56

Saturday, March 6, 2021, 12PM Mountain Standard Time

The crowd outside the state capitol building was cheering. Ban Wilson acknowledged its applause with a wave.

“You people are America,” he said, through a bullhorn, to the heavily armed crowd of white people, the vast majority male. A cheer went up.

“You know that this Deep State, liberal, swamp-creature, globalist Virus Hoax was brought to you by the same people who brought you the Global Warming Hoax and the Russia Hoax and the Ukraine Hoax and the Ruppert Hoax,” he said. “Then they infected the President to cover their tracks. These people don’t understand anything but force. And force is what you have shown to them today.”

Loud cheers.

“They call you hicks, and rubes, and Flyover people, and Doorknob-Lickers, the poorly educated,” the bicoastal, Ivy League-educated speaker went on. “Well, I call you America.

“The Founders clung to their guns and religion,” he continued. “They never anticipated a wave of mass migration, an invasion, of non-English-speaking, virus-infected people who did not share our culture overwhelming this nation.”

Now this great-grandson of immigrants, some non-English-speaking, the rest brought over on disease-ridden “coffin ships” during a famine, warmed to his topic.

“We must hold fast to our culture,” he yelled. “We must hold fast to the principles of our Founders. We cannot let these multicultural elitists tell us what light bulbs we can use, or whether we can go to restaurants, or how we can power our cars, or whether we can eat hamburgers!”

Loud cheering.

“Today we say enough is enough. Today we refuse to apologize for being Americans. For being males. For being Christian. And yes, for being white. We refuse to apologize for manliness, and for traditional family values,” said the tubby, late-60-ish, non-church-attending, thrice-divorced, absentee father of three.

“So don’t let these effete elitists stand in your way! The American Revolution was fought against people exactly like them! In the good old days, the days of our Founding, we would take people like this and tar and feather them! Run them out of town on a rail! Take this building! Show America what real Americans look like! Take this building!”

“Let’s go get them effetuses!” yelled an armed man near him. The crowd held their weapons high and made for the entrance to the statehouse.

The police and security guards looked to their commanders for guidance. None was forthcoming. One sergeant yelled “HALT!” as the crowd came within 100 feet of the door. Some of the protesters hesitated.

“Go!” yelled someone behind them. “Forward!”

The crowd surged once again. The sergeant yelled “READY!” His police raised their weapons. “AIM!” The crowd kept coming. “FIRE!”

A volley of rubber bullets and tear gas hit the crowd, and several protesters went down. The crowd seemed to buckle, then more people came from behind to fill in the gaps. Now some were aiming weapons at the police.

The sergeant once again yelled “READY!” The police raised their weapons. Then someone on the protesters’ side yelled, “FIRE!” and a dozen or more rifles were fired at the police. Several fell dead. The crowd surged past them and into the statehouse.

Inside, on the top floor, the Governor heard the shooting and ran to the window. She could not see what had happened from that vantage point.

“What the hell was that?” she asked her Chief of Staff. He shrugged, as if to say, How should I know?

She walked outside to where her bodyguards were. Her Chief of Staff followed her. One of the guards was on a walkie-talkie.

“What is happening?”

“I think they are storming the building,” one of them said. “I think that was them shooting.”

The Governor’s heart sank. She knew most of the State Capitol Police.

“What is your recommendation?” she asked the bodyguards.

They both looked to be at a loss.

A commotion now began below, rising up the twin circular stairways that led to her office. It rose and rose. There appeared to be no countervailing force at all that might impede its force. No sign of the State Police.

Well, I guess this is it, the Governor thought.

“Don’t resist them,” she told her security detail. “It’s pointless. Tell them I’ll be in my office.”

She turned and walked calmly back into her office, leaving the Chief of Staff standing outside, mouth open, as he watched the boiling mass of enraged humanity move toward them.

She walked around her desk and sat down to wait for her visitors. I wonder if this was what it was like for Allende, she thought. But he was an actual Marxist. I’m just a moderate Democrat in a slightly red state.

Outside, Ban Wilson stood, bullhorn down at his thigh, half incredulous at what he had unleashed.

“Holy shit,” he kept whispering.

“I didn’t think they’d actually do it.”