The Terrifying Truth About Our American ‘Reality’

The other day, my wife and I were engaged in one of our frequent political discussions. Suddenly, I stopped talking, shook my head in amazement, and said the following:

“You know, if I was a political thriller writer and had submitted a piece of fiction featuring ALL the bizarre events of the past decade in America, it would have been summarily rejected — by every publisher — for being far too implausible, if not totally impossible.

If I was a Hollywood script writer and developed a script featuring everything that’s happened in the U.S. since 2015… I would have been laughed out of town. Life has gotten SO bizarre here that even the line “You can’t make this shit up!” pales in comparison!”

We both chuckled knowingly and went on with our day. But my statement got under my skin and got me wondering: How was all this burgeoning craziness even possible? How did all these terrible developments come to pass? What weaknesses or failures led to our current dystopian ‘reality’?

The traditional ‘answers’ don’t cut it

The more I pondered these questions, the more dissatisfied I became with the traditional answers of pundits and our political class. In my view, none of the usual ‘explanations’ — such as, “It’s the economy, stupid!” or “It’s the patriarchy and the rise of American oligarchy!” — fully explain how and why we got here. I became determined to suss out the true underlying causes of our intensifying American collapse.

But… how to do this? How could I get to a deep enough level to ‘see through’ facile explanations and arrive at fuller, more realistic truths? I figured I needed to strip American ideals and life down to their bare bones.

Then it hit me: Perhaps the fundamental problem underlying and instigating the horrid events of the past decade is the massive disconnect between our ideals and our day-to-day reality. Perhaps the psychic pain and burden of this awful disconnect ‘set us up’ to fall apart, flail, and fail.

I found this line of thought intriguing. What if the psychic weight of all our hypocrisy and broken promises finally became too much to bear? What if the weird mental gymnastics required to function in such a schizoid, unloving, and cruel society simply started disintegrating? What if the painful ‘cognitive dissonance’ embodied in most aspects of our lives finally drove us to a frantic breaking point — and beyond?

The land of bullshit, lying, and fakery

Take our glorious self-image as ‘the land of the free.’ It’s clear to any casual observer that the U.S. is not ‘the land of the free,’ especially if you are a person of color or a woman. Women, LGBTQ+ folks, and minorities are systematically disenfranchised, pushed down, or actively oppressed, so our ‘land of the free’ is really just ‘free’ for White Christian males.

But our social and emotional hypocrisy extends far beyond the realm of cognitive dissonance. An even simpler, more comprehensive explanation of our American madness is this: most of us are consummate fakers and liars.

We don’t ‘fake it ’til we make it,’ we just… fake it, and lie, and fake it some more… and then lie about it all. We lie about our societal reality and the extent of suffering here. We lie about the ‘wonders’ of endless growth and mindless, heartless capitalism. We lie and strut about as if we’re truly ‘free’ — and keep boasting this is ‘the greatest country on earth.’

Think I’m exaggerating? Then, why have lies and widespread public lying and deception taken over our public discourse and infected our entire society? This question gets to the very heart of the matter, but let’s reframe it a bit: If the U.S. has always been mired in lying and ‘faking it,’ then why have things suddenly gotten so much worse over the past decade? What happened, or what changed?

Here’s my horrifying take on it. Until the past decade, the U.S. at least pretended to be pursuing our founding ideals of ‘freedom and justice for all,’ so the lies and fakery were mostly hidden. We even made a few social improvements — briefly.

But then, along came Donald Trump, one of the world’s most prodigious and accomplished liars and scheming grifters — and his talent for open, unashamed lying, bullying, and racism started infecting the nation.

He didn’t make us lie and hate, of course — but he encouraged lying, bullying, racism, and open deception and made it all perfectly OK. He brought public lying, manipulation, and deception out of the shadows and into the very forefront of American life.

Our ‘bad karma’ is coming home to roost — and it’s getting ugly

If all this is true, what does that say about the future of the U.S.? Nothing good, that’s for sure. We’re a nation founded on genocide, slavery, exploitative capitalism, and unending fakery and lies — so, in truth, none of what’s happening now in the U.S. should be surprising. Hell, what’s surprising is that it took this long for our essential lack of character, honesty, and empathy to take its full toll.

From this point of view, Trump is not an aberration or unfortunate ‘detour’ for America. Rather, he is the quintessential distillation of everything we are and all the many ways we lie, deceive ourselves and each other, oppress other ‘lesser’ Americans, and ‘fake it’ endlessly.

From this point of view, the multi-media ‘firehose to the face’ of ongoing lies, deceptive partisan nonsense, and outright propaganda is merely the logical result of several centuries of lying, pretense, and fakery.

. . .

Now, back to my earlier questions: How is all this burgeoning craziness even possible? What weaknesses or failures led to our current dystopian ‘reality’? The answers are coming into clear view, and they’re not pretty or comforting.

It’s not the economy, the evil Democrats, the evil Republicans, the ‘decline of morality,’ or some imagined ‘socialist takeover.’ The underlying problem is us and all our bald-faced lies, deceptions, and unconscionable social and economic manipulations. The problem is our selfishness, greed, hate, and blindness — along with mountains of accompanying lying, abuse, and fakery.

My premise is that ongoing, endless lies and social hypocrisy will always take their toll, eventually. This devastating toll is looking increasingly grim and is accelerating.

The ultimate toll we face is rapid, intensifying American collapse — and we are seeing its horrific ugliness unfolding right before our eyes and all around us. America’s noxious, accumulated ‘bad karma’ is finally coming home to roost.

We just haven’t experienced the full weight, catastrophe, and terror of it yet.

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This post was previously published on Bouncin’ and Behavin’ Blogs.

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