Mistrust of the U.S. government is now equally equally embedded, if not founded (whether rationally or irrationally or viscerally or somewhere in between)), on both sides of the political spectrum. And when I say mistrust, I mean psycho paranoid lover mistrust. Literally, people think our government will fake school shootings, terrorist attacks, fake elections and presidential assassination attempts, sacrifice civilians, and in some cases kill presidents, presidential candidates, and influential entertainment icons. How long this has been going on, I don't know. But for me, it reaches back to "grassy knoll" speculation after the assassination of JFK over 60 years ago. (Or maybe a year earlier, with Marilyn.)
Today, we have the "bloody ear" or "rally sniper" conspiracy theories, or however this latest incident will be remembered by history.
I must admit that, with some shame, I am guilty too. Because I am partly struggling -- okay, make that REALLY struggling -- to believe in the most recent of these events, the attempt on President Trump's life. This assassination narrative, frankly, stinks a bit to me. I've read about an ear plug, about someone in the audience clapping too early, about the fact that they couldn't even make the assassin a conservative, even though that is usually demographic in these lone-wolf scenarios. But what really gave me pause when I watched the video is Trump's reaction. He was so quick to be heroic that he forgot to appear shocked. The fist pumping, the "Fight, fight, fight..." When Trump ran in 2016 there was a scare at one of his rallies and he ducked the hell down and had to be whisked away, looking totally shocked and frozen at the time. This Trump seemed not to be surprised at all. He got back up when his detail corralled around him and he immediately reveled in the applause and his resplendent new martyrdom. If this was staged, what a huge risk to take with Trump, who has absolutely no empathy, no capacity for subtlety, and no ability to lie convincingly. So as far as his acting skills go, this was actually pretty damn good.
And then I feel like a hypocrite because I've spent a decade castigating conservatives for their hyperbole and paranoia and bottomless cynicism when it comes to "mainstream media," "the liberal agenda," "globalism," and "crisis actors." Now my mind has gone into Alex Jones-land and I want to kick myself because I can't stop wondering if I'm just really that biased...or if living in the world's most powerful country is to live morally lubricated by privilege in the most nefarious empire the world has ever seen. And in these events, we citizens on both sides of the political and all checkpoints on the cultural spectrum get glimpses into what we're really dealing with: A divided and conquered electorate of quasi-placated (mostly) well-fed, over-medicated, terminally indebted, globally isolated, highly entertained, and faux-controversially distracted and racially and culturally bifurcated fools.
I don't know who said that the smartest thing the devil ever did was convince the world he doesn't exist. But the smartest thing the U.S. government ever did was create two parties with a steadily decreasing Venn space between them and an electorate that mutually despises one another, even as it becomes increasingly obvious that we are mirroring each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment