A non-politician maverick (Trump) is the sole remaining presidential candidate in the Republican Party, and he's against the GOP chairman (Priebus), speaker of the house (Ryan), and senate leader (McConnell) who run that party despite running under their banner, and now he’s their only avenue for taking the executive office; they begrudgingly need each other despite how much they hate one another. He has to convince all three of them to give their support, but he, 1) is not qualified as a politician, or even as a businessman, 2) has been belittling and degrading the modern GOP in order to gain popular favor, and, 3) has an outrageous and offensive personality, and is unwilling to be tamed. The GOP is instead planning on choosing someone else: one of a few revered and "due" politicians (like Jeb Bush) as well as some center-conservatives with wide appeal (like Ryan) and a former candidate who dropped out a while back (like Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz).
This should be written in Shakespearian prose. That would elevate it thematically, as if it’s a story as old as time merely making a reappearance in modern clothing, even though it’s an original text. Think along the lines of Ralph Fiennes’s 2011 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, keeping the Elizabethan prose while updating the setting to modern-day Eastern Europe—except it’s not a perfect comparison, as this story would only feel like a Shakespearian adaptation; Shakespeare died a good while back, having never met Mitch McConnell, despite them both being born in the sixteenth century. (Sick burn, dude. Thanks, dude.)
First scene is the maverick giving a rousing, racist, self-indulgent, GOP-discrediting, blowhard speech to his crowd (the theatre audience) after his final opponent dropped out during the primaries. Next scene is the GOP kingmakers in a closed meeting, discussing whether to support him or promote their own pick, since primaries are just a customary guideline. Next scene is the maverick at a closed press rally, with reporters asking why he hasn't released his tax documents yet; why he thinks he beat out the other candidates; is he concerned that the GOP hasn't endorsed him yet; has he heard that they're considering other people to nominate – and he's hearing this for the first time. Then kingmaker scenes of backroom negotiations and calls with other prospective candidates who aren’t willing to stick their necks and names out against the whirlwind of populist fervor without the absolute certainty that the country [and the election] would go their way—but the kingmakers can’t guarantee all that unless they get momentum first, so nobody’s willing to take the jump but they’re all desperate for somebody “else” to do so. Then the maverick takes a meeting with the kingmakers and tensely discuss their lack of endorsement for one another, and slowly, slowly coming around to a tentative agreement that they can make things easier on one another if it’ll help-out the other after the win is certified… Etcetera, etcetera...
Insight on the road to the presidency (and good dialogue fodder):
270 is the "golden number" sought by politicians in attempts to win the Electoral College. With 270 votes, you win the presidency. Eisenhower said that someone who seeks the presidency is either an egomaniac or crazy. And this person doesn’t need the country’s support, they truly only need those 270 votes.
A candidate “guaranteed to win” has a name with alliteration or three sonorous notes—see Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan, or Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy. Also, this character could be more compelling if they looked like JFK and yet had an extraordinarily ‘ordinary’ personal image, like Truman; that could make him far more “understandably appealing” to a middle-ground America, even though it whitewashes the abhorrent truth that apparently half of the country likes racist, sexist, xenophobic, sociopathic, egocentric blowhards with bad make-up, bad toupees, bad track records, a bad temper, a diaper addiction, the attention span of a salamander, the hollow eyes of a dead horse, no self-control, no mute button, and an astonishingly low IQ. (And all he needs is 270 votes…)
THE MESSAGE sells the narrative: "Who are we, where are we, and where are we going." All the Way. A Time for Greatness. Are you better off now than you were four years ago? I Like Ike. Who But Hoover? Make America Great Again. And not just presidential campaign slogans like these, but RHETORIC and speeches—fill the script with long monologues exploring the psychology of a man as described above, and how his empty promises and self-centered, entirely fictional, warped view of the world is attractive to so many people; beautiful and powerful phrases hidden inside walls of text, where the maverick doesn’t even realize he’s describing himself as a monster or his ideal world as a nightmarish dystopia. Deeply saturate the script with rhetoric, as well as 270 electoral votes.
The play should end before the election results roll in, so that we leave on this ominous sensation that a world with this guy—who we’ve so clearly, from his own mouth, elaborate on with great zeal—and the greedy kingmakers who are just in it for the handshake deals and the will of power in charge. Capitalize on the sensation, before curtains close, with the final line being the lone use of prerecorded narration, as if inside his head—the prosaic inverse of Frost’s famous poetic verse, except with the beauty traded for banality and the optimism exchanged for foreboding: "These woods are lovely, dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep..."
xxx
Uh-oh. New pieces to add to research:
Original document created 10/29/2016.
Note: Holy shit—this idea preceded the 2016 election results...
I had no idea what was coming, or how much worse it could get…
This greatly changes the lens through which this would be written.