Taft 2012 (11 page)
Authors: Jason Heller
Tags: #Fiction, #Satire, #Alternative History, #Political
“Bill?” It was the first time, Taft realized, that she’d called him by his first name. Her eyes fluttered. She was clearly dazed, although Taft noted with a heave of relief that she had only one small cut on her face that accounted for the blood he’d seen. “Bill, did you see them? Their signs? I have to get this down. I have to …”
Her body lost what little tension remained. She slipped into unconsciousness.
William Howard Taft raised his great, jowled, whiskered face to the heavens and howled.
“Enough!” His voice thundered across the lot and echoed off the walls of the studio and nearby buildings, amplified by years of
making speeches to large assemblies without the aid of electricity or microphones. “I said: ENOUGH!”
Taft was shocked by his own booming authority. His was the voice of a man righteously outraged, a human being in full possession of his faculties—in short, a president.
It took only a second for the mob to cease and still, stricken by awe. The few remaining pockets of conflict were squelched by those standing nearby. They all turned to look for the source of that voice.
There stood Taft, the prostrate form of Susan Weschler gathered in his arms, snowflakes falling around him and sticking to his quivering mustache, a sight both slightly comical and terrifyingly elemental.
Just then, approaching from a distance, sirens began to wail.
The Washington Post
Dec. 8, 2011
NEW YORK CITY—A new political movement made a turbulent debut last night as crowds of people bearing signs proclaiming support for a group called the Taft Party mobbed the streets outside the studio of
Raw Talk with Pauline Craig
, where former president William Howard Taft had just been interviewed in a live television broadcast. The raucous crowd, which police estimated at approximately two hundred, sent five people to New York Presbyterian Hospital with minor injuries and damaged camera equipment of several network news crews.
A spokesperson for Congresswoman Rachel Taft’s office stated that the Taft Party is not affiliated with the congresswoman or William Howard Taft, her great-grandfather. She confirmed that William Howard Taft’s chief aide, Susan Weschler, was among those treated and released from the hospital last night.
Demonstrators described the Taft Party as a loose grassroots coalition of concerned citizens seeking to recapture a more civilized era of American democracy.
“We were just there to root for Taft,” said Brian Talley, a grocer from Virginia. “It was some jerk rent-a-cop who started pushing and shoving, not the Tafties. We came in peace but, man, don’t tread on us.”
As the demonstration descended into chaos, former president Taft refused to take shelter behind his Secret Service detail, leaping into the thick of the confusion to assist his aide, who was knocked briefly unconscious. Taft’s quick move to the center of the throng, where he called for order, was credited by many as the deciding factor in restoring peace.
“He was like an action hero,” said Dee Anderson, a librarian from New Jersey and Taft Party demonstrator. “I had no idea such a big man could move so fast. What’s that saying—that a president should
speak softly and carry a big stick? With Taft it was more along the lines of, boom like a giant and you won’t have to bother with the stick.”
The Taft Party United Support Association
About Us
MISSION STATEMENT
The Taft Party came together in fall 2011 in response to the reappearance of former president William Howard Taft, which served as a clarion call to all Americans, reminding us that politics in the United States once attracted a more sensible, more decorous class of participant—and must do so again. Our mission is to gather, inform, organize, and motivate our fellow Americans to achieve a higher quality of political representation across the ideological spectrum in the 2012 election and beyond.
CORE VALUES
1. Common Sense National Policy (read more)
2. Equitable Treatment of Citizens (read more)
3. Care for the Future Shaped by the Past (read more)
EVENTS
New Year’s Eve rallies—Dec. 31, 2011
Primary protests—February–March 2012
Taft Party National Convention—July 12–15, 2012
REGIONAL TAFT PARTY BLOGS & GROUPS
Mid-Atlantic—coordinator: Allen Holtz, [email protected]
Midwest—coordinator: Frank Lommel, [email protected]
South—coordinator: Rev. Todd Osborne, [email protected]
Southwest—coordinator: Linda Beach, [email protected]
Northwest—coordinator: Matt Shelby, [email protected]
New England—coordinator: Victoria Eldridge, [email protected]
MORE INFO
About William Howard Taft—
taft2012.com/taft
How to participate—
taft2012.com/community
Signs, buttons, shirts & more—
taft2012.com/store
Support the Taft Party USA—
taft2012.com/donate
“T
aft Party? How can they presume to call themselves the Taft Party when
we
are the Tafts?”
