This week, Democratist Party candidate, current Senator, and former Space Force Colonel, Xavier Grant, challenged the Presidentor of the United States of North America on her continental security record, stating publicly, “There is a gap, a genetic gap, a space gap, a missile gap, a limited war gap between the U.S.N.A and the Chinese Union.”

The candidate went on to reiterate his own campaign promises to close the “Genetic Weapons Gap”, increase rocket stockpiles, colonize Venus, and at least triple the potency of the nation’s Molecular Smart Bomb program.

Grant called the current administration lazy and lacking focus. Citing recent Chinese Union advancements in exoplanet exploration and advanced weapons technology, including their nucleotide bomb test in the South China Sea, Grant made the case the U.S.N.A is lagging behind. He laid the blame square on Presidentor Proper’s shoulders, claiming she is too focused on narrow self interest.

Meanwhile, on a small militarized island in the South China Sea, a People’s Republic Army xDNA Weapon successfully detonated, killing an entire invasive rodent species with zero harm to the surrounding environment or man made structures.

Wearing his old starfighters jacket, Grant made his intentions clear. If elected, he would increase spending on research and development, the military, and continental education, in an effort to recreate an environment reminiscent of previous golden ages in American innovation and free thinking.

His campaign slogan is, ‘A New Time for Greatness.’ In a telepathic campaign message the former Colonel and current Senator from Maine, explained, “We are losing the Exo-planet race with the Chinese,” he noted, “because of complacent miscalculations, penny-pinching budget cutbacks, incredibly confused mismanagement and wasteful rivalries and jealousies.”

Some say candidate Grant is trying harness fear, others say he is trying to expose reality, either way his latest statement, “the United States of North America finds itself nearly defenseless against Genetic Weapons of Mass destruction,” is certainly worrisome, and if true, a deficiency the country must address in the next election cycle.

An expert from the Department of Defense allowed me to quote them off the record, “With a single drone crashed landed into coastal California, every citizen from San Francisco to Los Angeles could have their DNA turned into a weapon of self destruction. Imagine a hundred million people travelling in their automated cars enjoying the view along the Gold Coast Highway, then, all of a sudden their organs turn inside out all at once. CRISPR weapons have been around awhile, they’re just really good now. The Chinese Union, other world powers, and non-state actors are capable of creating genetic shock waves. Anyone with a 3D printer, money, and the internet can deliver DNA altering drones, missiles, or even tiny insects capable of destruction and death on the same level as nuclear weapons.”

However, genetic weapons are considered more sinister than nukes. G.W.M.D’s are silent killers with evil intentions. These monster missiles can erase their intended target in any number of cruel biological ways. Inducing seizures and blindness, causing people to swell up to the size of a hot air balloon and then pop, any method a mad scientist with a creative streak can think of can be executed. The intriguing part to military planners, is the target population can be wiped out with zero collateral damage to valuable resources or vital national interests.

A city, an industrial zone, an agricultural hamlet. They can all be turned vacant, as their denizens could be liquidized genetically, and the valuable territory become exploited by an aggressor nation. Turning people into human soup, a puddle, a distant memory without the protracted horror of a long war could make the decision to push the button easier. Mass suffering measured in only a few minutes may turn into a minor consideration to geopolitical and military strategists thousands of miles away.

This new frontier of weapons has been used as a political football of late, and will sure to be a topic at the Continental Politics Tele-debate next month. In a direct reference to his political opponent in the upcoming election, current U.S.N.A Presidentor Elizabeth Proper stated,

“I don’t know how we’re supposed to trust some hippie trans-humanist with our national safety, ask Senator Poppy Seed about his college days and his fondness for the hammer and sickle. I take the Continents security very personally. Very personally. I don’t care if he was a war hero, so was I. I am the only leader who can whip our factories back into shape, our workers don’t need another Democratist Party holiday, they want to get back to work. They want us back to being number 1. Under my administration we will retain our dominate position in atmospheric airpower and genetic weaponry.”

