Chapter 727: Purge List

Chapter 727: Chapter 339: Purge List

Washington D.C., the Willard InterContinental Hotel.

The air in the suite was heavy.

The first Progressive caucus meeting on Capitol Hill had ended in a complete breakdown.

Their political bottom lines were poles apart. Under such circumstances, any further discussion was pointless.

The lawmakers, who styled themselves as environmental champions, rejected the nuclear power plant proposal. They saw Leo as a traitor corrupted by capital.

Leo Wallace stood before the wide floor-to-ceiling window, gazing down at the City of Power shrouded in night. The streams of traffic on the streets below merged into a glaring ribbon of red and white light.

He wasn’t angry. He was long past the stage of flying into a rage over political disagreements.

He knew exactly what these people were like, and he knew that mere debate could never change an established political position.

A paper he had read in college came to mind.

Robert Aumann’s 1976 paper, “Agreeing to Disagree.”

The mathematician had used formulas to prove a counterintuitive truth.

If two perfectly rational individuals have common priors and honestly exchange the information they each possess, their final judgment of an event will inevitably converge.

In theory, disagreements shouldn’t exist.

Leo saw factories closing. The Progressive lawmakers saw glaciers melting.

If they just exchanged information, the rational conclusion would be to jointly search for a solution that could both provide power and reduce emissions, such as nuclear energy.

But reality wasn’t math.

They lacked common priors.

In the eyes of Alexandra and Susan, the world was an exquisite garden in need of protection, where any trace of industry was a stain.

But in Leo’s eyes, the world was an icebox where people would freeze to death if you didn’t keep adding wood to the fire.

Their definitions of justice had been misaligned from the very start.

What was more fatal was psychological bias.

Those lawmakers refused to acknowledge the necessity of nuclear energy, not because they didn’t understand physics, but because doing so would harm their vested interests.

To maintain their personas as environmental warriors and hold onto the votes of radical youths, their brains automatically filtered out all data about the shortage of baseload power.

This self-serving bias made them blind.

They believed they held a monopoly on the truth, that they stood on the moral high ground looking down on all of creation.

In reality, they were completely incapable of understanding the world as Leo saw it.

They couldn’t see the faces of those struggling to survive in the Rust Belt, nor could they hear the voices yearning for the roar of machinery.

Since the other side wasn’t participating rationally, it was impossible to reach a consensus by exchanging information.

In that case, further debate was a waste of life.

Leo pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit a cigarette.

The crimson flame flickered in the dim room.

He took a deep drag, the smoke filling his lungs and suppressing the exhaustion in his mind.

“Those people rejected you,” Roosevelt’s voice resounded from the depths of Leo’s consciousness.

“They’re clinging to their green dogma. What are you going to do?”

Leo tilted his head back and slowly blew out a grayish-white ring of smoke.

The ring gradually expanded in mid-air before dissipating.

“Never try to persuade a fanatic,” Leo said, his tone perfectly calm. “If a caucus won’t listen, you dismantle it and assemble one that will.”

He turned and strode to the large desk.

A printed list lay on the desk.

It was the roster of the Progressive caucus’s core members, which Daniel Sanders had given him earlier.

After several political storms had reshuffled and winnowed its ranks, the list now contained eighteen federal Representatives and four federal Senators.

These people constituted the left-wing power on Capitol Hill.

Leo pulled out the high-backed leather chair and sat down. He took out a fountain pen with red ink and uncapped it.

“Let’s do some sorting,” Leo said, looking down to scrutinize the names on the paper.

His eyes locked onto the first group of people.

This group was typified by Representative Mark of Minnesota.

Their districts were mostly located in the Midwest, the Rust Belt, or traditional Industrial States. Their constituents were mainly blue-collar workers, truck drivers, and people in manufacturing.

Although these people wore the mantle of the Progressives, they were extremely pragmatic at heart.

They needed jobs, the roar of factories, and actual paychecks to show their constituents.

The red pen in Leo’s hand drew a heavy circle around Mark’s name.

“These can be won over,” Leo concluded. “They’re under pressure to deliver. As long as I can drop construction orders for the nuclear plant and a few thousand high-paying Union jobs in their laps, they’ll abandon those lofty environmental slogans without a second thought.”

“Shared interest is the best glue. I’ll absorb them into my Industrial Revival Alliance.”

Then, Leo’s gaze moved down, settling on the second group of names.

Alexandra of New York’s Bronx District, and Susan of California.

These people represented the wealthiest and most educated districts on the East and West Coasts.

Their base consisted of university professors, new tech money, and fanatical environmentalists.

They cared only about carbon emission data and rising sea levels, and they wore their opposition to nuclear power as a badge of honor for their political careers.

These people would never compromise.

They were the mortal enemies standing in the way of the Pennsylvania Computing Power Special Zone.

Leo gripped the pen tighter, its nib drawing two thick, glaring red lines through the names of Alexandra and Susan.

The red ink bled through the back of the paper.

