Ever think what it would be like if things were reversed and it was Joe Biden who was colluding with foreign powers and Donald Trump who was the good guy, victimized by Biden and his gang of crooks?
Everything upside down is exactly how it is in Michael Goodwin’s new book, Vice Versa -- an Alternate History of the 2020 Election. In this retelling, China supposedly backs Joe Biden, as does Fox News. Goodwin is our guest on this episode of The Lean to the Left Podcast.
In Vice Versa, all the other mainstream media hates Biden and is doing everything they can to help Donald Trump and that nasty word, “collusion,” rears its ugly head. But this time it’s Biden who’s accused of colluding with China, not Trump with Russia.
And as if that was not topsy turvy enough, in Michael Goodwin’s world, the police are killing unarmed white people, resulting in riots of white protesters.
Brightly written and immensely entertaining, Vice Versa is Goodwin’s fourth novel. He spends his weekdays in a finance job and weekends writing. He conceived of Vice Versa as he watched the Russian collusion story gradually unravel. He wondered what the reaction would have been if the Biden campaign had been falsely accused of something similar.
Here are some questions Goodwin addressed in Vice Versa:
1. Who is this guy, Gary Wang, who you say navigates his way through political intrigue, media fake news, and FBI abuse of power. Who, in real life, was he patterned after?
2. In your press release about the book, you say Americans, regardless of their party, should be alarmed by the media corruption and the FBI actions that occurred during the Russian collusion investigation. And, you say, “our democracy is facing perilous times.” Please explain.
3. You also say that Vice-Versa illustrates “the divisiveness of our country as it is now.” Talk about that just a bit.
4. What are your thoughts about Biden’s first year in office and how he’s approached some of the huge challenges that he’s faced? Is the criticism that he hasn’t done enough justified?
5. What about the Republicans and their refusal to support absolutely anything Biden tries to do?
6. You call Trump the “orange turd” in your book. Do you expect his influence to increase or decline before the 2024 election? Why?
7. When writing the book was it hard to stay with the reverse reality scenario with just about everything? In one scene, you have the Proud Boys assaulting a table in a restaurant because one of the diners was Chinese and so was deemed responsible for Covid-19. But who was arrested by the cops? Not the Proud Boys, but someone called Fisherwood, one of the diners, who also is dubbed “Peckerwood.” Who is that guy, Fisherwood, and what’s he up to?
8. Your dialogue between FBI Director Cummings and Trump is hilarious. Written like you were sitting in the corner taking notes…Were you?
9. Then, of course, we move to the 2020 election and once again, things are reversed, with Trump winning, some said, because of the “China bullshit story”. The words “voter fraud” rear their ugly head. Protests ensue. Looting. In New York City, Trump Tower gets ransacked by left-wing revolutionaries and Trump fires off angry tweets to incite his supporters. Talk about that…and where does Putin come in?
10. What’s the ultimate message of your book?
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