Chapter 590 - 276: Capital is King

Pittsburgh, Monongahela Riverfront.

Late at night, the Inland Port construction site was brightly lit, with shipping containers stacked like small mountains.

Leo Wallace sat atop a red shipping container.

He was twenty meters above the ground. The fierce river wind whipped his overcoat, making it snap in the air.

He held a can of beer, looking down on the bustling land below.

In the distance, the direction of Harrisburg was pitch-black.

But in Leo’s eyes, its light was now more dazzling than ever.

William Saint Cloud had already moved into the Governor’s Mansion.

Though that fool was still complaining about the hard mattress, he was now seated at the apex of power in Pennsylvania.

Leo tilted his head back and took a swig of the ice-cold beer.

"Mr. President."

Leo spoke into the void.

"We won."

"Campbell’s finished. Monroe has stepped down. William is our puppet."

"All of Pennsylvania is Wallace territory now."

The feeling was incredible.

A few years ago, he was just a student worried about making a few hundred dollars for rent.

Now, he held the legislative, executive, and judicial power of an entire state in his hands.

He could decide the flow of tens of billions of dollars. He could decide who went to prison and who walked free.

It was a pinnacle of power he could never have imagined before.

"Won?"

Roosevelt’s voice rang in his mind.

"Leo, look around you."

"What do you see?"

Leo glanced around.

"I see my city, my port."

"No."

Roosevelt cut him off coldly.

"I see the sea."

"The sea?"

"A deep sea about to drown you."

Roosevelt’s voice grew stern.

"You think you’re the king of Pennsylvania. And you’re right, you have the scepter. But right now, you’re like a sultan sitting on a powder keg."

"You control everything."

"But you have no allies."

Leo froze for a moment, then lowered the beer can.

"I have Murphy, I have Evelyn, I have the Union..."

"Those aren’t allies," Roosevelt corrected. "They’re a coalition of interests. The moment that chain of interests breaks, they’ll scatter faster than anyone."

"Look at your external circumstances."

Roosevelt began to review the current political situation for Leo in his mind.

"First, the Republican Party."

"Richard Taylor helped you take out Campbell and bring down Monroe. You think he did it out of kindness?"

"No."

"They did it for the election."

"Look at Harrisburg now. The Republican Party has effectively seized control of the legislature."

"That William we propped up might be the governor in name, but he’s just a mascot who signs whatever we put in front of him before jetting off to Paris. The one who truly controls the legislative agenda is Kaufman, who’s back in the Speaker’s chair, and the Republican caucus behind him."

"Their strategic objective has been fully achieved. The Democratic Party in Pennsylvania is in a state of devastating internal turmoil, and the State Government’s credibility has been obliterated. All the voters see is one Democratic governor after another resigning in scandal. They see chaos and incompetence."

"Now, the common enemies—Monroe and Campbell—are gone."

"So guess who they’ll be aiming their guns at next?"

Leo pointed at himself. "Me?"

"There’s no doubt about it," Roosevelt said. "Of course, it’s you."

"Leo, to secure your position and protect your Industrial Revival Alliance, you’ve sold out too many of the Democratic Party’s interests."

"You allowed the Republican Party to expand its power in the legislature just to get your bills passed. You even worked directly with the Republican National Committee to attack your political enemies."

"In the eyes of Washington’s Establishment Faction, you don’t play by the rules. In the eyes of the Pennsylvania Republicans, you’re now the biggest target."

"You’re still flying the Democratic Party’s banner. If they take you down, it will be the final proof of the party’s total failure in Pennsylvania."

"And there’s an even more serious problem."

Roosevelt paused.

"You promised Washington that you’d use your influence in the Rust Belt to deliver votes for the Democratic Party in the election."

"But I’m telling you, that’s going to be very difficult to deliver on."

Leo frowned. "I have the Union. I have the Revival Alliance. The workers listen to me."

"The workers listen to you because you gave them jobs and dignity," Roosevelt retorted. "But what did you teach them?"

"You taught them to distrust authority. You taught them that the bureaucrats in Washington can’t be trusted and that the officials in the State Government are greedy. You taught them that the only way to protect their interests is to form their own organizations and take direct action."

"You personally stripped them away from the traditional party system."

"Now, the citizens in your Industrial Revival Alliance won’t lean Republican, it’s true. They remember it was the Republicans who wanted to cut their benefits."

"However, it will be just as hard for them to lean Democratic again."

"In their eyes, the Democratic Party is full of hypocrites like Campbell and opportunists like Monroe. They despise the party’s very symbol."

"It’s just like what I tried to do in 1938," Roosevelt recalled. "That year, I wanted to use my personal prestige to purge the conservative congressmen in my party who opposed the New Deal. I thought that because the people loved me, they’d listen and vote against those old hard-liners."

"In the end, I lost. Badly."

"People’s loyalty is specific."

"They may have adored me, but that didn’t mean they were willing to follow my orders and change their opinion of their local representatives."