The Clowning of America

Book excerpt: Why is America's politico-cultural landscape in its current condition?This book offers a tongue-in-cheek outsider's perspective to the current unraveling tensions as we enter another election cycle. As riots, "peaceful" protests, lockdowns, phony scandals, and escalating civil unrest dominate much of the news cycle, the media's complicity in driving crucial narratives as well as Western Government's impotent "anarcho-tyranny" have become apparent. Outrage mobs and witch hunts on social media seek to ruin people's lives for the sake of ideological conformity and wielding social power. Megacorporations are at the helm when driving much recent social change. A hundred years ago, revolutionaries were draped in red flags when leading their charge; now, HR and Marketing departments slap a cheap rainbow filter on their brand's logo every now and then on their social media pages. Branding has adopted its own form to push a silent "online" revolution, but it has also assumed the role of identity. Both socio-economic status and subcultural affiliation have been subsumed by branding.And if you don't like it, the alternative is a anemic, lily-livered option that serves as nothing more than a release valve. Briefly touching upon key issues before granting more power to the aforementioned megacorporations driving the very social change that undermines their non-economic positions.Some, however, aside from all this nonsense, just want to be left alone and grill, for God's sake. But current trends turn a placid pastime into a nostalgic pipe dream. The frailties of the current system are increasingly obvious - both sides have shown discontent in their political representatives. And in a very "online" age, the way in which said discontent is expressed has evolved, taking on a nature outside language alone - as memes are worth a thousand words. This is the clowning of America.