Chapter 730: I Am the Future You Want

Chapter 730: Chapter 341: I Am the Future You Want

Washington D.C., Capitol Hill.

Forty-eight hours.

For the standard Federation administrative process, forty-eight hours wasn’t even enough time for a document to travel from a downstairs office to an upstairs one.

But in the world of highly capitalized electoral politics, forty-eight hours was enough time for a slaughter.

Alexandra sat behind her desk, staring at the landline on it, which was blaring incessantly.

Three hours ago, her personal cell phone had died, its battery drained by a flood of missed calls.

The office door was thrown open, and her campaign manager, David, rushed in.

David was covered in sweat, his breathing ragged. He clutched a tablet in his hand.

“We’ve lost all support in the seventh district,” David reported, panting. “The electrical and construction Unions issued a joint public statement this morning, officially revoking their endorsement for your reelection. All the Union volunteers pulled out of our grassroots canvassing stations within half an hour.”

Alexandra felt it become difficult to breathe, but she forced herself to remain seated upright.

“What about our funding?” Alexandra pressed. “Are our online small-donor fundraising channels still operational?”

David pushed the tablet in front of her.

On the screen was a political attack ad that had just aired on local television during prime time.

The ad was of extremely high production quality.

It opened with footage of Alexandra at a climate summit, eloquently speaking about zero-carbon emissions, set to soaring, sacred-sounding music.

Then the scene abruptly cut to a traditional manufacturing plant in her district that had just declared bankruptcy.

A rusted gate, secured with chains. A few workers stood on the street, their faces etched with despair.

A deep male voice began to narrate: “Representative Alexandra cares about glaciers on the other side of the world. She cares about the CO2 data in the atmosphere. The only thing she doesn’t care about is the bread on your table.”

“To protect her own phony environmentalist halo, she personally destroyed over a thousand local manufacturing jobs.”

“She betrayed the working class.”

The ad ended with a bust shot of a middle-aged man.

He wore simple work clothes, his gaze resolute.

“I’m Richard Gibson, president of the local Union.”

“I am announcing my candidacy for Federation Representative of the seventh district. I will bring back the jobs Alexandra threw away.”

David pointed to a line of small text at the bottom of the screen.

“The funding for this ad comes from a super PAC called ‘Future of the Rust Belt.'”

“At dawn today, they dropped five million US Dollars on all the local TV networks, buying out the prime-time ad slots for the next month.”

“Richard Gibson’s campaign account received three million US Dollars in anonymous donations within two hours. Our online small-donor fundraising is completely powerless against this capitalist machine.”

Alexandra slumped back in her chair, her face pale.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to create jobs in her district.

In her vision, green energy, community gardens, and small organic farms would replace the smoke-belching factories and become the new economic engine.

She had fought herself hoarse on Capitol Hill for environmental subsidies, trying to use government funds to cultivate a form of employment that was clean, respectable, and aligned with middle-class aesthetics.

In the past, when the Progressives had enough influence and financial backing, this narrative could work.

She could buy a massive amount of television ads to portray green jobs as the only path to the future.

She could use beautifully produced promotional videos to tell voters that those organic farms, though not yet profitable, were a nobler existence than steel mills.

Through a relentless media blitz, she had successfully shaped her constituents’ perceptions, making them believe that environmentalism was not just a responsibility, but a superior way of life.

But now, the tide had turned.

The United States was in the grip of a brutal inflationary cycle.

Gas prices were soaring, consumer prices were skyrocketing, and the bills for ordinary families were getting thicker and thicker.

Under this kind of existential pressure, the environmental narrative of sacrificing the present for the future seemed pale and powerless.

People no longer cared if the sea level would rise in thirty years; they only cared if they could make next month’s rent.

A different narrative was in vogue now.

An industrial narrative about steel, energy, computing power, and great power competition.

This narrative told voters that only by rebuilding a strong industrial base could they win the future; only by embracing nuclear energy and heavy industry could they keep their livelihoods.

And Leo Wallace had his finger firmly on the pulse of the times.

The phone on Alexandra’s desk rang incessantly. They were undoubtedly calls from the major media outlets, demanding answers.

She looked at Richard Gibson’s furious face on the screen, listening to the voiceover that painted her as an out-of-touch elitist.

She was completely trapped.

She knew that the young Mayor of Pittsburgh had made good on his promise.

She wouldn’t even be able to keep her own desk.

「At the same time.」

The Hart Senate Office Building. Daniel Sanders’s office.

The room was unnervingly quiet.

Sanders sat behind his desk, looking at the three Representatives standing before him.

Gary, Thomas, and Matthew.

These three men had always been the backbone of the progressive caucus he had built.

They represented blue-collar districts in the Midwest and were his most capable operatives in the House of Representatives.

Now, however, the three of them looked uneasy, their gazes avoiding the veteran politician’s eyes.

“You requested an urgent meeting,” Sanders began, his voice a bit hoarse. “So, talk. What happened?”