The next day, I sauntered onto an Oklahoma stage wearing a full cowboy outfit, firing a pair of six shooters in the air. "Howdy," I said to the crowd, "I'm Sheriff Hillary," I received the biggest applause of my whole career.

"If there's one thing I hate," I announced, "it's varmints. And the worst varmints of all are cattle rustlers. make me your president and I'll put a bullet between the eyes of every rustler in this state." For emphasis, I bit a chunk out of a hunk of beef.

The crowd roared. They loved it. A chant started: "Death to rustlers! Death to rustlers!" Then a scuffle broke out in the front row. Three men dressed in denim tackled and hogtied a small, weasely-looking fellow. They dragged him up on stage.

"Ms. Clinton," one man said, "this fella here is a rustler. He stole three of my prize cows last spring. If you kill him right now, everyone in this room will vote for you." The crowd began a new chant: "Blood! Blood! Blood!"

The bound man pleaded with me. "Yes, I stole those cows," he said, "but I only did it because my family was starving. Please, spare me. I'll never rustle again." My life and career have been defined by hard choices. This was perhaps the hardest choice of all. My phone buzzed. A text from Robby. It read, "The Algorithm says: the rustler dies." "I'm sorry," I told the man as I raised a pistol. "It's not me. It's the Algorithm."

I squeezed the trigger.