Joe Biden’s little remarked claim that he would consider a Republican running mate (CNN-12/30/2019) came and went during the Christmas-New Year week. This kind of Statesman seeming, half-measure is at the heart of the latest #NoirPolitik Imogen Trager thriller, EMERGENCY POWERS, due out October 1, 2020, and it sets in motion a series of disastrous events.
I expect that Biden was just hoping to generate some headlines during a slow news week, but a bipartisan ticket would probably only serve to dilute and confuse the issues facing the nation. Political party matters, particularly at the national level. Senators and Congress Reps vote with their party more than 90 percent of the time*.
Despite our claims as voters that we want our representatives to act independently, we would be aghast if a politician actually did vote that way. We certainly don’t. 90 to 95% of registered Democrats will vote for their party’s nominee*, as will the same number of registered Republican voters.
In the forthcoming Emergency Powers, as in Faithless Elector and Dark Network, there are forces at work outside of—and parasitic upon—the major parties. But they are effective (in the books, and some would say in real life) because these extra-party groups have captured the party’s leadership.
Though focused on Imogen’s struggles, and without being about current leadership, each book continues to have a ripped-from-the-headlines feel: a fractious FBI, an undermined Attorney General, powerful people using all manner of treachery to maintain their hold on power—and to get more. And in Emergency Powers, the key to re-establishing faith in government and the rule of law was a Statesman-seeming compromise, a bipartisan ticket. But the conspirators aren’t satisfied. They’re avaricious and mean to control every lever of power.
Perhaps I shouldn’t say “ripped-from-the-headlines,” but anticipating them?
The Imogen Trager series demystifies the processes at work. The previous novels dealt with Faithless Electors as possibly corrupt actors in a presidential election (Faithless Elector in early 2016) and a factional FBI eating itself from within in Dark Network (2017). At the center of it all is the feisty Agent Imogen Trager, who will do battle with the conspirators, her own demons–and even her own colleagues.
What insights into real events will Emergency Powers bring?
In EMERGENCY POWERS (Oct. 2020) the investigation that was FBI Agent Imogen Trager’s undoing may be the key to stopping a brutal, false flag terrorist attack meant to tighten a puppet president’s grip on power.
Imogen is haunted—and sidelined—by a case she couldn’t solve. When the president dies in office, she knows that the conspiracy she chased down a blind alley still has life in it—and she needs to get back in the hunt. The new accidental president is no accident, and the old case may be the key to stopping a brutal, false flag terrorist attack meant to finalize the new puppet president’s grip on power. Imogen doesn’t know it yet, but she’s running out of time…
Emergency Powers goes on sale October 1st.
*I’m grateful to Nate Silver and the folks at the 538 blog, and to Ohio Northern University’s Prof. Robert Alexander for details on voting behavior.
# # #
James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector and Dark Network , about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. The third book, Emergency Powers, is coming October 1st, and he’s at work on a fourth book called Bastard Verdict (w/t) .
Find them through Indybound.org. They are also available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell’s Books.
Link to REVIEWS
On October 14 the NY Times reported 
Two weeks later, Charles Lane, writing in the Washington Post, posited 
Worse, as my thrillers point out, the Electoral College is ripe for mischief. A very close election, like the 2000 Bush-Gore election (where only 5 Electoral votes–271-266–separated the two candidates) could be disastrous for the nation. And, there was a Faithless Elector in that election, too–
The recent 
The 
What would an accidental president need to do to solidify his grip on power? That’s the question I set myself for the new thriller, Emergency Powers, with chillingly real implications. I find my stories 
I had all this in the first draft of Emergency Powers, which I finished in October of 2018. That same month (unbeknownst to me at the time), Jeff Tien Han Pon was asked to resign as Director of OPM. As of this writing, there is still only an acting Director, Margaret Weichart, who is also the Deputy Director of OMB. Pon’s resignation came as the Trump administration began work to dismantle the Office of Personnel Management and to bring it under the ambit of White House administration, which folds the daily business of the Federal government into one run by political appointees: patronage politics, or a return to the “spoils system.”
Chosen Words - James McCrone 