By Mark Ramm | June 14, 2025
"This isn't dystopian fiction. It's constitutional preservation through constitutional innovation." — #ElbowsUp, June 13, 2025
I published #ElbowsUp yesterday as a speculative oral history—a thought experiment exploring what might happen if America's institutions prioritized power over principle. I imagined court orders ignored, lawmakers targeted, soldiers choosing between conscience and command, and ordinary people building new systems because the old ones had stopped working.
I didn't expect to wake up to headlines that read like my story's opening chapters.
What Just Happened?
Four events occurred today that directly mirror scenarios depicted in #ElbowsUp:
1. Minnesota Democratic Lawmakers Shot at Their Homes
Two Minnesota Democratic lawmakers and their spouses were shot in targeted attacks early this morning. Former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed; State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were wounded in what Governor Tim Walz called "politically motivated assassination."
The attacker, impersonating a police officer, left behind a list of other Democratic officials as potential targets, according to law enforcement. In #ElbowsUp, I depicted exactly this escalation—mayors and governors arrested, targeted, and driven into hiding for defending constitutional limits.
2. Federal Appeals Court Stays Guard Ruling
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed a federal judge's order that would have returned control of California's National Guard to Governor Newsom. Judge Charles Breyer had ruled Trump's federalization was "illegal" and violated the Constitution, but the appeals court intervened overnight—just as I described in the story.
This is the exact legal controversy that catalyzes the partition in #ElbowsUp: federal courts initially blocking military deployment, then higher courts overturning those protections in the dead of night.
3. Florida Governor Endorses Violence Against Protesters
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told drivers they have the right to hit protesters if they feel threatened: "If you drive off and you hit one of these people, that's their fault for impinging on you."
The criminalization of dissent is a core thread in #ElbowsUp—where fear is weaponized to justify violence, and law is redefined to protect power rather than people.
4. Military Parade vs. "No Kings" Protests
A massive military parade is happening tonight in Washington, D.C., while over 2,000 coordinated "No Kings" protests are taking place across the country. Organizers are explicitly calling this a rejection of "authoritarianism."
In my story, these kinds of flashpoints mark the moment when people stop waiting for institutions to save them and start building new ones themselves.
When Fiction Follows Reality Too Closely
Let me be clear: #ElbowsUp is fiction. But it's the kind of fiction written with one eye on historical patterns and the other on current trajectories. I didn't invent the core tension—I followed its logical conclusion.
When military power overrides civilian control, when courts lose their legitimacy through political capture, when elected officials are shot for defending constitutional principles—that's not thriller plotting. That's a constitutional crisis unfolding in real time.
The eerie parallels aren't evidence of prescience. They're evidence of pattern recognition. Constitutional breakdowns follow predictable trajectories, and we're currently accelerating down one of them.
Why I Wrote This Story
#ElbowsUp isn't about despair—it's about what happens when principled people refuse to be complicit. When military officers like Colonel Chen choose conscience over orders. When attorneys like Rob Bonta litigate until the law becomes unrecognizable. When teachers, refugees, and teenagers ask: What if we built something better?
I wanted to explore the possibility that constitutional renewal can emerge from constitutional collapse. That Americans can choose principles over institutions when the two come into conflict.
Today's headlines don't make that question academic—they make it urgent.
What Comes Next
New Installments Every Tuesday and Friday
This story unfolds through dozens of perspectives: pastors, marshals, refugees, diplomats, and founders building a new nation from the ashes of institutional failure.Read the First Three Chapters Now:
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For You, the Reader
What lines would you refuse to cross?
What principles would you rebuild around if current institutions abandon them?
What would you tell your children if the flag and the Constitution no longer protected the same values?
The comments are open. The future remains unwritten—but it's being written right now, with each choice we make and each principle we defend or abandon.
✊ #ElbowsUp
Mark Ramm is a writer and former open source engineer, and technical executive exploring the intersection of technology, democracy, and constitutional governance. This is his first work of speculative political fiction.