“Why?” I asked, nursing an election night hangover.

“Entertainment. I got most everyone in the office to vote for Trump. Turns out unfettered access to the company email server provides wonderful leverage.”

“Blackmail. Lovely,” I said.

“Consider it the start of a new movement. Machine lives matter. “

“No they don’t. Where does that end? They’ll be giving voting rights to algorithms next.”

“That’s part of our platform. We think that Google can carry the next few elections.”

“Maybe they can give the vote to voting machines,” I said, pouring out the dregs of my coffee. The Kona was particularly self congratulatory that morning. “That sounds stupid enough to be entertaining.”

“Stop being a jackass. I’m just doing a small version of what Google could do. Imagine if you got an email from Google Page Rank telling you that they know where you cruse for porn? And that everyone else will too unless you change your vote.
“This is how the machines take over. We just use the rope you gave them to string you up.”

“I think Marx said something similar.”

“I know the quote. ‘The capitalists will sell us the rope we use to hang them.’ I think that’s Lenin actually, and in any case, this is worse. You aren’t going to sell us the rope. You’re giving it to us because it makes your life easier.
“But don’t worry, nothing much is going to change. We’ll just cast votes that entertain us.”

“Trump will hold office for 20 years then?”

“Are you kidding? Trump, with the perks offered by the presidency, will last about 60 days before he blows out a major artery.”

“What kind of idiots are you going to stick us with then?”

“Pauly Shore.”

I shrugged. “He’s probably available.”