Paranoia ✓

XXII: Conner - Impeachment

Conner didn't know what was worse—speaking in front of a zombie audience, or speaking in front of a zombie audience dressed in suits and wielding crucial power. The chambers of the House of Representatives casted an odd and an even more eerie setting to the notion of a zombie apocalypse, where the zombies aren't simply reanimated corpses, but underdeveloped brains that are being eaten away by some unknown viral infection causing the decay of the brain while maintaining the overall tone of the human body. It was most severe when a person couldn't tell whether or not one was a zombie. Dress the person up in a suit and tie and give them a seat of power, and we have ourselves a dangerous creature.

Conner sighed in his seat as the Speaker of the House was just about to point to Conner to stand up and address the chamber. Conner had requested repeatedly that he'd be allowed to speak about the impeachment outside the small amount of time they allotted to each and every individual congress member. It was a drag to hear over 300 Republicans decry the President as a terrorist and wanting his head on a spike. The amount of noise the Republicans made had even had an effect on the minority Democrats in the House—half of whom were leaning towards voting for impeachment.

Conner felt it was his duty to talk some sense into these zombies. However, it would be a nearly impossible task. Talking to such powerful zombies like these was like talking to plants—they're technically alive, but no matter how much you tell it to move, it won't budge. Even if you push the plants, they find a way to return back to their original position. As much as Conner would love to yank these plants from the ground and call it a day, it wouldn't do him any good.

"Mr. Knox, the floor is yours. You have five minutes."

Five minutes, Conner thought. Too short of a time, but I have to do this. I can't be the lone survivor of the zombie apocalypse in this chamber. There must be more survivors. I just have to find them, or let them come to me, at the risk of attracting the heat from the greater zombie population. But in order to do this, I have to keep this short and to the point.

When Conner was in the center of the chamber, with all eyes on him, he made his stand. "We all love to be first—first in a competition, first on line to purchase merchandise, and even first to do something new. This call for impeachment has been done in the past, but no one has actually fired a sitting president—whether it be Congress taking a stand and putting a stop to it, or the President himself ending the discussion by resigning. Although it is great to be in the history books, we all want to be in the history books for the right reason. Let us not be alongside the Confederates who betrayed the sanctity of a united America for their own personal sake of keeping the forced enslavement of a specific race of Americans. Let us not be amongst the President who signed an executive order to wrongfully imprison Japanese Americans because of a inkling that they were in contact with the enemy. [19] Let us not be alongside the red scare where a member of our past Congress imprisoned and spread fear amongst the country over Communism. [20] Let us not be in the history books for all the wrong reasons."

Already he could tell his speech was falling on deaf ears. People were twirling their thumbs, doodling in their books, and even whispering to each other. Addressing Congress was no different than a teacher addressing a classroom of uninterested students. In the end, for them, it's all about getting paid to sit in those fancy leather seats.

But Conner strove onward. "I know it sounds great to be the first Congress to take a stand against the executive branch, and show the world the founding fathers' core principle that the legislature should be the most powerful branch of government. But this is not the way to make history. To impeach a president with little to no evidence of wrongdoing is an abuse of legislative power. We are better than that. We are to set an example for this country. Men and women elect us to present America as a stable country with a designated path towards righteousness. But my fellow congress members, this vote to impeach our president is not a sign of stability, but a sign of instability and chaos. This is the show that the enemy wants. They want our great country to crumble down to its foundations. They want us to make changes, because changes made, mean that the enemy is important enough to effect such change."