Resurrect George Washington to Defy Wannabe King Trump a Third Term?

File this post in the “sustainability of democracy” track.

I just had an unplanned pop-up Sustain What conversation with the wide-ranging author Paul Greenberg about his bitingly satirical novella, A Third Term, and hope you take time for a listen. (I’ve known Paul for decades through his invaluable writing on fish and conservation.)

His new work of fiction, in which George Washington is resurrected to confront a current-day president, “The Tyrant,” is a wild ride that is just the sort of prod we all need at the moment. Here’s a summary from Paul that doesn’t give away the great twists and turns:

It is 2028 and a certain president wants a third term. The Constitution shouldn’t allow it but the Supreme Court has found a workaround. The electoral system has been mangled. The media is a joke. Voters can barely be troubled to vote. A Third Term is a speculative fiction in which George Washington is snatched from his deathbed and transported to the present era. Riddled with pneumonia, possessing dentures fashioned from slave’s teeth, and saddled with an aristocratic sensibility tempered by war and religious faith, Washington will require considerable rehabilitation to pose a challenge to the man he refers to as “The Tyrant.”

But a wily campaign manager and a sympathetic personal trainer are up for the job. In spite of his name and reputation, Washington’s pathway to the presidency is far from clear. Curveballs from the left and right come at him from every angle. Meanwhile, The Tyrant and his circle are oddly prepared to do battle with America’s first commander-in-chief. Slavery, sexual indiscretion, and even another visitor from the past all combine to make Candidate Washington far less than a shoo-in.

It’s a great week to get the book. Paul has made the Kindle version free ahead of Fourth of July. There’s also now an Audible Audiobook.

Here’s a great moment in our chat in which Paul describes a conversation he had about the novel with a podcaster who’s a veteran not sharing Paul’s political orientation (Coffee with Bearded Dad; video below):

[It] actually turned out we had been in Bosnia together because I used to work for nonprofits in Eastern Europe. And he goes, I feel politically homeless. And that's why your book spoke to me because, you know, what Washington is meant to represent in this novella is just some sanity. You know what I mean? Not the crazy basket of fringe ideas that we see on the right and the left… Most Americans…want somebody who's decent, somebody who's honest, and most of all, somebody who actually thinks about the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

I mean, that's like military leadership actually incarnate. The guy, a vet from all those three wars, was saying he has sort of done a little bit of a research around presidents who served in the army and presidents who didn't. And the ones who did serve, because they had that trial by fire, I'm not saying that every president has to have been a military veteran, but think about it. As a leader, particularly in the leader during combat, literally lives are at stake. And for somebody who's not had to lead people into combat, I think the idea of loss of life, sacrificing suffering can be abstract. So to me, Washington was the ultimate that and the ultimate person who thought about the greatest good for the greatest

Toward the end I noted that my only dabble in speculative fiction around Trumpian politics is in my song “Good News from 2044?” I gave it a strum but - in case you missted it a couple months ago - here’s the tune.

Here’s a book trailer of sorts:

Thank you

Alan H McGowan

,

Bill Diskin

, and others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app:

Here’s Paul on the Coffee with Bearded Bad Dad podcast:

It’s worth highlighting narrative analyst

Randy Olson

’s recent ABT Agenda post on the importance of sticking with the #NoKings message:

SINGULAR NARRATIVE FOUND: "NO KINGS" is what the Democrats have been painfully needing (a good slogan)

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