Taft fidgeted furiously in the middle seat of Rachel’s van, wishing by all that was holy that a ham sandwich were to be had as they drove down the highway back to D.C. Susan dozed in the back seat while, up front, Rachel poked intensely at her phone.
“Grandpa,” she said, “I think you might be surprised by some of these blogs. I mean, I don’t agree with everything they’re saying, but they seem sincere. Some of them, well, they almost make sense.”
“How so?”
“Well, some of these people are just disgruntled voters looking for something new to rally around, but some of them sound like they’ve really studied your administration. I’m not the expert that Susan is on the fine points of all your old issues and policies, but it looks to me like a bunch of these Tafties know their stuff. God, I can’t believe they call themselves Tafties.”
Taft scowled harder. “And what does my administration have
to do with anything America worries about in this day and age? I had no policy positions on your trillion-dollar national debt, on your nuclear and chemical warfare, on regulating your seven hundred broadcasting channels of television and Internet and cell phones and God only knows what else I don’t know about yet.”
“No,” said Rachel, looking over her shoulder, “but these people know
you
. I mean, obviously they don’t
know
you, but I’m kind of impressed at how thoroughly they’re trying.” She stared at the screen on her phone. “It looks like they’re skipping over a lot of the more controversial things from your presidency, over the points that are a little too dated to translate well today. But the gist of it is there: conservative yet forward-thinking, pro-business yet proregulation, principled yet open to compromise. It’s like America has been led to believe for so long that these are polarized ideas, ones that can’t possibly be reconciled, let alone work better together.
“And now here
you
come,” she went on, turning back to the highway, “straight from a time before this whole empty rhetoric of ‘bipartisanship’ we’ve all overused to the point of being meaningless. They all see something to admire in you. This woman in Florida likes that you were a thoughtful governor of the Philippines … this lawyer in South Carolina admires your negotiation skills, your dedication to diplomacy as the means to world peace … this coal miner in Wyoming, uh, seems to respect that you’re, quote, not afraid to stand big and proud in your resplendent girth in defiance of the impossible Hollywood standard, unquote. Whatever it is, they’re all talking about your return as being the next great inspirational force in grassroots politics. A true icon of the American people. A legacy that should inspire political action today.”
Taft lowered his voice to avoid waking Susan; the last thing he needed was her jumping into the conversation with an opinion on his icon-hood. “Rachel, forgive me for being cynical, but that all
sounds a little too good to be true. Did you not three weeks ago tell me that I spent my century of absence being scarcely remembered as the wretched, irrelevant laughingstock of presidential history?”
“I know. It’s turned around on a dime. It’s bizarre. And yet, right there, what you just did a second ago—that’s the other thing: that self-deprecation of yours. These Tafties love it. All those times when you were in office and you spoke openly to the press about how reluctant you were to hold the presidency, how you couldn’t wait to leave it and get back to just being a judge again. Back then, all that talk was probably political suicide on the installment plan. Never mind ‘probably’; it was.
“But in hindsight? From the perspective of people today who have to put up with the twenty-four-hour news networks forcing never-ending political campaigns down our throat for three and a half out of every four years? You’re the most refreshing thing any of these bloggers have ever heard of. A president who
doesn’t
lust for power, or covet it once he has it. Grandpa, it may be a hundred years too late to do you the political good you needed, but, here and now, you’ve really connected.”
Taft wondered if, perhaps, he might find that prospect more comforting if he could grasp any of that connection himself. He peered out the van’s tinted window at this teeming, overbuilt, new America that flashed by. For, as things stood, his own space in this gigantically overwhelming new world still felt … small. Laughably, impossibly small.
