sure that anyone would find the story believable.
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on Sunday, 19 August 2007 at 17.13
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That's quite a yarn, all right.
Actually, you might be interested in John Dean's ominous musings about secret plans worked out by President Guy and, especially, his No. 2, about what to do — and what not to do — about securing the government in the event of a catastrophic attack on Washington, D.C. The implication being that some of the honorables of Congress (Democrats, of course) would essentially find themselves left out of elaborate emergency relocation and post-attack operation plans. Those plans might include suspending the Constitution and operating indefinitely under martial law.
Dean mentions this in his book, Worse Than Watergate, which is well worth a few bucks and your reading time.