Second Term - A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series Book 1) (4 page)

SEVEN

New
York City, NY

Election
Night

Chip Meadors, the
MSBCN talking head, who once famously told viewers that whenever he heard the
President speak he got an electric charge up his leg, could hardly contain
himself. Voting booths in Ohio had been closed for over an hour when Meadors
made his cable network’s official call:

“Yes,… yes,… indeedy,
its now
official
,
it’s
official
, based on the overwhelming
results in the Buckeye State, MSBCN is calling Ohio for the President. Ohio
will be solidly blue. That’s a HUGE win for the President, folks, as our
network is now calling the race for the President. Let me repeat. The President
HAS BEEN RE-ELECTED. All that tea party, patriot chatter about losing
Constitutional rights apparently just didn’t seem to work in this critical
Midwestern State. In any case, it’s a
major
win for the President. The
President has been handily re-elected to a second term. That should encourage a
lot of Americans, frankly, like yours truly, who have been pacing the floor
today, all of us worried about how the voting would turn out. Whew.”

The mood up the
street in New York City at the Fox News broadcast studios was somewhat less
ebullient. Shane Harrison, not smiling, nor apparently feeling any electric
shocks up his leg, turned his attention to camera two:

“Folks, I’ve covered
elections and election campaigns for 12 years and I’ve never seen the public
opinion polls right before election day take such a decided shift in favor of a
candidate. The Bush drunk driving story made a six point difference, but
according to Zogby, CNN, CBS, the Wall Street Journal, just about all the
polls, the President went from a virtual tied race before October 26
^th
to last night’s final polling. That’s a huge shift, almost unheard of in American
politics.”

Grenda Sandora,
obviously less upset with the polling results than her co-host of Fox Election
Night Coverage, wasted no time in challenging his comments. “Shane, you may be
right about the size of the shift in voter sentiment. But what living being on
this planet doubted that the President would win today, and win really big?”

“We face staggering
levels of national debt, the overhaul of our nation’s health care system,
widespread civil unrest as we saw almost daily in the campaign, a declining
dollar, possible food shortages. But all anybody could talk about in the
national media was the how much money the President’s opponent had. How many
houses. How many cars. They may have dealt the country a potentially fatal blow
by re-electing the President to a second term.”

Every major media
outlet soon called the election for the President, acknowledging that control
of the U.S. Senate would remain with the President’s party, and that the next
Speaker of the House would be former Speaker Nadia Pelham, by a hefty margin of
newly elected Democrat Representatives. The other 49 states split 34 for the
President and 15 for his opponent. The red states were mostly western states,
including Texas, in which gun advocates, tea party and patriot groups appeared
to have their greatest electoral strength. The electoral college final count
was even more lop-sided, 348 for the President and 190 for his Republican
opponent.

What was not settled
by the election results, though, were Americans’ angry suspicions of voter
fraud orchestrated by the White House. The internet was full of claims that the
vote was rigged in the battleground states. Many precincts in key areas of
critical states recorded more voters casting votes than were actually
registered in the precincts. In hundreds of precincts the President’s opponent
received either no votes at all, or only a vote or two compared with hundreds
cast for the President. The mainstream media were not at all sympathetic to
such claims, most media outlets refusing to cover the violence caused by those
who strenuously objected to the re-election of their President, under a cloud
of charges of vote fraud. In any case, within hours of the final polls closing,
Americans knew that their President had won and had four more years to serve in
his second term.

EIGHT

Sandusky,
Ohio

Dr. Adam Nation never
expected to be a politician. He had frequently declared how much he detested
politicians, from all political parties. Thus, it came as quite a surprise when
Dr. Adam Nation agreed to run for Congress as a tea party backed candidate from
the 9
^th
District of Ohio, traditionally a Democrat District. Dr.
Nation was a respected forty-six year old OBGYN who had developed firm
political beliefs about how government should function. He was fed up with
seeing his patients’ retirement funds chewed up by a federal government that
couldn’t seem to control its spending, but which was unable to encourage job
growth, choosing instead to incur trillions of dollars of new debt.

