Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

Chapter 398: Chapter 186: The Crack in the Iron Curtain

When the votes from the final precinct were confirmed, the results on the screen locked into place.

John Murphy, fifty-four percent.

Russell Warren, forty-six percent.

There was no neck-and-neck race as expected, no tense, drawn-out battle.

John Murphy had won.

This invisible man from Capitol Hill, this Representative whom everyone saw as an amiable moderate, had, on this night, personally ended Russell Warren’s thirty-year reign over Pennsylvania.

The plaza fell into a brief, dead silence.

Then, a deafening roar of cheers erupted.

Champagne corks shot toward the sky like bullets.

People embraced, screamed, and cried.

Below the stage, Leo Wallace stood with his hands in his overcoat pockets, quietly watching the scene unfold.

He watched John Murphy walk out from backstage, toward the lectern surrounded by flowers and microphones.

Murphy wore the deep blue suit specially tailored for the campaign, its cut perfectly fitting his body.

Gone was the man who had torn his hair out in anxiety over a lack of funds. Vanished was the cowardly politician who had roared at Leo over the phone, terrified that his political future was over.

The man standing there now held his back ramrod straight, as if an invisible steel bar ran through his spine.

Murphy raised his hand, acknowledging the sea of people below the stage.

The motion of his wave grew slow and deliberate, each lift of his hand stirring the currents of fate in the air.

The spotlight hit his face, illuminating him like a deity.

Leo noticed that Murphy’s face was suffused with a strange, red glow.

It was the morbid sheen that seeped from deep within the skin when power surged through the body.

It made one euphoric, made one feel omnipotent, while silently draining one’s life away.

Murphy’s gaze swept over the crowd below.

Those eyes, once wavering with hesitation, had now become deep and profound.

They held too many unspeakable secrets, too many late-night compromises.

He no longer looked at any specific person.

His gaze passed over the hoarse-throated volunteers in the front row, over the tear-streaked faces of the Union workers.

He looked at everyone, and yet seemed to see nothing at all.

He was like a shepherd on high, surveying his flock with detached compassion.

Leo suddenly felt he was looking at a stranger.

He had single-handedly groomed this man.

It was Leo who, in his office, had used a blueprint for five hundred million dollars in bonds to force the spark of ambition into the man’s heart.

It was Leo who, with one scheme and crisis management effort after another, had pushed this old bureaucrat—who had originally planned to just coast to retirement—into the spotlight.

But now, Leo felt he didn’t know this person anymore.

’Look, Leo.’

Roosevelt’s voice echoed in the depths of his mind.

’This is your masterpiece.’

Leo didn’t answer. His gaze remained locked on Murphy.

Murphy placed both hands on the lectern, not rushing to speak.

He just quietly watched the faces in the crowd below.

Faces stained with coal dust. Faces etched with wrinkles by hardship. Faces filled with exhaustion, yet burning with hope.

A full minute of silence passed.

This silence was more powerful than any shout. It quelled the clamor of the crowd, and the whistle of the cold wind became sharply audible.

Murphy leaned into the microphone.

"Tonight."

His voice reverberated in everyone’s chest through the sound system.

"I look out at all of you."

"I see not just supporters, not just voters. What I see is a group of survivors."

Those words instantly seized everyone’s heart.

Murphy’s expression was grave, as if he were presiding over a mass.

"We live in a calcifying age."

"I know how you feel. That suffocating feeling of waking up every morning with a heavy stone on your chest. That panic when you look at your bills, not knowing where next month’s rent or your children’s tuition will come from."

"Fear, hatred, and an insatiable craving for what we cannot have—these have woven an invisible iron curtain above our heads."

Murphy raised a hand, pointing to the pitch-black sky.

"This iron curtain blocks out the sun, and it blocks out hope."

"The elites in Washington, the traders on Wall Street—what do they want us to become?"

Murphy’s voice began to sharpen.

"They want us to become soulless machines!"

"They want us to become cold, hard numbers on a balance sheet! To become creatures that do nothing but churn out outrage on command! To become a crop waiting for their scythes!"

"They tell us to hate each other. White people to hate Black people, the poor to hate the poorer, locals to hate outsiders."

"They make us fight to the death over pitiful scraps, tearing at each other in the mud, while they stand on high ground, sipping red wine, watching our miserable plight and mocking our stupidity."

"Our thoughts are slowly suffocating beneath this iron curtain."

"Our spines are slowly bending under this heavy pressure."

The crowd below began to stir.

It was the tremor of resonance.

Murphy had voiced the pain they felt but could not express.

He was empathizing with their pain.

Leo watched the brilliant man on the stage, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind.

’Well said.’

Roosevelt’s voice sounded in Leo’s mind.

’He’s grasped the key. In this era, pain is the greatest common denominator. Whoever can explain the pain is the one who will hold the power.’