The Fortress

According to 50 USCS § 2204 [Title 50. War and National Defense; Chapter 39. Spoils of War], enemy of the United States means any country, government, group, or person that has been engaged in hostilities, whether or not lawfully authorized, with the United States;

(3) the term “person” means

(A) any natural person;

(B) any corporation, partnership, or other legal entity; and

(C)any organization, association, or group.

Source: uslegal.com

With such a definition, we would assume an enemy of the state is someone who wants to attack the country because they have a certain hatred of the country, or are against its ideologies. No one would ever think this is a definition the government would use to brand masses of its own citizens.

People are known to often disagree on several topics: who is the best hockey team, who will win the Super Bowl this season, what is the best place to go on vacation, what should the city do with its annual budget surplus, and so on. It is normal for humans to have different interests and to discuss them.

For some other topics, such as politics, it was now a whole different story.

If someone did not think as another person did, they were now considered the enemy. There was no longer a middle ground, a consensus that could be reached to understand political positions, often enough allowing to find a middle ground that would help benefit most people. The “agree to disagree” scenario disappeared fast, as civility rapidly dwindled.

In some other situations, it was about taking what the right considered more radical positions, such as offering universal healthcare, and defunding police departments. The richest nation in the world was unwilling to offer healthcare to all of its citizens, yet it was willing to continue facilitating police departments in militarizing themselves and offer billionaires and big corporations juicy tax cuts.

Most uneducated right-wing supporters would systematically vote against their interests because they could not discern the real political issues from the lies they were constantly fed by some media station, in pair with the party in power. They were afraid of the vile immigrants who were coming over to steal their jobs. Sure, Kyle. Ahmed and his medical doctorate came to the USA to steal your job working at the local factory. They were also afraid of people of color, disabled people, and people falling under the LGBTQ+ communities standing up for themselves against the government and society’s injustice.

These people were all so different from what was considered normal by society, they must have been automatically evil. Humans fear what they do not understand. It takes them time to understand things and normalize these ideas. Normal is also nothing but a setting on a washing machine.

This situation, which lasted for so many years, was the perfect storm required to proceed with the erasure of human rights from more at-risk communities. All those who were previously mentioned were now an enemy of the state, should they still refuse to align themselves with this new ideology.

One does not simply disagree on human rights when talking about others’ lives. Yet, some people felt like they were entitled to do precisely this.

In wake of this general change in the American population, the years before 2016 brought a wind of uncertainty in the country. Elections were no longer taken for granted, as electors had been widely unpredictable and unstable in their intentions.

During the 2016 Presidential election, the citizens elected a dangerous man to the presidency, a man who was openly misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, amongst other things. He openly and shamelessly attacked opponents and party members alike. Pollsters, despite using their usually very effective and reliable scientific polling methods, had failed to see what was happening: electors were no longer willing to follow and support the establishment. They had a glimpse at someone who openly hated people for various reasons and they asked for more. They proudly and blindly followed him over who he hated, not over his politics.

The wind of change had come, and not for the best.

The followers did not waste time showing their true nature in public. Heinous, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and xenophobic acts steadily increased nationwide ever since the election took place. Even public employees, such as police officers, became more comfortable abusing their powers. Police brutality was no longer hidden in the dead of the night; it was now visible in broad daylight, for all to see.

The enemy was no longer foreign nations or rogue agents alone. Those who were also now considered enemies of the state were the country’s citizens: people who were voting for a different party, people protesting against the President and his more than questionable policies, people who were fighting his army of bigoted supporters. Virtually anyone who was not a white, cisgender, heterosexual Christian was seen as a menace. Those who were not part of the President’s political party were considered a threat as well. People who were members of the same political party were often seen as a potential threat. Whoever was critical of the President was an immediate threat.

The 2020 election came, and the President managed to steal it, using a series of tactics, including perpetually lying to the population and the courts. The President had been a kingmaker throughout his first term, and the people who benefited from his graces were now indebted towards him. No one dared oppose him.

One by one, he placed people of his entourage in key roles, starting with his immediate family for the most prestigious positions in the line of succession: Vice-President, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General… There were two positions he could not, however, directly control: Speaker of the House of Representatives and President pro tempore of the Senate. Those were positions that belonged to elected officials. Again, potential enemies of the state.

Civil unrest over the President’s maneuvers brought the country into civil war. Several states threatened to secede, should the President refuse to resolve the situation peacefully and stop spreading his constant lies, which were the root of this instability. The Capitol was becoming a political powderkeg, ready to explode. The President, seeing the opportunity arise, petitioned the Supreme Court to abrogate the legislative arm of the government, which comprised of both the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate. The Supreme Court obliged, and the President was given emergency powers.

