America's Reichstag Fire Moment

Regular readers will have noticed that I have been trying to either lay off the politics all together, or just peck around the corners in an attempt to avoid the elephant in the room. Some of that was due to fatigue brought on by the daily avalanche of misdeeds, idiocy, and irredeemable malfeasance in office that pours forth from our American governments at all levels and from all political parties in our fantastic, still new and exciting 21^st Century. That fatigue may be replaced by renewed interest, however, now that America has had her Reichstag Fire Moment.

Our so-called elected officials have chosen this as the moment to pull back all of the curtains and make visible their true natures. Like the Nazis burning their own parliament building, it is as though Mr. Hyde has finally realized that there is no need to ever change back into Dr. Jekyll. The American electorate has expressed its undying willingness to vote for and channel money to Mr. Hyde in spite of the trail of rape, ruin, and destruction that he leaves in his wake. They seem to like it! God knows that it's a shame, but the American electorate is apparently much stupider than it had generally been given credit for.

One third of Americans are very enthusiastic about this destruction of their prosperity and their freedom; they are as wildly happy about the new National Conservatism as drunken teenagers at an end-of-summer beach bonfire. Another third have either not noticed, or are choosing to wait this one out and see what happens. One third, God bless them, are genuinely distressed by the coup that we just witnessed in Washington, but they are somehow unable to raise themselves off of their couches to do anything about it. The French would be setting cars on fire.

Most of the latter third are still hoping that the situation can be saved by some mechanism of good, old-fashioned democracy, like voting or something. How quaint is that? Cute, and quaint. On the one hand, they believe that it is still the early 20^th Century, when democratic norms were still in effect, and on the other hand, they are sure that some great new tool of the Internet/ Smart Phone age will turn this terrible thing around. Each of these three groups is a poor, dead thing in the hands of our new bosses. 

This is a political situation that could once again become of interest, but not in a good way. Wrapped in the flag, and carrying the cross of Calvary. Wasn't that how it was supposed to happen? Whoever said that was pretty close, actually.