Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

"That is the one-sided plundering of the weak by the strong!"

"The law is rotten to the core!"

"Procedural justice is the intrinsic morality of the law."

Roosevelt’s voice became incredibly solemn.

"Leo, you are now the Mayor, with the power to propose legislation and execute administrative actions."

"You can push to amend laws, you can lobby to repeal unjust laws, and you can even use the rules to attack your opponents."

"But you absolutely cannot trample on the law."

"If today you use your power as Mayor to grant him an exemption, to protect him, just because Luigi is one of your own, a resistor..."

"Then what’s the difference between you and those corrupt judges who granted exemptions to Morganfield just because he was one of their own, one of their benefactors?"

The words struck Leo like a vicious slap to the face.

"Is the difference in your position? No. In the eyes of the law, there is no difference."

"You are both using the power in your hands to destroy the consistency of the law."

"So-called substantive justice achieved by destroying procedural justice will ultimately devolve into tyranny."

"If you trample on legal procedure today to protect Luigi..."

"Then tomorrow, when you want to use the law to punish the capitalists, you will find that the sword in your hand is already broken."

"Because you will have broken it with your own hands."

Roosevelt’s tone grew stern.

"If Pittsburgh becomes a sanctuary for murderers, if you let this city become a lawless land..."

"Then what you’re building is not some model Progressive city."

"It’s Gotham City."

"And you won’t be the people’s Mayor. You’ll just be a warlord who has carved out his own fiefdom."

Leo sat in his chair.

He couldn’t refute it.

As the Mayor, as a representative of order, he could not praise chaos, much less participate in it.

The moment he took that step, he would lose his legitimacy to govern.

’But what about Luigi?’

’Must I really follow the most rational choice and hand him over to Philadelphia?’

"So..."

Leo’s voice was filled with deep despair.

"Am I just supposed to watch him die?"

"Am I just supposed to be Pontius Pilate and wash my hands of it?"

"No."

Roosevelt’s attitude suddenly shifted one hundred and eighty degrees.

"Leo, do you still not understand?"

"Telling you to enforce the law doesn’t mean I want you to play along with the enemy’s script."

"Telling you to hand him over doesn’t mean sending him to his death for nothing."

Leo jerked his head up.

"What do you mean?"

"The trial."

Roosevelt uttered the word.

"A trial is also a part of politics."

"Philadelphia wants to take him away, to lock him up in Guantanamo or some unknown black site. Washington wants him to disappear without a trace, to turn him into a mere symbol of terrorism."

"That’s their script."

"But we are going to rewrite it."

Roosevelt began to lay out the tactics.

"You need to use Pittsburgh’s judicial jurisdiction to file for a change of venue, requesting the case be tried locally."

"The reason is that the media environment in Philadelphia has been completely poisoned. The wall-to-wall media coverage there has given every potential juror a preconceived bias against Luigi."

"We can argue that in Philadelphia, he cannot receive a fair trial."

"Keep Luigi in Pittsburgh."

"Then, get him the best lawyers."

"We are going to turn Luigi’s murder trial into a public trial of the entire United States health insurance system."

Leo’s eyes grew brighter and brighter.

"Keep him alive,"

Leo murmured to himself.

"Let him speak."

"Exactly," Roosevelt said approvingly.

"A defendant standing in court, facing live television cameras broadcasting across the nation, accusing an insurance company of murder—that’s a nuclear bomb."

"We need him to get on that stand and say the things he wrote in his manifesto, to shout them out loud in front of the judge, the jury, and the whole world."

"We’ll have witnesses who were denied coverage by insurance companies take the stand."

"We are going to nail that dead CEO, and the entire greedy healthcare system, to the pillory of public opinion."

"That is the greatest protection for him."

"As long as there is enough public attention, as long as he becomes a political symbol, the Federal Government won’t dare touch him easily, and they certainly won’t dare let him die under mysterious circumstances."

Just as the plan was taking shape, the excitement on Leo’s face suddenly froze.

He frowned, his fingers unconsciously tracing the corner of the desk.

’Something’s not right,’ he thought.

’This strategy isn’t complicated. Using legal procedure to turn a criminal case into a political trial is a common tactic.’

’Why... why was my first thought when I got the news to just get him out?’

Why was his first thought not to use the law, but to break it?

’I’m afraid,’ he admitted to himself.

"You’ve finally realized it."

Roosevelt’s voice sounded at just the right moment.

"You’re sliding toward a dangerous edge, Leo."

"You’ve been winning too much lately. You beat Moretti, you beat Morganfield, you won the hearing in Washington."

"That seventy-two percent of the vote, the fanatical looks in the workers’ eyes... they’ve given you a delusion."

"You’ve started to think you are the embodiment of the people."

"You’ve started to think that since you represent justice, since you represent the will of the majority, then those old articles of law, those tedious judicial procedures, no longer apply to you."

"You even feel that you can place yourself above the rules, using your own will to decide who deserves to be in prison and who deserves to be free."

Roosevelt’s tone became severe.

"That is the seed of a dictator."

"When a leader begins to believe his own moral judgment is superior to legal procedure, he is not far from the cliff’s edge."

"What you were thinking of doing just now was the act of a mob boss, not the method of a modern politician."

A wave of fear washed over Leo in hindsight.

He had almost been destroyed by that illusory feeling of being in control of everything.

He thought that because he had captured the hearts of the people, he could ignore all the rules of the game.

But in reality, the rules were his most powerful weapon.

"Come back to the rules, Leo," Roosevelt instructed. "Don’t destroy the stage. Occupy it."

"I understand, Mr. President."

Leo straightened his collar, his gaze once again becoming resolute.

"I will enforce the law, but I will enforce it my way."

Leo closed his eyes. He could almost see the courthouse doors slowly opening for him.

Behind those doors was an endless storm, a monstrous wave, a thunderclap that was about to sweep across the entire United States.

And he was standing at the center of the storm.

Ready to light the beacon fire with his own hands and burn this old world to the ground.