Our Nation Is STILL Trapped in a Horrific ‘Twilight Zone’ Reality
Like a demonic Energizer Bunny, our seditious far-right ‘reality’ just keeps going … and going … and going
Exactly one year ago, my original article “Our Nation Is Trapped in a Weird, Horrifying ‘Twilight Zone’ Reality” was published. So, on this anniversary, it’s very appropriate to ask: Has anything in the U.S. improved over the past year?
The short answer is Not much. And some things have gotten far worse — for example, women’s rights and reproductive health options. Ever since our ‘Supreme [Kangaroo] Court’ overturned Roe vs. Wade last year, and tossed the contentious abortion issue back to the states, the landscape for women’s rights and reproductive healthcare has turned into utter chaos.
It’s become an ugly, dangerous morass — a literal legal and medical minefield — not to mention the severe restrictions and overt oppression taking place in many red states.
Yes, friends, misogyny is alive and well in the U.S., as is a nasty, mean-spirited ‘Christian’ patriarchy that seeks to lord it over women and non-Christians alike.
Here’s a short section from that previous article (with a few small changes to make it current) — before we embark on a deeper exploration of societal decay here in the U.S.
It’s amazing to think back and realize that just 11 years ago Barack Obama, our first and only Black president, resoundingly won his second term. Back then, our semi-democracy still seemed fairly functional and resilient, and guarded optimism about our near future still percolated.
But today, the societal reality of just a decade ago feels like a quaint and very distant memory. Over the past 8 years especially — ever since Donald Trump started his presidential campaign in 2015 — we’ve seen one vital societal norm or structure after another fall by the wayside or get overturned.
Our society has been overwhelmed by a massive deluge of lies, disinformation, delusion, public bullying, hypocrisy, hate, bigotry, racism, and overt political manipulation — all enacted by far right fanatics who have succeeded in politicizing and undermining almost everything.
I’m sorry, but this deeply destructive pattern is not the least bit normal. It’s paranoid, highly strange, and hostile behavior, and the best analogy I can think of is that as a nation we seem to have fallen into an endless, horrifying Twilight Zone episode. I say this without a hint of, or any need for, exaggeration.
But what exactly is going on that makes our current social and political scene so much like a freakish Twilight Zone episode? Let’s go down the (super-creepy) list, and examine and name what’s really happening all around us now.
I. The bizarre, increasing dominance of public lying and mass deception.
II. The massive use of projection, public bullying, and overt intimidation by far-right manipulators and ‘Christian’ control freaks.
III. The ongoing ‘war on truth’ and democracy being waged by Donald Trump and far-right media.
IV. The GOP’s continuing, self-defeating, and utterly bizarre enmeshment with Donald Trump; they just won’t quit him, no matter how many investigations, rape and defamation trials, election lies, political disasters, and potential criminal indictments he’s involved with.
V. And *new over this past year,* the concerted push in red states to overthrow democracy from the bottom up, and to use the mechanisms of state and county governance to throw sand in the gears of democracy.
The grim, grotesque details
Now, let’s delve into each of these areas in greater detail.
I. The bizarre, increasing dominance of public lying and mass deception.
What can I say … except, this is all totally NUTS! Just the bizarre fact that Donald Trump is a compulsive liar, and is known to have lied well over 30,000 times while president, should be more than enough to remove him permanently from our public discourse.
But NOOO! In our current Twilight Zone-ish ‘reality,’ most Republicans still hang on his every word — and believe (or pretend to believe) his paranoid, over-the-top, self-serving B.S.
Not only that — but many Republicans actually emulate this monstrous, atrocious human being! That’s right — they look up to him, and many envy him and want to be like him.
News flash: Largely due to Trump’s influence, across our nation mass deception and deviousness are now considered … OK and quite acceptable if you get the desired end result.
Plus, for many years far-right media and news sources have been pushing utterly false narratives like the Big Lie that deceive the public and severely undermine democracy.
These utterly irresponsible media groups keep stoking people’s unjustified anger, every single day, and replace the truth with infuriating (but erroneous) beliefs that constantly enrage their rapt viewers or listeners … and also inflate corporate profits.
The intense rage and resentment seething just under the surface in many Americans, due to their fervent belief in all these devious distortions and lies, is truly terrifying — and extremely dangerous.
And it must be said: this pattern is not remotely ‘normal’ — not by a long shot. Nor is it friendly to democracy. Instead, it encourages seditious beliefs and the rapid growth of fascism.
