Chapter 521 - 241: Theseus’ Ship
"You want to be Brutus? You want to stab me on the steps to preserve the republic?"
Ethan didn’t smile. His expression was exceptionally grave.
"If I have to."
Ethan replied.
"I will."
Leo looked at Ethan’s sternly righteous face and stood up.
He circled the coffee table and came to stand before Ethan.
"Ethan, do you really think that?"
"Do you really think you’re this angry because you’re worried Pittsburgh will become a dictatorship?"
Ethan frowned. "Of course. It’s a matter of principle."
"No."
Leo shook his head.
"You’re lying to yourself."
Leo leaned in, staring into Ethan’s eyes.
"You’re afraid."
"You’re afraid of becoming a traitor yourself."
Ethan froze. "What are you talking about?"
"Let’s be honest, Ethan."
"You’re a Washington man. There, your party registration is your ID, your career passport."
"You can engage in intra-party struggles, backstab your colleagues, even send your rivals to prison. None of that is a problem. It’s all in-house."
"But."
"If you collaborate with the enemy."
"If you make a deal with the Republican Party and cross that line between red and blue."
"You’re a traitor."
Leo reached out and patted Ethan on the shoulder.
"You followed me to Pittsburgh because you were making a bet. You were betting I could become the new star of the Democratic Party, betting that you could ride my coattails to the top."
"That’s your investment logic."
"But now, you see that I’m about to step outside those bounds."
"You see that I’m about to shed this Democratic Party skin."
"And you’re panicking."
"Because if I really do it, your entire résumé is ruined."
"You can’t go back to Washington. No think tank will want a chief of staff who was a collaborator, and no congressman would dare hire an advisor who not only failed to control a madman but went mad right along with him."
Leo’s voice grew deeper, each word landing with more weight.
"What you’re resisting isn’t Bonapartism. It’s the risk of your own social decline."
"You want to be Brutus not for the sake of the republic, but to hold onto your ticket to the upper class."
Ethan’s face flushed crimson.
"Shut up!"
Ethan shot to his feet, shoving Leo’s hand away.
"Do you think everyone is an opportunist like you? Do you think everyone only cares about their own interests?"
"I have my beliefs!"
"I believe in the Democratic Party because I believe in its ideals!" Ethan shouted back. "I believe in big government, in social security, in fairness and justice!"
"And what you’re doing now is destroying all of that!"
"You’re too wild, Leo! You’re completely out of control!"
Ethan pointed at Leo.
"I have to be the last line of defense, to stop your wildfire from burning everything to the ground!"
"I’m clinging to the security of the system! Is that so wrong?"
Leo watched the agitated Ethan without retorting, his gaze calm and steady.
Only when Ethan stopped, panting, did Leo finally speak.
"You say you’re a Democrat."
Leo walked to the window, turning his back to Ethan.
"Then what is the Democratic Party?"
"The party of Thomas Jefferson, who owned hundreds of slaves but wrote that all men are created equal?"
"The party of Franklin Roosevelt, who put Japanese Americans in internment camps but claimed to defend liberty?"
"Or the party of Bill Clinton, who cozied up to Wall Street and signed financial deregulation bills?"
Leo turned back around.
"The history of this party is filled with contradictions, lies, and betrayals."
"It has no single soul, Ethan."
"A party is just a tool for aggregation."
"It’s a fictional tribe that those in power use to divide ’us’ from ’them.’"
"It’s a tool that lets voters quickly find a familiar symbol in the voting booth, then push the button without having to think."
Leo pointed out the window.
"Ethan, open your eyes and look down there."
"Those workers living in low-income housing, those men laying bricks on construction sites."
"Some of them have voted Republican their whole lives because they believe in God and think the Democratic Party wants to take their guns."
"Others vote for the Democratic Party because they need the Union, because they think the Republican Party only helps the rich."
"They’re divided into red and blue."
"But."
Leo walked back to stand before Ethan.
"When they lose their jobs."
"When they get sick and can’t afford medicine."
