Challenge #01269-C174: One Heart-Pounding Speech Somewhere in the Southern States

**If you do have to put up with someone waffling on try knitting where they can see you. The "Click" drives them nuts. Pick a person who deserves this, have fun. -- Anon Guest

[AN - any resemblance between the characters in today's story and real political people are purely co-incidental. Stop looking at me like that]

Don Alkrump loved to play to the front row. Veterans and patriots, all of them. They knew what this country needed and it was him.

"I say we're gonna build that wall," he said. "We're going to build it with American know-how, American technology, and good, old-fashioned American grit. We know that the filthy foreigners are to blame for all the diseases and the alphabet soups going around."

In the front row, a little old lady dug something out of her bag. Knitting needles and a big ball of yarn.

"We never had ADHD, ODD, ASD, or LGBT in the good old days. The only letters we ever needed were USA!"

The little old lady was casting on, seemingly oblivious to the chanting all around her. She wasn't smiling, she wasn't even nodding. She seemed to be indifferent to the patriotic words he had to say.

"We get rid of all these unclean invaders, send 'em back home. We cut up their green cards and we don't issue none no more!"

Click, click, click went the needles.

"We send home, uh," he checked his notes, "anchor... babies... We send home... all the ay-rabs."

Click, click, click, click... she was counting to herself.

"...and ship the... thugs... back... to Africa..."

The rest of the front row had gone silent. A couple of people on either side of the little old lady had gained fascination with her project.

Sir? said a voice in his ear. Don cleared his throat and attempted to resume his speech. "And -uh- round up... all them -er- sexual deviants... that are -um- spreading... AIDS... and... put them in..." shit, he'd lost his place in his prompt cards. "Hang on..." shuffle shuffle, "Camps. Yeah. Camps. Where they... either learn to be -um- normal? Or -uh- pay... the price?"

No cheering. The crowd looked confused. Most of the veterans looked... judgmental.

"As for... the -uh- alphabet..."

Click, click, click, clicketty click. The little old lady nodded as if to say, You go on, don't mind me.

"...soups... Um. We turn... the jails... into assylums. Andum... stop... them breeding... weakness... into strong... American blood."

A cold wind blew. There was no cheering. No chanting. No rising of the blood amongst the crowds. He'd lost them. He knew he'd lost them.

And a little old lady with her knitting had done it. Don got some of his men to bring her up on stage. At least that stopped her knitting a little. She held it in her hands like a security blanket.

"Hello, darling," he said. "What worries you about the state of America?"

"Sorry, I haven't got my hearing aids turned on," she said. "I always have them turned off when you're talking, it's a habit."

And the entire stadium heard her. They laughed.

So he laughed too. "I'm not worried," he said. A blatant lie. This tiny grandmother could ruin his entire political run. He waited until she was done with her hearing aids. "So what does worry you about the state of the Union, ma'am?"

"That people like you will be allowed to run rampant with your fascist policies." She pulled up a sleeve and showed the cameras an old, tattooed number. "I survived a despot like you once, and I'll do it again. Just because I'm in your electorate doesn't mean I have to vote for you. Down with Dictators! Freedom Lives!"

The crowd took up her words as Security dragged her away.

Don backed slowly away from the podium. Men who, in their eighties, could still kick his ass so hard that his grandchildren would bear the imprint... all suddenly remembered what they had been fighting for.

Any others who still followed his policies were judging him hard on how he and his men treated a little old granny lady with her knitting.

It was the beginning of the end.

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