Chapter 42. Yes, 42. A lot has happened, but I am skipping to near the end for your entertainment.
Chapter 42
Mike was alone in a sea of people. Even the ones that he had traveled with didn’t want to have anything to do with him. He was not the only person feeling isolated, however. Mike had never studied mobs or mob behavior. Herds, yes. Mobs, no. If he had, he would have understood that there were reasons why lonely people welcomed participation in mobs. The individuals involved lacked meaning and purpose in their own lives, and drew upon it vicariously by joining their beings to collective action.
Mobs, however, tend to have a life of their own. A mob was like a body without a head. It simply moved about semi-randomly, crashing into one thing after another, until it finally coasted to a stop—or it was stopped. A mob may be leaderless, but the composition of the mob could make the mob gravitate in particular directions. A black-clad group of anarchists would be more likely to foment violent action. A bunch of middle-class adults who basically had nothing better to do, and could see no other way out, were more likely to walk around with signs hoisted over their shoulders.
This particular mob was composed chiefly of disgruntled Democrats. In previous years, the Democrats had succeeded by finding a way to harness the mob. They had stuck a bit in its mouth and someone had snuck up behind it and hung a dog whistle around its neck so that the Democrat leadership could hear the mob moving, even if no one else did. The strategy had often backfired, hence the common observation that the ‘left eats its own.’ The ones eaten, however, were usually lesser figures, disposable and expendable by the elites. Rarely did someone of the stature of a Pelosi, Obama, or Harris get ‘eaten,’ although when expedience demanded, it could happen. Cuomo being a case in point.
It was a dangerous game: massing tinder, dousing with gasoline, and then creating sparks.
That the mob had thrown off its reins and was looking to dismount its own rider was indicated by the many signs being carried by protestors with slogans such as “68 was a picnic compared to this” and “Chicago 68 revisited.” These were allusions to one of the more dramatic times the Party of the Mob lost control of its own base, and had its base attempt to devour it, the Democrat National Convention of 1968.
But there was something different about this mob. Yes, disgruntled Democrats formed the bulk of it, but they were “JFK” Democrats, not the more modern kind which had devolved into being the mechanism for carrying out the wishes of the Politburo. That the even the old “JFK” Democrat ideology was connected to the modern manifestation had not occurred to most of them yet, but it had dawned on many that there were defects in the “Democrat party of their father” which helped create the conditions they were then experiencing.
And yet, for all that could redeem this great throbbing mass of re-christened patriots, it was still, at bottom, a mob. Leaderless. Headless. Hungry. Angry. Vindictive. Kindling, ready for the flame.
Mike stood well back from where the action was, which was the fence that formed a ring around the Green Zone. Like many, he had climbed as high as he could in order to see what was going on. The streets had been packed for weeks already, but Mike could still discern that more people had been compressed into the area than before. The top of the fence could be seen shimmering with movement above the heads of the crowds, indicating that great pressure was being exerted on it.
Darkness was already settling in on them, but Mike could nonetheless make out from his vantage point that pieces of the fence were falling here and there. People began pouring through the gaps. Shortly after, Mike could hear the echo of Harris beginning her speech, and then the massive speakers she had erected in order to taunt the assembled masses went silent.
In short order, gunfire erupted throughout the Green Zone. And still, people poured through the gaps. They passed before him like a mighty river which had been well beyond flood stage for a long time, now finding release and direction in the chasms created by ruptured dams. The thunder of violence grew louder and more vicious. The cries of the injured and dying could occasionally be made out, but the shouts of outrage from the flotsam passing by him made it hard to distinguish their number.
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