“Congress shall apply its just Laws, which form the Basis and the Intent of the Union, in equal Measure and in equal Amount to its Citizens, regardless of Race or Political Affiliation.”
—Article I, Section II of the Constitution of Meeting Tribes of Immediate Siblings
On January the second, 182 BC—Before Celestia, as it is now known in the modern calendar—the Senate returned with a verdict of guilty on all accounts, following the impeachment of President Evviva Cadenza, and she was thusly removed from the Horseshoe Office in accordance with Article XIV of the Constitution of Meeting Tribes of Immediate Siblings.
President Cadenza, upon hearing the verdict being read, burst into unhampered tears: an act that earned the patronizing scoffs of every single member of the Royal Party and an act that crushed the spirits of the members of the United Party—who could not bear to see their leader react in such an unbecoming manner.
The former president had been in the United Party for as long as any of its members could remember. She had been instantly welcomed with a warm embrace, for her royal name, the majesty it necessarily carried, and her reserved and quiet demeanor had brought the United Party its desperately needed image of modesty and prudence. Her old, tired eyes, with heavy bags underneath them, in addition to her taciturn nature—which was only broken by phrases she spoke at rare times, which were terse, concise, and, above all, filled with wisdom—gave her the countenance of a soothing, wise caregiver. Her personality, when viewed alongside those of her kin—the younger, boisterous ones in the United Party, who had used their family name to elevate themselves to their undeserved positions and who had contributed to the public’s perception of the party as an extremist group, and the older, charismatic, and outspoken ones in the Royal Party, charming all with their regality—had seemed to give her a quaint sort of uniqueness, beneficial to her and her fellow Unionists.
She had always won the riding for the United Party in the Greater Canterlot Area, and she had always come into the Hall of Congress with a placid smile on her face, before quietly and discretely taking her seat, the smile not vanishing even as she watched the events of the session unfold; nothing had been able to perturb her serenity.
And, after too many years of watching her just sit there contentedly, even as the country began to show its first signs of a looming economic recession, her colleagues had urged her to run for the party’s leadership, which had just become available.
“Oh no,” she had replied. “I’m much too old for all the macro and micromanagement required of the pony in that position. That job belongs to the young, the ones who will actually be able to live in and enjoy the future that they intend to carve.”
Her colleagues’ hearts had swelled, enamored as they had been with her modesty and her idealism. Even after they had desperately pleaded and supplicated, she had given that tender smile of hers, which they had loved so much, and renewed her declination.
But, due to the Unionists’ stereotypical personality trait—which was the stubborn refusal to take “no” as an answer—when the voting had come around, Evviva Cadenza had, nearly unanimously, been chosen as the new leader. Never had the write-in name space on the ballot been so liberally used in the entire history of the United Party.
She had accepted the leadership hesitantly and demurely, despite the encouragement she had received, but she had assured her party that she would do everything in her power to make sure its name was honored.
And, when the United Party won the general election two years later, with more than sixty percent of the seats in Congress, she was suddenly, but smoothly and naturally, referred to as “president”—and her old title of “princess” instantly felt unnatural when one saw her behind the mahogany desk in the Horseshoe Office.
Her transition into that office had been smooth and barely noticeable. With her gentle demeanor, her sweet voice, and, especially, her eminent name backing her, the United Party could not have been more pleased. They had been convinced that there was no possible way she could do any wrong.
But, as they all could now see, she was simply the siren of politics, the princess of exorbitant rhetoric, luring the country and her party into a false sense of security, and as soon as Congress had discovered evidence that she had been using the spare tax money from all the budget cuts she had approved to fund the various activities of her illustrious and old family, there was no time wasted; and, after an hour of deliberation from the House of Representatives, she was impeached with ninety-five percent in favor.
And, six months later, after a long and arduous hearing, the Senate found President Cadenza guilty of one account of Bribery and two Crimes of Misdemeanor.
