Our Nation Is STILL Trapped in an Awful ‘Twilight Zone’ Reality

“They’re eating the dogs, the people who came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country!” Donald Trump, during his 9/10/24 debate with Kamala Harris

My original article “Our Nation Is Trapped in a Weird, Horrifying ‘Twilight Zone’ Reality” was published on May 2, 2022. Since several years have now passed, it’s appropriate to ask: Has anything in the U.S. improved or gotten more ‘balanced’ since then?

The short answer is: Ha ha ha. ROFL.

Um, NO. Some things have gotten even worse — for example, Trump’s dangerous idiocies (see the above quote attacking Haitian immigrants) and the attacks on women’s rights and reproductive health options. Ever since our Supreme Court tossed the contentious abortion issue back to the states, the landscape for women’s rights and reproductive healthcare has become utter, hellish chaos.

It’s an ugly, dangerous morass — a literal legal and medical minefield — not to mention the severe and cruel restrictions. And overt voter suppression aimed at citizens of color has accelerated in many red states ahead of the upcoming election.

Yes, friends, misogyny and racism are both alive and well in the U.S., as a mean-spirited White ‘Christian’ patriarchy seeks to lord it over women, non-Christians, and Blacks and Hispanics alike.

‘Normalcy’ is a quaint and distant memory

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/collapse here in the U.S.

It’s amazing to think back and realize that just 12 years ago Barack Obama, our first and only Black president, resoundingly won his second term(!). Back then, our semi-democracy still seemed fairly resilient, and guarded optimism about our near future still percolated.

But today, the societal reality of 12 years ago feels like a quaint and very distant memory. Over the past 9 years especially — ever since Donald Trump started his first 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, hate, disinformation, public bullying, hypocrisy, bigotry, racism, and overt 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 our nation seems to have fallen into an endless, horrifying ‘Twilight Zone’ episode. I say this without a hint of, or any need for, exaggeration.

Bizarre, crazy ideas and actions are now commonplace

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 what’s really happening all around us now. (“They’re eating the pets..!!”)

I. The bizarre, increasing dominance and acceptance of public lying, mass deception, and heavy partisan propaganda.

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, the GOP, and far-right media.

IV. The GOP’s 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 criminal indictments he’s involved with.

V. And increasingly, the concerted push in red states to overthrow democracy from the bottom up, and 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 these five areas in greater detail.

I. The bizarre, increasing dominance and acceptance of public lying, mass deception, and partisan propaganda.

What can I say, except… this is totally NUTS, and getting crazier all the time! Just the creepy fact that Donald Trump is a compulsive liar and ‘reality denier,’ and is known to have lied over 30,000 times while president, should have been more than enough to remove him permanently from our public discourse — and from even being considered as the GOP’s presidential candidate.

But NOOO! In our current Twilight Zone-ish, bizarro ‘reality,’ most Republicans still hang on his every word — and believe (or pretend to believe) his paranoid, over-the-top nonsense and self-serving B.S.

News flash: Largely due to Trump’s influence, across our nation mass deception and deviousness are now considered OK and acceptable (if you get the desired result).

Plus, for many years far-right media 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, daily, and replace the truth with infuriating, erroneous beliefs that constantly enrage their rapt audience, keep them ‘hooked’ — and ensure inflated 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 at all friendly to democracy. Instead, it encourages seditious beliefs and the rapid growth of fascism.

What a friggin’ disaster.

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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 nasty, loud verbal abuse on those you wish to oppress, and then enact heavy legal restrictions against them… while simultaneously playing the ‘poor me’ card, and persistently accusing the groups you abuse and restrict of abusing and restricting you.

This sleazy projection pattern is obvious in the far right’s endless yelling about being ‘canceled’ by the Democrats and the ‘liberal media’ — even while far-right politicians and pundits are in reality pushing to ‘cancel’ every liberal idea, law, or movement that they dislike.

Far from being ‘canceled’ or hobbled, these far-right factions are now empowered and are very successfully ‘canceling’ 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, frightening truth is the opposite of what they claim: these groups and politicians are enjoying far too much latitude. Even further, they are promoting wrong-headed, extremist versions of ‘free speech,’ and purposely creating even more grave misunderstanding of what ‘free speech’ means — all to pave the way for public acceptance of repugnant far-right ideas and restrictive, anti-democratic laws.

