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The book is subtitled: A Woman Awakens to a Web of Deceit. That woman is Olivia Allen, a Democrat and a Senator from New York. Hmmmm. Sounds like Hillary! Nope! Definitely not Hillary! Allen is that rarity in public life, an honest politician. She gains a lot of political insight as the story progresses, coming to a crisis point where she must choose between becoming the next President or maintaining her integrity.
The novel covers the period leading up to the 2020 election, including the primaries, the Presidential debates, and the denouement which is the election itself and its results. The United States at the time is in serious crisis. Unemployment is staggering, around eighteen percent amid fears it could spike to forty percent. Major financial institutions are in peril of collapse. Inflation is double digits, around thirty percent.
The rogue candidate is billionaire Frank Stein, one of the last honest men on Wall Street, an investment fund manager who made his money without government help or favours.
Unlike the real life 2016 election, however, Stein doesn't challenge the Republican nomination. He runs as an independent. He speaks out against both the Republican and Democrat establishment. And to the shock of all, he becomes enormously popular, popular enough to make a Presidential bid viable.
Philosophically, Stein is most like libertarian Republican Ron Paul. He is absolutely nothing like Donald Trump. In fact, the man who secures the Republican nomination could be a Trump clone. In the Presidential debate he declares, "We have a weakening currency, weakening manufacturing base, rising prices, and very high unemployment. People who can find work have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet.
“Such desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s time to end the political correctness that has brought this once mighty nation down. It’s time to call the Chinese bluff. It is time to slap a tariff of 50 percent on all Chinese goods exported to the U.S. because they cheat, my friends, they cheat. They have little by way of environmental laws, their currency has been artificially cheap for a long time, and they exploit their labor. Well, we have to equate the field. With all the tariff revenue we will earn, we will ease gas prices for the ordinary moms and dads. I’ll do it just for the first ten gallons on any one purchase. So folks can go to work, go look for work, and not spend their entire day’s earnings on gas.
“We have to make sure that American jobs stay in America. Starting in the first week of my presidency, I will reduce all immigration to zero for two years and then only allow very necessary family reunions at the rate of no more than 2 percent of the population per year."
Anti-China, anti-immigrant. protectionist! Paraphrasing the children's books, "Where's Trumpo?" There's Trumpo!"
Meanwhile, circumstances arise that lead the Democrats to promote Olivia Allen as their Presidential candidate.
To say more at this stage is to give away too much. Let's just say assassination attempts, extortion, blackmail and political intrigue abound as the story ends in a close three way race. You'll have to read it to see who wins.
It's not often you'll find a novel with explicit libertarian themes running through it, so libertarians may enjoy it immensely for that reason alone. Frank Stein and Olivia Stein are terrific characters. But even non-libertarians will find it intriguing for its parallels with the election of 2016.
The novel is not as polished as Kolhatkar's second novel, A Sharia London but it is an enjoyable and thought provoking read.
Kolhatkar is the creator of one of the web's best political blogs, Savvy Street.
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