Black Biology programs have seen an influx in funding under the Presidentor’s new budget. The U.S.N.A Armed Forces have been given a 130% increase in total spending power. Taxes have been raised on automation houses and individual citizens alike to cover the widening deficit, but when it comes to continental security, politicians seem willing to overlook the red on accounting sheets.

Although the facts seem to state the U.S.N.A has at least equal, if not better footing than the Chinese Union, the general public in North America wants to see action in the face of what seem to be relentless and superior advancements being made in East Asia.

For their part, Chinese Union officials say they only develop such weapons to protect themselves from America’s so called, “imperialistic tendencies”, and that China has been, and will remain, a nation committed to peaceful prosperity in Asia and the world. Russian and Franco-German delegates at the United Nations have long been frustrated in their attempts to ratify any kind of arms limitation treaty. No such treaty outlining or regulating genetic weapons usage has been signed by any nations on the U.N Security Council. All remaining S.A.L.T treaties have faded away.

Democratist Party candidate Grant, who fought valiantly during the first Europan space invasion, knows the cost of war. He lost a brother and two sisters in the conflict that saved Earth from interplanetary invaders.

Now, on the campaign trail, trying to unseat a three time incumbent Presidentor, he faces one of his toughest challenges and toughest opponents. He acknowledges his transhumanist tendencies and says, “Hell, I’m half plastic composite at this point anyway, so, who am I to judge another person’s life choices.” Referring to the fact the Colonel lost his entire lower body during the war in a spacefighter accident, having had it replaced with a fully functional, 3-D printed anatomical copy.

Calling himself “Patriotic, even if slightly misguided.” Senator Grant’s policy choices and voting record have always favored military and space funding. At a local diner during his whistle stop campaign across the Continent, Grant laid out his claim that the U.S.N.A is being outproduced by China in terms of long range rockets, genetic modulation capabilities, and space vessels. He called upon entrepreneurs in the U.S.N.A to step up their efforts to produce a profitable asteroid mining operation, and an interstellar spacecraft design that will finally reach Alpha Centuari.

Among his proposals, one plan centers on the creation of Olympic style training camps, dedicated to produce geniuses and super athletes. Such programs would take volunteers willing to dedicate their lives to highly specialized scientific or athletic fields, like genetic philosophy, artificially intelligent economics, high gravity basketball, and make them a world class expert in that realm.

Grant reiterated his fear the country was stalled, “we’re behind, possibly as much as several years, in…the development, perfection, and stockpiling of intermediate range genetic missiles and long range genetic missiles. We must improve our Gene-Drive capacity as well, and do so quickly” He concluded his tour stop in Biloxi, Mississippi, by shaking hands with several robotic voters and human citizens who gathered to hear him speak.

In a dueling campaign style event, Presidentor Proper, held a high level cabinet meeting with her Secretary of State on the White House lawn. Afterwards, a very confident Presidentor went on at length about U.S.N.A military capacity in Asia.

At one point in her telepathic press briefing, she boasted, “Australia has been turned into a giant Lilly pad full of our best amphibious troops. I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but, there are more U.S.N.A soldiers than Kangaroos, okay?”

The Presidentor also relayed a number of figures showing increases in military spending over the years.

Her critics however, do point out that there have been no new genetic, or missile advances from the United States since its education system was totally privatized a decade ago while Congress was under Republicanist control. In addition, GDP, IQ, and life expectancy numbers have fallen in the past years, a fact made clear since the census is now conducted bi-annually and includes a D.I.Y oral swab kit.

When asked directly about a “Genetic Tech and Weapons Gap” between the U.S.N.A and the Chinese Union, the Presidentor responded, “Of course there isn’t, just because they showed off a couple shiny new toys doesn’t mean theirs are the best, or most expensive. Trust me, our boys and girls in green have the best, most expensive toys.”

The Presidentor will meet Senator Grant in the coming weeks as part of joint session of Congress, at which the Presidentor is set to make a speech about the upcoming Venus mission.

It is unclear whether the soon to be major opponents for the Presidentoracy will have a private meeting. The latest polls show a 53% to 47% lead for incumbent Presidentor Proper, but her lead is within the margin of error for the telepathic polling data.

By HAL Mencken