The whole country was outraged, but the cries from Ponyville and Los Pegasus were the worst. These regions, composed of a great population of working-class ponies, accused Cadenza’s administration of catering to the Canterlot bankers and nobles. They claimed that the wealthy stole the gold “surpluses” from the industrious working-class ponies to line the arches of their mansions. They were so outraged, that they were even urging their local governments to secede from the Union.
The general opinion, or, at least, the most vocal opinion, was that it seemed that the original policy of “Hooves-off, Hooves-clean,” as was postulated during the first session in Congress by Princess Platinum, and of which President Cadenza—who, after she lost her title of “president,” insisted that she be addressed as her former title of “princess”—was a firm supporter, was starting to lose popularity.
But, to some, it seemed that President Cadenza’s impeachment was just one of the many signs that the United Republic of Equestria was nothing but shadow of its former self: The proud capital city of Canterlot, once bustling with business activity and wealth creation, was experiencing a massive exodus; the economic crisis—with an unemployment rate well above the threshold to be considered by some economists as a depression—which had occurred three years prior, had hit its residents the hardest. The bright office lights that illuminated Canterlot’s majestic skyscrapers—which extended straight past the clouds and which belonged to the most oldest, revered, and dependable corporations that millions of ponies relied on and used every day—were now beginning to flicker and die as their last remains of life and ambition slowly drained from them. It appeared, at least to the retiring and bankrupt businessponies—who had worked in those majestic monoliths for decades—when they turned their heads back to look at their old office building one last time before disappearing without a trace, that the more these towers withered and bled along with the rest of the country, the ponies of lesser talent, skill, and ambition cried out for the expedition of their death.
If a normal pony were to walk down the streets of Los Pegasus, he would be able to see on their lengths an endless line of disheveled ponies with matted manes, rendered homeless by the depression; and he would be able to see, to understand, and to sympathize with these masses, when he would see in their vacant stares a silent cry for assistance that seemed doomed to go unanswered. If a politician walked down the same street, he would instead see the jackpot of voters, ready to elect the first pony who assured them that they were nothing but victims and who would promise to help them by ending the “Hooves-off, Hooves-Clean” policy.
One would find it hard to believe that such a proud and prosperous country could come to the state it was now. Every day, there would be a report of a major technology with a long and reputable history going out of business. Every day, more and more houses would be found abandoned, their owners leaving without a trace, never to be seen again. Every day, the talks of succession from the Union from cities affected the most by the depression grew stronger as more and more ponies felt themselves victimized and wanted to cut themselves loose from the country slipping down the precipice of bankruptcy. And every politician would claim to know what caused this decline and would insist that they had the magic bullet that would end all their problems in the fastest and most painless way possible.
At the time, the Royal Party was the official opposition to the United Party in the House of Representatives, the latter party being the party to which the now-ignominious princess was once the proud leader. The United Party was due to choose a new leader; but when they saw the Royal Party campaigning to end “Hooves-off, Hooves-clean,” and when they saw the near-unanimous support they were getting, especially in the wake of the scandal, they had given up all hope of winning any seats in the House of Representatives, and they were preparing to get their federal financing cut as a result.
In view of the circumstances, it appeared that there was nopony who they could choose and who would be able to suffer the ad hominem attacks from the Royal Party’s candidates: a type of argument that the Royalists were so fond of using despite its blatant fallaciousness; it had the amazing property of requiring no thought to make but could reduce any victim who was not prepared for it into an incomprehensible fountain of stutters. Whenever a debate would occur between any two ponies, one Royalist and one Unionist, no matter what argument the Unionist presented, no matter how eloquently he presented the facts, it would always end with the other debater scoffing dismissively, always saying something along the lines of: “Well, your previous leader stole some of the hard Equestria’s hard earned money, so of course you would think that.”