"When their children are crying from hunger."
"You tell me."
"Are their stomachs red or blue?"
"Does their suffering know a party affiliation?"
Staring into Leo’s blazing eyes, Ethan was rendered speechless.
"Your so-called principles are actually a form of intellectual laziness."
Leo delivered the final blow.
"Because following the rules is the safest path."
"As long as you stand inside that blue circle, even if you do nothing, even if you watch people die, you can tell yourself: ’I did my best. It’s the system’s fault. The party’s fault. I didn’t betray my faith.’"
"You don’t have to carry any moral burden."
"You don’t have to face the torment of your conscience."
"You just have to be a good, obedient boy."
Leo’s voice suddenly took on a distant quality. "But the path I must walk..."
"...is one of carving a road through the wilderness."
"There are no signposts, no applause, no party to shield me."
"Only mud."
"Only endless accusations, and the doubt of my own people, like you."
"I have to make a deal with the Demon. I have to get my hands dirty. I have to live with the infamy."
"Because only then can the people who truly need help survive."
Ethan stood there, staring into Leo’s eyes.
His eyes held not just shock, but the terror of a world collapsing around him.
He felt the floor beneath his feet crack open, revealing a bottomless abyss.
"Leo."
Ethan’s voice was hoarse.
"If you don’t believe in parties, if you don’t believe in rules, then what do you believe in?"
"If you have no restraints, if your only logic is winning, what will you become? A tyrant who’ll stop at nothing to achieve his goals? The next Hitler?"
Ethan took a step back, putting distance between himself and Leo.
"I can’t follow a man who holds nothing sacred. That’s too dangerous."
Leo wasn’t angered by Ethan’s insult. "That’s why I need you to stay, Ethan," he explained.
"Because I have you."
Ethan froze.
"I need you to stay."
Leo’s voice turned exceptionally sincere.
"I don’t want you to become me. I don’t need another gambler willing to sell his soul to win."
"Destruction is easy. Building is hard."
"I’ll handle the demolition. You’ll handle the construction."
"That sounds like you’re trying to trick me into joining your pirate crew," Ethan said with a self-mocking laugh.
"No, this is an invitation to build the ship."
"Have you heard of the Theseus’ Ship?"
Leo asked.
"If a ship’s parts are replaced one by one during its voyage—all its planks, its sails, its mast, even its keel—is it still the same ship?"
Ethan frowned. "What does that have to do with us?"
"Everything," Leo said. "Look at what we’re doing right now."
"We’re building a new ship, Ethan."
"This ship might still be called the Democratic Party, or maybe the Workers and Justice Party. It might not even have a name. That’s not important."
"What’s important is how it’s built."
Leo extended a finger, tapping at the empty air.
"We’ll take a plank from the Democratic Party—their compassion for the weak and their social safety nets."
"We’ll take a sail from the Republican Party—their emphasis on industry and their respect for traditional values."
"We’ll borrow an engine from the capitalists—their market efficiency and ambition for expansion."
Leo’s eyes grew feverish.
"We will take all these parts, piece them together, and rivet them tightly to the hull of this ship, Pittsburgh."
"When this ship is built, it’ll be a patchwork monster, a chimera. The elites in Washington will mock it. The media in New York won’t know what to make of it."
"But it will float."
"It can carry the tens of millions of workers struggling in the floodwaters, until the day the dove returns with an olive branch."
"That is our ideal."
Leo stepped closer to Ethan, looking him directly in the eye.
"To transcend the squabbles of left and right and return to the essence of survival."
"You can call it industrial populism, you can call it Leoism, call it whatever you want."
"But it saves people."
It saves people.
Those three words struck Ethan’s mind like a hammer.
For an elite like Ethan, this way of thinking was a tremendous shock—an insult, even.
He felt the worldview he had so carefully constructed begin to crumble.
"You... You have to let me think."
Ethan didn’t answer Leo right away.
He needed air. He needed to get out of this room, filled with its mad ideas.
He got to his feet and fled the office.