Dec. 22, 2011
Dear President Taft,
It is an honor, sir, to wish a Merry Christmas—and, indeed, a Joyous Resurrection—to a long-lost fellow Bonesman. Few are the fraternities of men given the opportunity to see one of their own restored to vitality after what must surely be considered a period of true death! Were we not so humble as we are, surely we must now consider Skull and Bones to have entered an august circle of divine institutions that also includes Christianity itself.
Naturally, you are engaged in your own pursuits. Know, regardless, that you are once again considered a treasured elder brother of this proud society, and that the comforts and community of the Skull and Bones Tomb remain at your disposal whenever you may choose to take advantage.
You represent both Yale and the Bonesmen mightily, sir, and from the freshest undergraduates to the most seasoned alumni, we remain—
Yours,
The men of Skull and Bones 322
W
illiam Howard Taft had been a son, a husband, and a father; he had been a scholarly student and a robust athlete; he had been a horseback rider and an automobile driver and an enthusiastic solver of logic puzzles. But as he spoke on the telephone with Irene Kaye, a woman who had once been fifty years his junior and was now fifty years his senior, he realized just how long it had been since he’d been in a position to just ask a grandma for some kindly advice.
“Something the matter with you?” the old woman’s voice crackled, and, indeed, Taft didn’t know whether the crackling was the telephone connection or her aged vocal cords. “Taft, if you don’t want to be in politics anymore, don’t be in politics anymore.”
“I fear it’s not quite that simple, Irene,” he said. “Were it only a matter of my own interests, I would happily agree. But I now have Rachel’s career to consider as well.”
She snorted. “She’s a big girl. Got into Congress without you. Taft, what do you want to do?”
“I … I don’t know. In March 1913, getting out of politics
was all I could think of. You know, Irene, here’s what I do know: whatever I’m to do with the remainder of my life, I need to get out there and see America. I must understand the nation once again if I’m to be part of it under any terms.”
“Well, now,” said the scratchy voice across the ether, “that wasn’t hard, was it? Get out of there, Taft. Take a vacation.”
Yes. Yes, indeed. He had once been called the motoring president, hadn’t he? It was time to get back in touch with his adventuresome side.
It was time, in short, for a road trip.
CLASSIFIED
Secret Service Incidence Report
BBR2011226.004
Agent Ira Kowalczyk
At 0959, handed off the D.C. security detail to Agent Pearsall for the duration of Big Boy’s cross-country road trip—said duration yet to be determined. In order to facilitate Big Boy’s insistence on a mere one-man guard presence while on the road, I have equipped Big Boy with a Mark II panic button and instructed him in its emergency use. Furthermore, I have determined that we will once and for all be addressing the recognition factor.
I
n the room of the cheap, out-of-the-way motel Kowalczyk had carefully scouted and snuck them into that evening, Taft sat on a shabby, cigarette-burned bedspread and watched television as if in a trance. The feature, despairingly enough, was a farcical and at times willfully offensive program called
WKRP in Cincinnati
. Save for a character known as Johnny Fever—who, Taft couldn’t help but notice with envy, was almost angelically easygoing, as if under the sway of some pharmaceutical relaxant—it was horrible. Was this how Americans viewed his beloved home? Was it no longer a proud boomtown, the City of Seven Hills, but a repository for incompetent clerks and buxom floozies? He nibbled absently on a leg of fried chicken, unable to change the channel or even divert his gaze.
“What the hell are you watching?” Kowalczyk said as he opened the bathroom door and stepped back into the tiny, two-bed sleeping room. He carried a white plastic bag that Taft hadn’t noticed earlier.
“
WKRP in Cincinnati
,” Taft snorted. “Horrendous. Leave it to
the twenty-first century to make vaudeville look dignified.”
“The twenty-first century? Bill, that show is, like, thirty years old. I was a little kid when it was first on.”
“Oh? Am I to believe, then, that Cincinnati is even
more
of a farce today than it was then?” He sighed. “At least this Fever fellow has a grand enough mustache.”