When the Founding Fathers wrote the constitution, they were so afraid of a foreign national becoming President they forgot to protect the country from one of its own. This President transformed the Republic into a Kingdom, in an attempt to consolidate his power. The Kingdom of America was born. In response, states in the North-East and on the West Coast seceded from the union, while the others remained loyal to the Office of the Sovereign, despite his obvious corruption.

With the ongoing civil war, the North American continent was drastically reshaped. For months, the battle raged constantly for the control of the historic American capital, Washington D.C. Saying it had become a no man’s land was more than a weak comparison. Eventually, it became a mostly deserted, almost destroyed city, with barely anything left to recover.

The Kingdom of America selected the integrity of Kansas City, both parts of Missouri and Kansas, for its seat of power.

The states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin formed the American Free States, or the AFS. They selected the city of San Francisco to be their new capital.

The state of Alaska was lost to the Dominion of Canada, due to unpaid debts the former Republic of the United States of America had towards its neighbor to the north. The USA had fucked up France in the past over unpaid war debts, which led to the French Revolution. Canada did not want to suffer the same fate. None of the two new countries wanted to take responsibility for those debts. And amid all this chaos, Québec became a republic, reclaiming Labrador on the way. Québec, as well as Canada, shut their borders with the Kingdom of America. Leaders from what were once considered South American banana republics were more than delighted over the chaos that reigned in the northern hemisphere.

Canada, like most countries, did not recognize the Kingdom of America to be a legitimate country and instead did recognize the American Free States, saying the KoA was a mere parenthesis in history, waiting to be closed. The only countries that recognized and openly supported the Kingdom of America were China, Cuba, Eritrea, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Some other states did support the Kingdom, yet only from the shadows.

The United Nations could not come to a resolution to recognize the KoA but were easily able to do so with the AFS. The United Nations Security Council unanimously voted in favor of removing the USA’s veto and temporarily transferring it over to Canada until such time was adequate to restore it.

International air traffic became a nightmare. The Kingdom of America closed its airspace to planes coming from the AFS, and they fiercely enforced their rule by force landing any aircraft they considered to be an enemy of the state. At times, they also shot down foreign aircraft, causing international indignation.

The US Army faced a most-interesting dilemma: Who’s lead should they follow? After all, the President of The United States of America was the de fact and de jure Commander in Chief of the armies. The President was no more, and a Sovereign was now head of the country. With the ongoing civil war, the High Command had to think fast. Due to security concerns, they changed and moved the nuclear codes and their warheads out of reach of the newly crowned King. They altered the chain of command and managed to transfer as much material as they could from the now-considered enemy bases to the ones located in the new Republic.

NATO removed the USA from its organization and replaced it with the AFS.

The army’s High Command took an oath to follow the lead of the new Republic of the American Free States and saw them as the rightful successor to the old Republic. They did so publicly to make a statement out of their position, and they would not serve under a King and strongly believed in democracy.

When it became publicly known, several base commanders rebelled and took on themselves to fight for the Kingdom. Due to the internal fighting taking place in the army, management lost about 25% of its forces. Lots of materials were taken oven to the KoA bases before effective roadblocks and border crossings could be imposed. The bases, which now proudly flew their old Confederate battle flag, were delighted to see reinforcements and supplies arrive. The flag was a common symbol of hatred, which perfectly fit the new Kingdom’s positions and its supporters, mostly rednecks.

The term redneck is defined as a working-class white person who is perceived as crass and unsophisticated, usually politically reactionary, and from a rural area. Redneck is generally used as a derogatory term. Its usage is similar in meaning to “cracker,” “hillbilly,” and “white trash.”

Source: worldpopulationreview.com

Throughout every other branch of the military, the High Command managed to effectively remove traitorous commanders and their staff, and instead put into power officers who supported the AFS. Those who remained in the military and were found to be supporters of the KoA were immediately imprisoned and stripped of their ranks, deported to various military prisons, awaiting trial for treason.

In an attempt to calm civil unrest on both sides of the war, civilians supporting either enemy country avoided a similar fate, for now. Only those who actively participated in destruction were imprisoned.

With his consolidated support and growing powers, the King sacked the entire Supreme Court and appointed new judges, who served directly under his command. The former nine were imprisoned at unknown locations. Most media outlets located in the Kingdom, which were not supporters of the government, became state-owned and operated, in an attempt to control what propaganda was fed to the civilians.

While the ASF remained a constitutional republic, with a President as its head of state, and with the same structure as the old republic, the KoA’s King, and its Office of the Sovereign, were now untouchable.

---

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.