The Chairman hadn’t won the election. The opposition had lost it before the first votes were even cast. From the beginning, they had been in a losing battle, but they convinced themselves otherwise. They saw the polls, they listened to their consultants, they gathered in closed-door meetings with their donors and assured each other that the people would do the right thing. That the country would look at the Chairman—a loud, crass, grifting demagogue—and reject him. That, when given the choice between stability and chaos, the public would choose stability.
They had no idea how much the people had already grown to despise that word.
Their first mistake was the incumbent. The sitting president had once been a symbol of return to normalcy, a man who promised that after years of economic struggles, street protests, and social unrest, things would quiet down. That government would function again. That democracy would be restored.
But normal never came back.
The people were still struggling. Prices kept rising. The world kept spiraling. The government looked just as inept, just as disconnected, just as pointless as before. And their leader, old, frail, stumbling over his words and his feet, did not inspire confidence. Every time he stood behind a podium, every time he trailed off mid-sentence, every time he was shuffled away from reporters, the Chairman’s followers pointed and laughed.
And the opposition’s response? Denial.
They refused to see what was right in front of them. They dismissed concerns, insisted that he was still strong, that he was sharp, that he could win again. They doubled down—until they couldn’t anymore. And then, with only months left before the election, they forced a replacement.
She was smart, sharp, experienced—everything the opposition believed the country needed. She had flawless credentials, decades of public service, deep knowledge of the system, and an unshakable faith in its ability to correct itself. And she framed the election as just that: a battle for democracy. A fight between American values and authoritarianism.
But she never realized that the system had already collapsed for millions of people.
She never understood that people weren’t choosing between democracy and dictatorship. They were choosing between a system that had left them behind, that had failed them over and over again, and a man who, for all his lies, corruption, and cruelty, had promised to tear it down.
She didn’t understand that.
And because she didn’t understand that, she lost.
The Chairman didn’t need to defeat her on the debate stage. He didn’t need to have better policies. He didn’t need to offer solutions or plans. He just needed to point at her and say, “This is the problem.”
And it worked.
She was the perfect target. She was everything they hated—a woman, a non-white woman, educated, polished, professional. She spoke in paragraphs, not soundbites. She cared about facts when the Chairman’s people cared about vengeance.
And it wasn’t just his followers that turned on her. Even the people who didn’t like the Chairman found it difficult to rally behind her. She came from the system that had failed them. She spoke about preserving it. She reassured the public that if they voted for her, things would stay the same.
She thought she was offering stability. She was offering stagnation.
She thought she was offering security. She was offering more of what people already hated.
And so, when the Chairman took the stage, when he stood before his sea of adoring followers, he didn’t argue with her. He didn’t engage. He didn’t bother with facts or policies or details.
He mocked her.
He insulted her.
He laughed.
He called her a puppet of the elite. A pawn of globalists. A symbol of everything that had gone wrong.
He lied openly, and it didn’t matter.
Because his people didn’t care about truth.
They cared about the performance.
They cared about power.
And she?
She was offering them nothing.
The night of the election, the results rolled in faster than expected. The opposition had prepared for a long fight, a narrow margin, a contested outcome. But the Chairman’s victory was clear.
The crowd roared outside his headquarters, chanting his name as he stepped onto the balcony, hands raised in triumph. The cameras caught everything—the sea of black circles, the faces filled with pure, rabid devotion, the banners declaring this a new era.
The opposition headquarters was silent.
There was no victory speech, no rousing call for resilience. The networks cut to their campaign headquarters, where staffers sat stunned, faces ashen. The candidate appeared briefly—gracious, poised, conceding with dignity.
It meant nothing.
No one was listening anymore.
No one cared.
The opposition believed they were fighting for democracy. But the country had already stopped believing in democracy.
The opposition believed they were fighting for stability. But people weren’t stable. They were desperate.
They believed they were fighting against authoritarianism. But the people had already chosen their side.
They didn’t want fairness.
They wanted someone to hurt for them.
And the Chairman?
He had promised them exactly that.
Discover more from AJB Blog
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