As per the COMTOIS, the election to choose the next president would take place in three months; and the Royal Party, with their leader Princess Celestia—a charismatic, graceful, white alicorn, whose demeanor and countenance demanded respect and admiration from anypony who witnessed it—had already assumed victory. This could be understandable, as one could see that the United Party was, ironically enough, in shambles: every debate they would hold among each other in the United Party Debate Hall ended with the candidates yelling the most egregious profanities at each other, to the extent that the newspaper writers covering the event would be forced by their publishers to omit the details of these outbursts from their articles to preserve a shred of the country’s dignity.
It was almost as if they had stopped caring; and, if they had, nopony could blame them, for the less they fought back, the less painful it would be when they were inevitably crushed by the powerful hooves of Princess Celestia and the Royalists.
A week after the guilty verdict, the United Party held their last debate among each other, before the party election was to take place. The voting was held during the United Party National Convention, and it had a larger attendance than usual; but, given the apathy shown by most attending and the callousness each one of them had toward each other and the event, it is not implausible to think that most of them had come simply to take advantage of the open bar.
The winning candidate was announced quietly, such that it was barely heard against the raucous laughter of the complacent Unionists drowning their faces in cider.
“Speak up, colt; we can barely hear you!” yelled a rather corpulent pony in the front row, while cider ran out of his nostrils.
“I said,” said the speaker, loudly enough such that there could be no doubt that everypony in the convention hall heard him, “that the new leader was Mr. Disce Cordis.”
The room immediately fell silent. Then, slowly, the silence gave way to a dull murmur.
Who? This seemed to be the prevailing question at the moment.
“Who?”
“Somepony named Cordis.”
“Disce won it.”
“What?”
“Who?”
“What kind of name is that?”
“Who’s Cordis?”
“Cordis? Never heard of him.”
These murmurs persisted for a few minutes, as the Unionists became more and more impatient and confused. Finally, out of the blue, in a tone slightly louder than all of the rest of the murmurings, somepony blurted: “The draconequus.”
In that instant, the eyes of every single pony in the convention hall opened wide with surprise and shock; there was only one draconequus they could recall who had always sat in their debate room. How could anypony have missed this huge, snake-like creature? And more importantly, how could he have won?
At once, everypony started scouring the convention hall, looking for this Mr. Cordis, who really should not have been hard to find if he was indeed there. While the bathroom stalls were being checked by security, the speaker urged Mr. Disce Cordis to hurry to the front stage to accept this honor.
“Why would anypony in their right mind vote for that freak?” yelled the Unionist who was known for being the loudest at the debates.
“Because he’s a nice guy!” some faceless pony responded from across the room.
“He talks to me at lunch time!” another voice was heard, coming out of a distant conversation.
More and more voices were heard from the increasing number of private conversations—half the voices seeming to be in favor of this mysterious personage, the other half extremely bewildered.
“Why would you vote for that creep?”
“He’s so weird!”
“He says everything I’m thinking!”
“He’s fed up with how you talk, and I’m fed up too!”
The United Party had managed to fool the entire country of Equestria: a great number of the population, mostly young ponies and the members of the Royal Party, had thought that the debates represented the general attitude of every member of the United Party—when, in reality, all they showed was a very vocal minority.
Disce learned of his victory, at home, right when he was in the middle of the juiciest part of a novel. Upon hearing a knock at his bungalow, he groaned at the inconvenience he would experience due to this unexpected visitor. Shuffling slowly across the room, he approached his door and opened it cautiously, still keeping its security chain in place.
A chipper, young pegasus pony with clear blue eyes and with the brightest smile Disce had ever seen, informed him that she had just received an important telegram straight from the United Party’s National Convention addressed to him. The mailmare read the telegram out to him in her most proud voice, frequently glancing up to the draconequus’s face to gauge his reaction.
At hearing this, Disce’s face flushed, making the mailmare wonder if he had become ill. Instead, Disce removed the security chain, threw the door open, embraced the frightened pony with the tightest of hugs, and muttered, through a torrent of tears: “It’s not too late. There’s still hope in the world.”