Talk about horrific: 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 doesn’t resemble ‘the land of the free.’ Welcome to the Twilight Zone!

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III. The ongoing ‘war on truth’ and democracy being waged by Donald Trump, the GOP, and far-right media.

Trump and far-right media have been loudly, endlessly lying for many years about the ‘fake news media.’ And all along they’ve been deliberately destroying (‘undermining’ is too nice a word) Americans’ trust in our mainstream media and election systems — 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 fraudulent and ‘stolen!’

The big problem for America going forward — and it’s huge — is that Trump, far-right media, and many GOP 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. Their behavior provides another potent example of effective, destructive projection (aka other-blaming).

That is, here too we’ve got a 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! How devious and manipulative can you get?

Welcome to the Twilight Zone. (Sigh)

And now, of course — he’s their pathetic, weird presidential candidate… yet again!

In any sane society, this GOP/Trump enmeshment would have been short-lived, and could never have been taken seriously — at least, not for long.

But we’re talking about today’s not-very-sane society, so today’s GOP is still letting him dictate what the GOP believes, says, and does. Trump now effectively owns the GOP.

The sad truth is: today’s absurd, brain-dead GOP is a mere shadow of its former self, and is just ‘along for the ride.’ It has no policy positions or true governing philosophy, anymore — except for its mindless embrace of ‘Trumpism’ (whatever the hell that is!).

None of this authoritarian, neo-fascist BS passes the ‘smell test,’ and the putrid stench keeps reminding us that our nation is, indeed, still stuck in ‘crazy town’ — or in an unending, horrendous Twilight Zone nightmare.

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V. The concerted push in red states to overthrow democracy from the bottom up and 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 — all failed miserably, 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 adopted a grass-roots ‘attack the system from within’ approach. All over the country, in red state after red state and red county after red county, far-right candidates have been 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.

Next up: the plan presented in Project 2025 begins in earnest — and they mount a ‘blitzkrieg’ attack against democracy. Seriously.

These far-right activists have been very busy — gutting our election rules and laws, installing ‘election deniers’ in positions of power, restricting voting rights, banning books, undermining public education, 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 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 incredibly hard to fully ‘grok’ the manipulative craziness that’s spreading fast through our society, it bears repeating: None of this is remotely normal, decent, or civilized behavior. It is NOT ‘normal’… or decent… or civilized. It just isn’t.

What it IS, is 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 answer this question adequately, we need to ask and answer another:

What are we LOSING as all these grotesque events and trends intensify?

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Overall, I’d say we’re in the process of losing many of the ideas/ beliefs/qualities that make us ‘civilized’, and support a (somewhat) functional semi-democracy and a fairly functional, somewhat open-minded society.

Americans are now rapidly LOSING all of the following:

* 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, differing lifestyles, and ethnic diversity among our citizens.

* Accurate teaching of American history, including slavery.

* Trust in the news and both local and global media sources.

* Our ability to distinguish truth from lies, and honesty from manipulation.

* Our ability to agree on even basic, crucial information — formerly known as ‘facts’ — about our world and society.

* Our willingness to work together for the common good.

* Our shared, necessary belief that there even IS such a thing as the ‘common good.’

* Our ability to see through — and reject — the false promises and dangerous ‘group-think’ of American-style fascism.

Can we please WAKE UP from this endless nightmare?

So, what do we stand to lose? A lot. ALL of the above, and much more.

We stand to lose many underappreciated things that we’ve long taken for granted — things like a fairly open, tolerant society, (mainly) functional election systems, and fairly open, (mainly) pleasant human interactions.

What is 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 tremendous onslaught, if it continues for very long.

After all, even a horrific, devastating Twilight Zone episode eventually… ends. Then we can breathe a sigh of relief, turn off the TV, and return to our real lives and normal everyday activities.

But what if we can’t ‘turn it off,’ and there is no baseline ‘normal’ anymore to return to? What if abnormality and craziness have largely ‘taken over’?

What if much of our society (and even 25% is far too much, and far too dangerous!) succumbs to the forces of untruth, division, bigotry, and endless resentment and rage?

That’s what we’re really facing now in our society. Sadly, several years on, that’s still the real unfolding picture — the factual, grim truth of our situation.

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I, for one, am totally sick of it. I’m totally sick of the craziness, the idiotic nonsense, the hate, 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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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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