The Anderson-Cost Continuum

Every theory you have about the state of the GOP nomination race is underdetermined. If it makes you feel better, my theories are, too.

— Jay Cost (@JayCostTWS) January 24, 2016

A hard black rain beat down on war-line outside of Hamtrack Michigan. The war-line was 'manned' by semi-autonomous surveillance drones and hard-point networked automated gun-stations. The rain was black from the residue of the 100-acres of AmeriGreat Manufacturing all done in an EPA "Progress Zone" with no limitations on how they operated.

Nathan Crash, ex-Ranger sniper, ex-SOG interrogator, and tested at 170 IQ wondered what the fuck he was doing up here. The war-line(s) that now crisscrossed North America were all staffed by overweight high-school drop-outs with top scores in Call of Drone and a "clean" voting record for the American Triumph Party (taking selfies with their ballots marked to defeat the secret process and gain "levels" in AmeriGreat's corporate holdings). There was no need for someone like him out here.

All the people like him, after all, had given up--or were fighting against a coming Malthusian tidal-wave in Taiwan that was going to snuff them all out any day now. All things considered, Crash thought, maybe it was better to be here in the I.C.E. zone fighting the deportation wars--as grim as that was.

He wasn't prepared for the bunker.

It was an old Minuteman Missile silo--now decorated with the gold embossed 'T' of the American Triumph Party--but, he noted, not staffed with ATP operatives. No--as soon as they badged him in and gave him a professional weapons-check, he knew this was something  . . . something else.

On the long, cold ride down to the command capsule, deep underground and suspended in dark space with green shock absorbers, he wondered who was really running this base so close to the "front." He got his answer when the elevator door opened.

"Major Conwell--" Crash said, shocked.
"Mr. Crash," said the older man--still fit--with close cropped white hair and a tense smile that did betray glimmers of warmth. "Yes . . . my execution was, as they say, somewhat exaggerated."

"So is this--I mean--" Nathan was rarely off balance--but he was in a secure facility and now apparently committing treason just for having arrived. The gold-plated guillotines were still standing in the Washington DC Incorporated Zone. They were huge, classy, and maintained to be fully operational. He'd seen Conwell die.

"It's amazing what can be done with actual patriots and the right make-up," said Conwell. "And it's abominable that it was necessary. Don't worry, son--we're not going to see you twitch. This operation is still five-by-five. On the other hand, we don't have hardly any time at all. So let's get you briefed."

"What IS the mission?" Crash asked. He was so far off the operational scope now that he had no idea what was coming.

"Well," drawled Conwell. "You're going to maybe have to kill Rince Pribus."

"Who?"

The Briefing Chamber

The silo that had once housed a missile was empty of its munition--but filled with what looked like a vertical particle accelerator with carefully managed cords of wires, magnetic rails, and choke points up and down the multi-story length. On the video monitors Crash could see a platform for a person to sit--a padded seat with thick foam-covered crash-bars. Around it were things that looked like the Tesla Coils he'd been shown as a child.

A woman--also a Warrant Officer--but with no name-tag spoke quickly and crisply--Nathan was being briefed.

"In 2013 Anderson and Cost proposed a nominating methodology to the Republican National Committee that would have used a national delegate system to propose five presidential candidates who would then compete against each other in the 2016 presidential primary."

Crash looked over at Conwell, raising an eyebrow--Major Conwell gave him a little nod: stick with it.

"The proposal was designed to improve efficiency and inclusiveness--using a proposal process to pick 10 finalists and then a weighted vote to select five final candidates. This, given the method of delegate apportionment process would have limited the influence of grass-roots extremists while giving a more proportional voice to a broader swath of Republican voters.

"And most importantly, it would have kept the Media out of the process altogether."

Crash set back. He returned a look to Conwell--What Is This?

Conwell, for his part, just nodded again.

The woman continued.

"In 2016 the Republican base was not so much fractured as completely broken. The grass-roots anger at not having enough congressional power to override a presidential veto and their elected representative's refusal to shut down the government and default on the national debt, had left them infuriated with the status quo.

"Added to the mix were numerous thought-leaders on Talk Radio and Cable Television--not to mention the Internet--who were promoting total opposition, not just to liberalism, but to government itself. It was in this morass of toxic politics that Donald Trump and the American TriUMPh Party"--she used the Capital Letters when she pronounced it properly--"rose to power."

Conwell: "After Hillary went down in October 2016 as the emails of her trying to hire Sidney Bloomenthal to whack Obama came out, Trump got installed."

"And that was that," Crash said.

"And that, as they say, was that," Conwell agreed.

"So?"

"That silo over there is the biggest, classiest Heisenberg Engine ever created. In fact, it's the only one," said Conwell, rising. "From theory paper to operational prototype in three years--American know-how at its finest. The Manhattan boys would be proud of this after they shit their pants at the implications."

"What are the implications?" Crash was now staring at the screen. And what does it have to do with that TV Meth dealer, he thought.

"Well, the science boys have the full story--but think of the world as a dial--" Conwell stood next to Nathan to look out at the machine.

"You can turn it this way or that and wherever it stops, that's what the world is like--what it has always been like."

Crash shook his head.

"In our 2013 the RNC told those guys to go pound sand. We got 'American Triumph and gold-plated guillotines. What if they hadn't?"

"What if they hadn't?"

"Well, if they hadn't then we might not be in this God-Awful mess. That machine? It un-sticks the dial. A person can go through that, and, well, give that 'dial' a little push."

"A little push."

"Well, maybe a big push--I don't know--but we'll just get one shot so I'm counting on you to push as hard as humanly possible." Now he looked grim. "We're going to send you into what counts as a version of the past and you're going to make sure the RNC and that bastard Priebus knows what's going to happen.

"Do anything you have to--kidnap Congressmen. Assassinate Senators--whatever it takes son--because you've got a limited window and the whole fate of everything rides on this."

Crash looked at the machine.

"Make them . . . take the plan? Adopt the nominating procedure? Couldn't I just kill Trump?"

"Well, we examined that. You also have to kill Cruz. Then Rick Santourm. After that, Bachmann." He wiped his brow. "Then there are some white nationalists you've never heard of. After that--"

Crash swallowed. "I get the idea."

"Trust me," Conwell said, "this is the only thing that'll work."

Epilogue

Headline, November 2017. Clinton Beats Romney - Three Time Loser

@OmnivoreBlog That is frickin' great! Love the epilogue ;-)

— Jay Cost (@JayCostTWS) January 26, 2016