Dr. Adam Nation became
the consensus choice by tea party activists to run for Congress from his
District, in what became a contentious, sometimes violent campaign. Supporters
of the three candidates for Congress accused the opposing candidates of vote
fraud. Once martial law was declared for Ohio, Adam Nation wished he had never
agreed to run. When the votes were counted, though, it appeared that the vote
in at least his district hadn’t been rigged. He bested the two candidates from
the Democrat and Republican parties, and joined several other tea party members
in the new U.S. House of Representatives.

Congressman Nation
planned to waste no time in advancing his conservative causes in the U.S.
House. Political media profiles routinely described him as ruggedly handsome,
frequently referring to his ‘muscular Marine build’. Unlike most of his
classmates in medical school, who went into lucrative medical practices after
medical school, Dr. Nation joined the Marines and served his country as a
medical doctor, frequently in combat zones. At five foot ten inches he wouldn’t
tower over his colleagues, but his engaging personality led people to enjoy his
company. A principled conservative, he had promised himself, his wife, his
college aged children and the voters of his district one major promise. He
assured them that “I’m going to change Washington.  I will not allow Washington
to change me.” Like all Americans, he had frequently watched the newly
elected
eventually become the new
establishment
, and then become the new
embarrassment
.
He was committed to not letting it happen to himself. He decided this after a
talk he had soon after his election with a former Congressman who had lived
through all three stages. The Congressman had served in the House as a
conservative Republican, risen to a leadership position and then resigned in
shame. He first reached out to Adam Nation the day after Dr. Nation’s surprise
upset election. He drove to Ohio to meet with the Congressman-elect.

“Thanks for meeting
with me, Congressman. I certainly know how busy you are as you wind up your
practice and head to DC soon. I asked to see you because I think I may be able
to be of some help as you take on your new duties.”

“Congressman, first
of all, I’m not a Congressman yet, as you know, so just call me Adam. There are
lots of people, I’m finding, who want to tell me how to take on my new duties.
But, I’ll admit I was intrigued by your message, I think it said I might want
to talk to a fallen leader before I make the same mistakes you made. That got
my attention. Congressman, I appreciate your driving over to see me.”

“Adam, I’m no longer
a Congressman, so just call me Mike. It’s my privilege to drive over and tell
you what I’m about to tell you. If somebody had done this for me, I’d probably
still be in Congress. If you have a few minutes, let me share what I’ve learned
about the arrogance of power.”

“Mike, I’ve got all
the time you need. I respected you when you were in Congress, and I thought you
did the right thing when you resigned, after…. your….your….”

“Don’t mince words. I
resigned after my adultery was revealed, I’m sorry to say. But, we’ll come back
to that. Let’s start with the basics. People who get elected to high public
office, I’m not talking about the township council here, find an interesting
thing occurs as soon as they win….they immediately begin to receive praise,
even adulation, from other people. It’s apparently a human failing that when we
are around people that we think are important, we act differently towards them
than we would if we thought they weren’t important. I can’t explain it, but
I’ve witnessed it first hand, personally, and watched it affect my colleagues.
One day, you’re candidate Adam Nation, nice guy, normal sort of fellow. The
next day, after you are elected to Congress, all of a sudden, you’ve become a
super human. People don’t call you Adam, or even Doctor, they call you
Congressman, or United States Representative, or the Distinguished Gentleman
from Ohio. You are now SOMEBODY.

“At first, you’ll get
a little chuckle out of it. Of all people, you know you haven’t changed one
bit. You’re still the same guy you were last week. But, and here’s the problem,
over time, after months, and then after years, even after several years, of
being idolized, and praised, and honored, and pampered….inside of yourself….you
start to believe it. You begin to agree with your fawning staff, who, after
all, owe their jobs to you. You begin to agree with the respectful news media,
who always address you by your title. You notice that most of your constituents,
the voters in your Congressional district, treat you like somebody who can
bring them a better life. Most of them make it clear to you that they think you
can just vote and jobs appear and grants of federal money appear and wars are
won. A few, of course, won’t like you, or your votes, but over time, you learn
to tune those people out. You ignore them, they obviously don’t know how great
you are, you will quietly tell yourself. A new way of thinking sets in. With
some, I’ve noticed that it happens almost as soon as they’re elected. But, with
most, it takes time. If you’re a believer, it takes longer, because you know
that you’re still mortal. But, I’ll come back to that.

