Hutch Pummel knew there were three kinds of people who watched the news. The first, and by far the largest, watched it for the dopamine fix that accompanies confirmation bias. They knew the state of the country, and sought out a network that framed events to fit neatly into their pre-established worldview.
The second group was far smaller. These were people who watched the news to learn what was happening in the world.
The third group was a group of one, and consisted of Hutch Pummel himself. He only watched the news to confirm that the reporting followed the narratives that he had established.
Pacing leisurely in his spacious office, nodding along with the news anchor speaking through the television mounted to his wall. If anyone had been with him in the room, they might have noticed that he was silently mouthing along, just slightly ahead of the serious looking brunette who peered at the camera with what one could easily assume to be utmost concern.
“It’s been nearly a month since the tragic events of Little Rock, which saw evil long thought vanquished claim the life of single mom and hospice volunteer Marissa Meyer,” she said, as the image changed to a photo of Marissa, smiling in her graduation cap and gown.
“Now the picture with the baby,” Pummel muttered under his breath, as though directing the broadcast.
At his utterance, the photo faded out to be replaced with a slightly older Marissa, standing with her arms in a hug around a young girl whose smile showed everyone she had recently lost her two front teeth. “Marissa was an example of love and compassion, seeking to make a better world, not only for her young daughter Melanie, but for her fellow human beings.”
“And the money shot,” Pummel whispered.
On cue, the idyllic family photo was replaced with a shot of Roger Whitman’s truck wrapped around the tree, Melissa Meyer’s upper torso jutting out from above it like a grotesque hood ornament. “But that love and compassion was no shield against the raw, savage hatred shown by neo-Nazi protesters, who find their ideology threatened by attempts to correct the mistakes of America’s shameful history.” The camera returned to the somber expression of the female anchor. “And still, the only word out of the White House is that there were, and we quote, ‘good-hearted folks on both sides.’ It’s a dark day when a sitting American president can see the ‘good heart’ in white supremacy. A dark day indeed.”
Pummel had heard what he needed to hear. The rest of the hour would be devoted to a panel discussion where the talking points would seed the viewers’ minds through repetition without further elaboration.
He switched to another network, where the discussion would appear a bit more confrontational, and thus would be deemed fairer and more balanced.
“The framers of the Constitution were great men.” The black man with the graying temples spoke deliberately and evenly. “But to believe that the Constitution protects hate speech is simply not true. Hate speech clearly falls into indefensible categories like defamation, fighting words, and obscenity. The Supreme Court —”
“The Supreme Court,” the host interrupted, “has sided every single time that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, and rightfully so.” The host also spoke evenly, yet passionately, his white hair only slightly paler than his skin, which stood out in contrast to the chalkboard behind him, upon which were scrawled names, dates, and connecting lines delineating every hate speech case from Brandenburg v. Ohio to National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie. The chalkboard had been a staple of the show, one Pummel was rather proud of. It subliminally reminded viewers of their days in school, and thus silently imbued the host with the authority of a teacher, someone to be heeded.
“The Supreme Court also decided that Dred Scott wasn’t an American citizen because he was of African ancestry,” his guest countered.
“That doesn’t have any bearing on these cases,” the host parried.
“It proves the Supreme Court can be wrong. Or maybe you think they were right then, too?”
The discussion devolved into a shouting match right on schedule, and Pummel turned off the set. Everything, so far, was following a meticulous plan that had been years in the making. The media was doing its part to stoke the fires that would infect the apathetic, forcing them to take sides. By morning, respected online polls would show a majority of Americans agreed that the Supreme Court was wrong. The data was already being cultivated and assembled.
Hutch Pummel slowly ambled a lap around the centerpiece of his office, an ornately carved wooden desk barren of any decoration or device, save for a phone and a laptop computer. He settled into the plush chair behind the desk and clicked a link, opening a private, encrypted video chat.
A window opened on the screen, showing a man in his late thirties who was trying, and failing, to hold onto his twenties. He was balding in front, but sported a man-bun in the back. In the photo that appeared on Hutch Pummel’s screen, he was in mid-sip from a coffee mug that obscured the lower half of his face. He peered over it through square-framed glasses, and his cheeks bore a patchy beard that desperately needed a trim. A cat perched on his shoulder as though it owned him.
A nasal, reedy voice came through the speakers of Pummel’s device. “Damn it, everything’s lagging. Stupid freaking hotel wi-fi. He’s going to be on any minute, and I can’t even — oh, now it connects. Finally.”
“Hello, Mister Lafferty,” Pummel said calmly. “So glad you were able to take my call.” Hutch Pummel knew that on Craig Lafferty’s end, the screen displayed nothing but black, just as he knew his voice was being triple-modulated so that it would sound nothing like his real voice.
“Oh, you’re there,” Lafferty said, dropping his voice half-an-octave. “No problem, no problem. Happy to help any way I can. Punch Nazis. Kick fascists. Whatever it takes, right?”
Pummel smiled to himself at the enthusiasm on display. It used to amaze him how easily it was to find a pawn to perform the most questionable of acts. Now, he would be surprised if he could not find someone to do his bidding.
“I’m so glad you feel that way, Mr. Lafferty,” he said warmly. “But it’s your engineering skills I’d like to employ for this particular venture. Particularly your more, shall we say…eruptive talents?”
“Right, right,” Lafferty responded. “I don’t know why people haven’t taken it on themselves to blow up these concrete atrocities already. You name it, I’ll blow it! Uh, I mean blow it up. Blow it sky high.”
“Sky high is good,” Pummel said, stifling a chuckle. “But any fool with enough dynamite can do that. No, Mr. Lafferty, I’m not all that enthused about how the target goes up. But I’m much more interested in how it comes down.”
For the next few moments, Pummel laid out in painstaking detail exactly what he had in mind for Craig Lafferty’s talents, receiving several eager assurances that it would be no problem at all.
“Easy as pie,” Lafferty said. “I just need early access to the target so I can calculate the proper forces, angles, and azimuth.”
“Access won’t be a problem,” Pummel assured him. Then he added with a tone calculated to stoke the man’s ego. “We’re all counting on you to get this right, son. This will be our Lexington, our Fort Sumter. You’re going to make history.”
Pummel was sure he heard the sniffle of tears coming from Lafferty’s end. “You can count on me, sir,” Lafferty choked out. Pummel could picture the former Army demolition expert, now hipster, saluting his monitor, and smiled as he closed the connection.
By the end of the week, Hutch thought, America would have be sick to death of its Constitutional freedoms, and America would finally be in position to get the President it deserved.