Trump Vs. the US: Four Months That Changed the World

Editor’s note, November 9, 2016: The following feature was originally published as a work of speculative fiction prior to the actual election of Donald Trump.

On election night, Hillary Clinton seemed to have won a clear victory in the Electoral College, even though the race had somewhat unexpectedly turned into a dead-heat in the popular vote.

Predictably enough, Trump refused to concede. Egged on by his wife Melania and daughter Ivanka, he pulled out all stops to contest the outcome in the courts.

His legal team, headed by Ted Cruz, filed a formidable brief, focusing on two grounds for reversing the voting results.

Ted Cruz rides to the rescue!

The first argument Trump’s legal team made claimed that Latinos had unjustifiably been allowed to vote en masse without proper vetting for citizenship in crucial states like Illinois, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico – which Trump had lost.

The second argument was far more breathtaking. Trump’s lawyers claimed that voting rolls nationwide were unconstitutional since Negro voters’ ballots counted as much as Caucasians.

According to their reading of the Constitution, the formers’ votes should be given a weight only three-fifths that of the latters’.

To support this last contention, the Trump team compiled a dossier of evidence as to the intent of the founders, as well as the intent of those who drafted subsequent amendments.

Particularly telling was the testimony of Daniel Townsend Rutledge, the sole and last surviving descendant of a signer of the Constitution, John Rutledge from South Carolina.

Tracked down in a flop house in San Francisco’s tenderloin district, he testified to a family oral tradition that preserved John Rutledge’s account of the Philadelphia proceedings.

D.T.’s credibility was not in doubt since the record indicated that he volunteered this crucial information with no more inducement than a full bottle of gin and an autographed picture of Melania in her glory days as a model.

Rejected at first

These claims were rejected by a Federal District Court whose decision, though, was overturned by the Federal Appeals Court in the District of Columbia on a 2-1 vote.

Clinton sought redress from the U.S. Supreme Court. However, it refused to hear the case in a deadlocked 4-4 vote. The justices thereby effectively overturned Obama’s seeming election victory.

Justice Samuel Alito, in declaring Latino voters summarily suspect, also applied the Constitutional test to them – arguing that a conclusive judgment should await the results of DNA testing.

HRC’s legal team was handicapped when lead attorney Bill Clinton failed to finish his opening statement until 2 days after the verdict was rendered.

Riots in the streets

The rioting was horrific. Black and Latino America rose up as one. For a week, the insurrection had the upper hand and it seemed as if “the street” could provide the justice the Supreme Court had refused to provide.

Crucially, though, the Army and National Guard units were paralyzed. The situation was saved for the Republicans by the mobilization of its base.

Militias were raised from the ranks of the “right-to-life” movement. Armed by the NRA, they fought pitched battles in 50 U.S. cities. Pentecostals formed para-military units, desperate to bring forward Armageddon before the banks foreclosed on their trailer homes.

The militias were quickly whipped into shape by Blackwater trainers hastily recalled from Yemen and Somalia. These avenging angels did the Lord’s work in spirited fashion.

They did suffer a notable setback when Generals Clapper and Walsh at the NSA accidentally gave them encrypted data on prime pizza delivery routes in the 20 largest cities – instead of the coordinates for rebel movements.

Especially effective around New York were “flying squads” of hedge fund trainees. The blood-curdling battle cry “DERIVATIVES or DIE” of these bashi-bazouks struck terror in the most valiant of enemies. They were vindictive and brutal.

The tide finally turned when divisions of crack Iraqi commandos (the Silver Wolves) and loyal Afghan troops (Uzbek and Tajik) from Kunduz were thrown into the battle. Officially, 100,000 were killed but nobody knows for sure.

Obama soothsaying

Urban America was wasted. President Trump’s first act upon entering the White House was to launch a massive reconstruction project, smartly code-named “Mesopotamia in America.”

A chastened Barack Obama gave a moving speech to the nation on the eve of the Trump Inauguration. He called on all Americans to set aside their partisan differences at this moment of national crisis and to work together with civility to heal the country’s wounds – going forward.

Obama called on his black supporters in particular to remain faithful to the cause of Change. “With faith and courage, we will yet win,” he proclaimed. He led the assembled audience in a raucous round of “Yes we can” chants.

Toxic shock

Then, fate knocked again. Before Trump Inc. could grab its first no-bid contracts, the President-elect suffered an acute toxic shock.

It was provoked by an innovative new hair dye not yet tested by the FDA. It had been brought back by Ivanka from Mazatlan where she had attended a beach volley ball clinic sponsored by Vincente Fox.

Her father quickly fell into a coma. Prognoses were highly pessimistic. Melania and Ivanka insisted, though, that he would recover – and they managed to block implementation of Amendment Twenty-Five to the Constitution that called for an infirmed President to declare his incapacity (or have his Cabinet do so if he is unable) and thereby permit the Vice-President to assume the office on an interim basis.

Women to the rescue

Instead, Melania and Ivanka – claiming this was “women’s moment in history” and pointing to the husband’s/father’s strong support of women — assumed the position of dual Regents.

Their move was very much reminiscent of the manner in which Woodrow Wilson’s wife Edith seized executive power after the 28th U.S. President’s disabling stroke in September 1919.

The ensuing power struggle between the two women quickly ended when Ivanka elicited an advisory opinion from Chief Justice Roberts to the effect that a native-born citizen should serve as acting President.

Ivanka is the One

Ivanka had already been considered a future presidential candidate during the 2016 race. Her rise to the Oval Office thus saved the nation eight or perhaps sixteen years in another cycle of dynastic politics. Chelsea Clinton, however, was livid about her own plans being crossed in that manner.

Ivanka quickly showed doubters that she had the right stuff.

Within hours of being sworn in, and acting under instruction from the Heavenly Father, she assembled an unbelievable team of appointees from among alumni of George Bush Junior’s administration – vaunting their sterling record of unbelievable service to the Republic to save it yet again.

John Brennan became White House Chief of Staff, Stanley McCrystal Secretary of Defense, Condi Rice Secretary of State, Michael Chertoff Attorney General and David Petraeus Head of the Joint Chiefs in the Pentagon.

Their unanimous advice was blunt: “get your ass in gear.” Regent Ivanka liked that. It played to her strength. The country was in peril. The Great Danger was still out there. Everybody was tired of China toying with the United States. Americans’ self-respect thus depended on slaying it.

Seizing all of Eurasia

That meant American seizure of all of Eurasia. After all, what’s the point of being “half-in,” meaning to stop at the Afghan border?

So grave was the Threat that the very identity of The Great Danger had to be kept a secret. Only inducted members of the Inner Sanctum were privy to this ultra-classified information. Thus began the Long March toward building the American Empire in Asia.