THE MAN CLOSED HIS apartment door and entered the cool evening. He stretched his legs and twirled his arms in three clockwise circles. The man took a deep breath, put on his hoodie, and then started on his nightly run, though it was much later than usual. In fact, it was almost two in the morning. He turned left on Hurlbut Street toward Pasadena Avenue and then turned left again. The man let his legs stretch out in long strides as his muscles slowly warmed up. He concentrated on his breathing. The man sensed the strength of his legs and arms as he ran, but something seemed off. He almost felt connected to each part of himself, but not quite. The man picked up speed as he ran along Pasadena Avenue.
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COOPER: |
Thank you for joining us this evening, President Cadwallader. |
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POTUS: |
My pleasure as always, Anderson. |
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COOPER: |
A new poll from CNN shows that your party has seen an uptick in the generic midterm numbers, now pulling ahead by about three percentage points but just within the margin of error. |
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POTUS: |
Slow but steady wins the race, Anderson. And I think those numbers show that our message is being heard by the American people. |
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COOPER: |
Your message being? |
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POTUS: |
Make America safe again! |
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COOPER: |
Right. But some would argue that the MASA movement is built on fear and offers no real solutions to rising inflation, climate change, the chronic lack of affordable housing, and somewhat lackluster job growth while you’ve been president, even though your party has enjoyed majorities in both houses. |
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POTUS: |
But the American people know that none of that means anything unless they are safe in their own homes, places of business, and schools. What’s more real: Alarmist cries about alleged climate change and rising sea levels, or a family’s fear of violence while simply walking in their own neighborhood in broad daylight? We have a real crisis, Anderson, and my party is offering solutions, while the other side only wants us to give another government handout or destroy our economy with environmental red tape. Real Americans know what the real threats are, and so do I. After all, it was my party that passed the anti-stitcher law without one vote from the other side. |
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COOPER: |
The, er, law that banned reanimation is a case in point. It seemed to be working—the reanimation industry, that is—before the ban, without many negative side effects for our economy and … |
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POTUS: |
I beg to differ, Anderson. There have been documented incidents of violence … shovings and the like. |
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COOPER: |
Well, those reports are a mixed bag and inconclusive, really, based on the somewhat spotty news coverage. Some reports indicate that the “shovings”—as you put it—were provoked and really incidents of self-defense. And in terms of violence and people feeling safe, there have been literally hundreds of mass shootings since you’ve been president, and none of those involved members of the reanimated community. Those were homegrown … |
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POTUS: |
But do we have to wait until the shovings become shootings? And the other side wants to de-arm regular Americans so we won’t be able to protect ourselves once some of these stitchers decide to graduate from shovings to assault rifles. |
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COOPER: |
There’s no evidence that is going to happen, and you’ve fought against any kind of gun reform—even something such as improved background checks, which most Americans support, based on the polling. |
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POTUS: |
There’s no evidence that stitchers aren’t arming themselves right now as we speak, in our own backyards across America. No, I will not stand idly by while the other party stands on critical stitcher theory to protect the very enemy of our way of life. |
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COOPER: |
I’m sorry, President Cadwallader, I don’t believe you can just make that kind of argument without any sort of evidence. |
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POTUS: |
And on top of it, the stitcher industry was rife with abuses, all quite documented, you know that. |
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COOPER: |
Some documented abuses, as you put it. Just a few stories about reanimation doctors communicating with their subjects after they were reintroduced into society. But nothing particularly offensive or dangerous. |
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POTUS: |
That’s only if you consider social engineering a good thing, which I don’t. We have to protect our own, that’s what it comes down to. |
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COOPER: |
Such rhetoric could turn off the reanimated vote, are you concerned about that? I mean, they vote in relatively high numbers and could tip a close election. |
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POTUS: |
Dead people voting … |
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COOPER: |
No, that’s not what I said … |
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POTUS: |
That’s how elections are stolen, Anderson! You’ve laid out my case for me. |
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COOPER: |
No, that’s not what I meant … |
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POTUS: |
And should dead people vote? That’s something we’re going to look at if we keep both the House and Senate. The dead should not be allowed to enjoy our most precious of American rights, especially to push a stitcher agenda. What’s next? A stitcher who has two, three, or more donors to their body who can vote once, twice, three times? We’ve got to true our elections, and keeping stitchers out of the voting booth is how we start to clean things up. If we don’t, we’re screwed … pardon my French. |
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COOPER: |
But when people signed their donor cards to allow themselves to be reanimated, they were promised all the rights they had previously. If you try to change that, you will be violating their vested rights. And as you know, there’s a fair amount of case law on the protection of a person’s vested rights. Lawsuits will be filed, no doubt. |
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POTUS: |
And that’s why we need litigation reform to stop frivolous lawsuits that only line the pockets of trial attorneys. And that’s also why I need a Senate that will continue to confirm my Supreme Court nominees, should a vacancy happen in the near future. Too much is at stake in this election. |
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COOPER: |
I think that’s one thing we can agree on. Thank you, President Cadwallader. We’ll have to stop here; we are out of time. |
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POTUS: |
Thank you, Anderson. Not only do you ask great questions, but you look wonderful too. You seem to get younger every day. |
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COOPER: |
Er, thank you? In any event, good night, and we’ll be watching how these midterm elections shake out. |
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POTUS: |
Good night, Anderson, and God bless the real America. |