What a disaster.
II. The massive use of projection, public bullying, and overt intimidation by far-right manipulators and ‘Christian’ control freaks.
This is a classic power play lifted straight from the tyrant’s handbook: Dish out ever-nastier, loud verbal abuse on those you dislike, and then enact potent legal restrictions against them … while simultaneously playing the ‘poor me’ card, and persistently accusing the groups you abuse and restrict of constantly abusing and restricting you.
This projection pattern is very clear in the far right’s endless yelling about always being ‘canceled’ by the Democrats and the ‘liberal media’ — even while far-right politicians and pundits are in reality working overtime to overturn or ‘cancel’ every liberal idea, law, value, or movement that they dislike.
Far from being ‘canceled’ or hobbled, these far-right factions are now empowered and are very successfully working to ‘cancel’ LGBTQ+ rights, women’s right to maternal health care and/or abortion, minorities’ right to easy voting access, the supposed evils of ‘wokeness,’ public access to books they disapprove of, and honest, direct teaching about America’s history of slavery and racism.
The real — and frightening — truth is that these groups and politicians are actually enjoying far too much latitude. Even further, they are deliberately pushing wrong-headed, extremist understandings of ‘free speech’, and purposely creating even more grave misunderstanding of what ‘free speech’ really means — all to pave the way for public acceptance of repugnant far-right ideas and restrictive, anti-democratic laws.
Here’s the creepiest thing: For the far right, any limitation or restriction on their public speech (no matter how incendiary) is verboten … yet at the same time they — being total hypocrites — are busy creating oppressive laws to restrict or even forbid the free speech rights of millions of other Americans, including gays, women, transgender folks, Blacks, teachers, librarians, historians, and ‘liberals’ in general.
Folks, this is total insanity — and it sure isn’t “the land of the free.” Welcome to the Twilight Zone!
III. The ongoing ‘war on truth’ and democracy being waged by Donald Trump and far-right media.
Trump and far-right media have been loudly, endlessly lying for years now about ‘fake news’ and the ‘fake news media’. And all along they’ve been deliberately destroying (‘undermining’ is too nice a word) American’s trust in our election systems, particularly the 2020 election — with exactly zero evidence.
Frighteningly, it’s a worst-case scenario: This massive deception has worked — spectacularly. It’s caused 1/3 of all Americans to believe and spread the Big Lie that the 2020 election was totally fraudulent — “Stolen!” — and that Trump is actually our true President.
The big problem for America, going forward — and it’s huge — is that Trump and far-right media and politicians are not interested in preserving democracy. Instead, they are committed only to accruing power — and to that end, they routinely lie, deflect, twist facts, and invent their own preferred ‘reality.’
The truth is totally irrelevant to them. It’s another example of very effective, destructive projection (aka other-blaming).
Once again, we have an in-group of lying, manipulative commentators, politicians, and ‘reporters’ actively deceiving the public — while loudly (and quite effectively) accusing the ‘other side’ (mainstream media) of constantly deceiving and manipulating the public with made-up ‘fake news’!
Holy crap! Talk about turning the truth on its head! I mean, how devious can you get?
Welcome to the Twilight Zone. (Sigh)
IV. The GOP’s continuing, self-defeating, and utterly bizarre enmeshment with Donald Trump; they just won’t quit him, no matter how many investigations, rape and defamation trials, election lies, political disasters, and potential criminal indictments he’s involved with.
In any sane society, this GOP/Trump enmeshment would have been short-lived, and could never have been taken so seriously — at least, not for long.
But we’re talking about today’s not-very-sane society, so today’s GOP is again doubling down on its support for Trump and his perverse MAGA movement, and is still letting him dictate what the GOP believes, says, and does. He’s even — God help us! — running for president again (despite multiple looming indictments), apparently with the GOP’s blessing.
Today’s absurd, seemingly brain-dead GOP is merely “a shadow of its former self,” and is just along for the ride. It has no policy positions or true governing philosophy, anymore — except for Trumpism (whatever the hell that is!).
None of this dangerous, authoritarian nonsense passes the smell test, and the persistent putrid stench keeps reminding us that our nation is, indeed, stuck in “crazy town” — or, alternatively, in an unending, awful Twilight Zone nightmare.
V. And *new over this past year*, the concerted push in red states to overthrow democracy from the bottom up, and to use the mechanisms of state and county governance to throw sand in the gears of democracy.
