Modern America is an amusement park in which voters are wowed with dizzying rides, funhouse mirrors, macabre horrors, and unexpected scares.  It is filled with plot twists and cliffhangers that keep Americans on the edge of their seats.  Expectations are built up like an inflated water balloon until a sudden explosion triggers surprise and regret.  A manufactured cycle of psychological highs and lows keeps Americans’ attention directed toward anything that is glamorous and away from everything that matters.

Consider the roller coaster we’ve all been riding at higher and higher rates of speed and evermore-dangerous heights these last few months:

One New York judge abuses a civil fraud statute to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from Donald Trump.  Another ignores settled law and relevant facts to help convict him of thirty-four fake felonies.  Democrats break out in euphoria.  Then, the U.S. Supreme Court steps in to recognize presidential immunity in a way that threatens three other criminal cases against bogeyman Trump.  Democrats scream obscenities in protest and demand the Court’s “cancellation.”  

Democrats widely praise Joe Biden as the smartest, most energetic, most effective president in American history.  In a shocking turn of events for those drinking that mind-altering Kool-Aid, Joe Biden outs himself as a dementia-riddled imbecile at the June 27 presidential debate — the earliest scuffle between presumptive nominees in recent history.  Bipolar Democrats turn on a dime and demand that their damaged candidate bow out of the race.  

A MAGA-hating gunman attempts to assassinate President Trump.  Democrats cheer the impulse but decry the shooter’s wayward aim.  Did the murderer have accomplices?  Did he successfully evade Secret Service agents because Democrats are obsessed with promoting “diverse” hires over those with proven excellence?  Will the female director of the Secret Service resign due to her incompetence?  The Department of Homeland Security says such questions are “conspiratorial,” “patriarchal” and even “ableist.”  Nothing puts the “D-I-E” in diversity like sacrificing a protectee in the name of “political correctness.”  But Trump’s survival denies Democrats their much-anticipated happy ending.

Finally, after repeatedly refusing to withdraw from the presidential contest despite growing calls for him to do so, Biden hurriedly announces on a Sunday afternoon that he supports VP Kamala Harris running in his place.  Is Biden alive?  Is he okay?  Who cares?  Giddy Democrats are too busy shrieking with delight and pondering the possibility of a multi-racial “Madam President.”  Maybe she’ll even choose a pansexual furry as her veep!  Life for Democrats can’t get much more exciting!

Are you not entertained?  Is the adrenaline not coursing through your veins?  That’s really what all of this is — a carnival show to keep the masses yo-yo-ing back and forth between anger and elation.  The crazier the events, the more effective the distraction.  The more effective the distraction, the easier it is for the con artists to fleece their marks.  For those paying attention, it is apparent that the American people are the marks being swindled.

The question above is a well-known quip from Russell Crowe’s character Maximus after the Roman general speedily dispatches half a dozen warriors in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.  Disgusted at the spectacle of a large audience watching him kill other prisoners in an arena as if it were sport, his rebuke — “Are you not entertained?” — was meant to shame the crowd.  To his astonishment, rambunctious cheers flowed back.

Democrat voters are that roaring gladiatorial crowd, desperate for the blood of their enemies and the staged victories of their theatrical heroes.  Yesterday they loved Joe Biden.  Today they love Kamala Harris.  Tomorrow they will love whomever Barack Obama tells them to love next.  Democrats crave the thrill of vanquishing the dastardly MAGA villains.  They seek the rush of endorphins straight to their brains.  They need to know that they are the good guys, that they are on the “right side of history,” and that they will indubitably win!  

No tax is too high to assure victory.  No war is too bloody for the prospect of glory.  No loss of freedom is too obscene when weighed against the tantalizing allure of triumph.  

The best carnival barkers are the ones who can hypnotize the public into handing over everything they own for worthless trinkets.  They now run the big top freak show that is the U.S. government. 

As Roman satirist Juvenal wrote at the end of the first century, nothing so appeases the public as “Bread and Games.”  In twenty-first century America, we get “free stuff” and Hollywood-scripted curiosities.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

So now the cable news shows will prattle on about PINO Biden’s departure and Cackling Kamala’s rise.  Will Old Joe remain in office, or will he be forced to resign?  Will anybody challenge Harris’s use of campaign money donated specifically for Biden’s re-election?  Does the child of two foreign nationals satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president be a “natural-born citizen”?  Will half-Indian, half-Jamaican Kamala appeal to black American voters?  Will battleground state polls that show President Trump easily winning quickly flip toward Biden’s replacement?  If they do not, will mainstream media personalities denounce America’s racism and misogyny each night on the news?  Will a dark-horse candidate arrive at the Democrat convention in late August to claim Kamala’s crown?

So many unanswered questions.  So many titillating distractions.  So many surprises yet to come.  Gather ‘round, America.  Have some extra bread.  Enjoy this season’s spine-tingling games.  They promise to be a doozy.

Pay no attention to the sky-high interest rates making home ownership unaffordable or the sky-high inflation that has doubled the cost of basic necessities.  So what if the average person’s paycheck barely covers monthly gas and grocery bills?  Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris identifies as a female “person of color.”  She is a shiny object that should help everyone forget about personal financial troubles.

Don’t worry about the fifteen million illegal immigrants that have streamed across the border in the last three years.  Ignore the precipitous rise in violent crime and the growing homelessness crisis.  Diversity remains our strength!  And crime statistics can be easily manipulated to reflect a better reality!

Forget about mail-in-ballot fraud and other voting crimes.  Democrat secretaries of state and Democrat attorneys general have vouched for the security of our elections.  Democrat judges have vouched for those Democrats’ vouching.  Anybody who objects is simply an “election-denier” who should be imprisoned for “insurrection.”  Mailing out tens of millions of ballots to people who cannot legally vote is how we “save democracy.”  

Stop complaining about two-tiered justice.  All the best judges convict President Trump, his friends and allies, and his MAGA supporters.  Any judge who doesn’t do so is a MAGA conservative and an existential “threat to democracy.”  

Stop warning about government censors punishing political dissent.  Any idea that the government dislikes is simply “disinformation” that should be expunged before it has a chance to cause harm.  Free speech can be saved only by strictly regulating it.

And don’t forget that Republicans will force women to have babies!  Remember The Handmaid’s Tale!

All of this madness reminds me of another scene from Gladiator, when Sir Derek Jacobi’s Senator Gracchus explains how immoral dictator Commodus has effectively seized power: “Rome is the mob.  Conjure magic for them and they’ll be distracted.  Take away their freedom and still they’ll roar.  The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate; it’s the sand of the coliseum.  He’ll bring them death — and they will love him for it.”

It doesn’t matter whether it’s Kamala Harris or some other puppet playing the part of president.  The Deep State does its worst when the American people are best entertained.

Image via Picryl.