“Adam, because 90% of
all Members of Congress who seek re-election are re-elected, after two or
three, maybe four re-elections, you will be tempted to become arrogant. I’m not
talking about Louis XV- look down your nose - off with their heads kind of
arrogance. I’m talking about arrogance in your gut. The word arrogance comes
from the Latin root word arrogatus, to arrogate, or to assume something for
yourself that isn’t really yours. The dictionary defines it as ‘to claim
unwarrantably or presumptuously’. I’m not trying to lecture here, Adam, my
point is this. When you are an important person for a while you begin to
arrogate to yourself something that you don’t have the right to claim. If you
are in power, you begin to think that you actually are the source of power, and
it changes how you think.”

“Congressmen
have
power. What am I missing here?”

“Scripture says that
all power belongs to God. He loans it, on occasion, to mere mortals, but it’s
His. If a judge starts thinking that he is the source of justice, or a banker
thinks he is the source of economic resources, or a doctor thinks that he is
the source of healing, then they arrogate to themselves what is not theirs.
They become arrogant. It may not show on the outside, but inside, they begin to
arrogantly think they can get away with what others who don’t have what they
have, could never get away with doing. You’ll be able to raise a million
dollars for your re-election. Lots of folks will donate to you if you’re in
office, many because they want something. Snap your fingers, arrange some
fund-raisers and many thousands of dollars end up on your desk. You won’t have
to do even one pelvic exam and your bank accounts will overflow with money.
It’s amazing how much money comes in. Money sure affects how people think.

“And here’s where I’m
headed with this. One day, and it could be any given day, you’ll be in your
office and a cute new staff member will brush your arm as she hands you some
papers, looks into your baby blues and gives you a big smile and a come-hither
look. You’re not a teen ager any more, but you’ll start to feel like one. Your
blood will race. You’ll think what if, or maybe. But….self-control will kick
in. You’ll remember your dear wife, and your vows, and your constituents and
your faith. And the temptation will pass.

“That is, until the
next time it happens, and maybe the cute staffer is a little more forward this
time, and maybe it’s out of the office, or out of town, at some event. She lets
you know how much she admires you. She gushes about how you should be a
Senator, or maybe even President someday. You go through your list of why you
can’t break your wedding vows, again, but, and
this
is when it happens,
you begin to tell yourself – ‘Self, you deserve this; you can get away with it;
you’re a powerful, important Congressman. Nobody’ll know. Look at how hard you
work. Can’t hurt anybody, really. Just some recreation to relax some.’

“It can’t be that
easy to fall that far….”

“Adam, believe me,
it’s incredibly easy to fall. I knew everything I had ever done, all I had ever
worked for, all the pro-family, conservative stands I had taken were on the
line, my family, my job, it was all right there and I did it anyway. As you can
see, I’m no Cary Grant by any means, I’m less than normal height and balding,
so looks have nothing to do with it. The devil is like a roaring lion seeking
whom he can devour. I knew he was tempting me. My arrogance of power led me to
think I could get away with it, because I was so important. Well, I wasn’t and
I’m not. Only by the grace of God did Melanie stay with me, but it’s still very
difficult on her, and our marriage was damaged, to say the least. My main
regret is what I did to sully the name of my Lord.

“One other point. The
arrogance of power can take you down in other areas besides sexual sin. You
were elected because you believe in certain principles. I’ve personally
witnessed my fellow Members of Congress stray. Not from their wives, but from
their principles.  You can fall away from why you came here simply because a
lobbyist who bundled several thousand dollars in campaign contributions asks
you to cast a simple little vote on an amendment here or there. You look at
what you’re about to do. You know it’s not consistent with your core beliefs,
but then you go through the same self-delusion I just outlined for physical
sins. You arrogantly tell yourself that nobody will notice; it’s a small issue,
anyway; I should get more credit for all I’m doing to fight the fight; compared
to what I’ve seen other conservatives swallow it’s no big deal. You get the
idea.”

Congressman-elect
Adam Nation could not have known at the time of his meeting how important his
twenty minutes with a fallen Congressman would prove to be in his life, and for
the nation.