“Eliminate them,” Leo’s voice was devoid of any emotion.

Roosevelt let out a short chuckle.

“You want to take out sitting members of Congress? They’re household names all across America and wield immense influence on social media. What methods are you planning to use to kick them out of Capitol Hill?”

“With the methods they despise most,” Leo said, putting down his pen. “Money and violence.”

Leo picked up his phone and dialed Ethan’s number at Pittsburgh City Hall.

The call was answered after two rings.

“Boss, how did the meeting in Washington go?” Ethan’s voice was probing.

“The negotiations collapsed. They chose war,” Leo said, getting straight to his orders. “Ethan, contact Evelyn Saint Cloud immediately. Tell her I have new instructions for her.”

Ethan audibly paused on the other end of the line.

“I’ll send you a list shortly.”

“Tell her to get all the funds from that super PAC—the one for election interference—ready,” Leo said, speaking rapidly. “I want her to mobilize at least fifty million US Dollars. Funnel it all through those non-profit organizations that are exempt from disclosing their donors, disperse and launder the funds, and then pump it into the electoral districts of the people on the list.”

“I want to see a deluge of television attack ads. I want every radio station on the airwaves broadcasting negative stories about how they’re obstructing job creation for workers. Buy up all the digital media space. Portray them as arrogant elites who only care about political grandstanding, ignoring whether the lower classes live or die.”

“Use our absolute financial advantage to crush their grassroots fundraising networks.”

“I want them utterly eliminated in the party primaries.”

“Then, find primary challengers within their districts. Look for moderate Democrats who support infrastructure development and are desperate for campaign funds. Use Evelyn’s money to arm these challengers to the teeth.”

“I want control of these districts.”

Ethan quickly jotted down all the key points in his notebook.

“Understood, Boss. I’ll arrange the financial liaison immediately. The Saint Claude Family’s funding channels have been on standby.”

After hanging up, Leo called Frank.

A few seconds later, Frank’s gruff voice came over the line.

“Leo, you run into trouble?”

“I need your help, Frank,” Leo said, gripping his phone. “I need you to personally reach out to Robert Kelly, the president of the National Power Union.”

Frank whistled.

“Robert Kelly? He’s in charge of hundreds of thousands of electrical workers all over America. What do you want with him?”

Leo said, “Tell him that Pennsylvania is preparing to fully restart the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant and also build several new small modular reactors. This is a massive, decade-long project with a total investment of over ten billion US Dollars.”

Leo knew exactly what these Union leaders wanted, and he decided to use their own interests to tie them to his war chariot.

“Promise him, explicitly, that one hundred percent of the jobs from this project—all the electrical installation, equipment maintenance, and grid construction—will go to members of the National Power Union.”

“These are thousands of long-term, high-paying jobs protected by federal labor laws.”

Frank drew in a sharp breath on the other end of the line. For any Union, a contract like this meant power and a massive income from dues.

“Kelly will be ecstatic when he hears this,” Frank said with conviction.

“But if he wants these jobs, he’ll have to pay a price,” Leo said, laying out his harsh terms. “You tell him that the gang of environmentalist lawmakers in Washington are fighting tooth and nail on Capitol Hill to block this project. They’re trying to smash the rice bowls of thousands of workers.”

“I need the National Power Union to issue a public statement in coordination with my moves. They need to make a clean break with radical environmentalists like Alexandra and Susan.”

“The Union needs to stop all political donations to them and pull all of its canvassing volunteers from their districts.”

“I want Kelly to organize his union members to protest outside those environmentalist lawmakers’ offices. Have those electrical workers with their calloused hands block their doors and demand an explanation.”

“And if the Democratic National Committee dares to interfere, have Kelly threaten them.”

“Tell the chairman of the Democratic National Committee that if the nuclear project falls through, the National Power Union will sit out the next election. They won’t knock on a single door or canvas for any Democratic Party candidate.”

Frank didn’t comment on Leo’s plan.

He didn’t understand politics, but he was willing to do anything that gave workers jobs and increased their income.

“I’ll get on it right away.”

Leo hung up the phone.

He picked up the list again, now scarred and disfigured by the red lines.

Roosevelt’s voice was full of admiration. “You’ve done exceptionally well, Leo.”

“You’ve learned how to wield your power to reshape the political landscape.”

Leo walked back to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the crisscrossing streets of Washington D.C.

This city was accustomed to slow negotiations, lengthy hearings, and the search for a delicate balance through compromise.

Politicians always greeted each other wearing masks of hypocrisy.

But Leo had no intention of abiding by these old, outdated customs.

He had brought with him the iron will of Pittsburgh and the efficiency so prized by industrial society.

“Washington is too quiet,” Leo said, his tone chilling as he stared at the distant dome of the Congress Building. “Since they’ve refused a peaceful trade, I’ll have to show them a thing or two.”

He turned, walked to the liquor cabinet, and poured himself a drink.

“I’m going to make it rain blood in Washington.”