Since Trump’s and the far right’s clumsy efforts to overthrow democracy from the top down — during the aftermath of the 2020 election and especially on Jan. 6, 2021 — failed, and our democratic institutions held firm (barely) … well, the far right had to find another, better way to overturn democracy.
They learned their lesson, it seems, and have now adopted a grass-roots ‘attack the system from within’ approach. All over the country now, in red state after red state and red county after red county, far-right candidates are running for local offices and often winning their elections. Or red state governors are appointing far-right election deniers or anti-’woke’ activists to positions on election boards, school boards, public health agencies, and other positions of public influence.
And then … they mount a blitzkrieg attack against democracy. Seriously. These far-right activists have all been very busy — gutting our election rules and laws, restricting voting rights, banning books, restricting what can be taught in our schools, stripping away women’s rights, and generally clamping down hard on anything remotely ‘liberal,’ ‘progressive,’ or ‘woke.’
Which, to them, includes most of the rules, laws, and beliefs that support a workable democracy, and allow actual majority rule — real democracy — instead of the harsh, despotic minority rule that the far right envisions and is working feverishly to force on the rest of us.
Welcome to the Fascism Zone.
None of this is remotely normal, decent, or civilized behavior
Since it’s really hard — incredibly hard — to fully ‘grok’ the super-manipulative craziness that’s spreading fast through our society, it bears repeating: None of this is remotely normal, decent, or civilized behavior. It just … isn’t.
What it IS, is abnormal, uncivilized, anti-social, and anti-democratic behavior. It’s abhorrent, ruthless behavior that will lead to the collapse of our nation if we can’t find a way to bring these people and forces under control.
Why will it lead to our nation’s collapse? To really answer this question adequately, I think we need to ask and answer another:
What are we LOSING as all these grotesque events and trends are happening and building up steam?
Overall, I’d say we’re in the process of losing many of the things/ideas/ beliefs/qualities that make us ‘civilized’, and support a (mainly) smoothly operating semi-democracy and a fairly functional, somewhat open-minded society.
We are now rapidly LOSING:
* Belief in the basic good intentions of our fellow citizens.
* Trust in the fair and effective functioning of our election systems.
* Any hope of having peaceful presidential elections and a relatively respectful, functional semi-democracy.
* Our ability to discuss issues rationally and hash out options and solutions
* Willingness to embrace differences, different lifestyles, and ethnic diversity among our citizens
* Accurate teaching of American history, including slavery
* Trust in the news and both local and global media.
* Our ability to distinguish truth from lies, and honesty from manipulation.
* Our ability to agree on even very basic, crucial information — formerly known as ‘facts’ — about our world and our society.
* Our willingness to cooperate and work together for the common good — toward a society that can work for everyone, and not just a few in power or grabbing for power.
* Our shared, much-needed belief that there even IS such a thing as the ‘common good’.
* Our ability to see through — and reject — the false, empty promises and dangerous far-right ‘group-think’ of American-style fascism.
Can we wake up from this long nightmare?
So, what do we stand to lose? A lot. ALL of the above, and much more.
We stand to lose many, many underappreciated things that we’ve long taken for granted — things like a fairly open, functional society, (mainly) functional election systems, and fairly open, (mainly) pleasant human interactions.
What is now rapidly replacing all these emotionally and socially necessary — and truly vital — ‘common goods’? More and more, it looks and feels like an accelerating descent into fear and darkness: endless conflict, hate, tyranny, distrust, racism, anti-democratic hysteria, active misogyny, and mounting antisocial behavior.
No society can survive such a tremendously undermining onslaught, if it continues for very long. After all, even a truly horrific, devastating Twilight Zone episode eventually … will end. And then we can breathe a sigh of relief and come back to our real lives and our normal everyday activities.
But what if there is no baseline ‘normal’ anymore to return to? What if much of our society (and even 30% is far too much, and far too dangerous!) succumbs to the forces of untruth, division, hate, bigotry, and endless rage?
That’s what we’re really facing now in our society. Sadly, one year later, that’s still the real unfolding picture — the factual, grim truth of our situation.
I, for one, am totally sick of it. I’m totally sick of the craziness, the idiotic nonsense, all the hateful restrictions, and all the ugly partisan hysteria. It’s way, way past time, already, for Americans to wake up!
I implore you, I beg you all: Can we please, please wake up from this interminable Twilight Zone nightmare?!
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