Let me begin with a confession: I no longer feel the burden of facts. What a relief. The tyranny of evidence, the oppression of reason, the long nights lost to research, gone. I sleep well now, comforted by my own invented truth, tucked in tight beneath a quilt sewn from social media memes and cable news rage. If a thing feels true, it is true. If it benefits me, it must be noble. And if it flatters my leader, it is sacred.
I have grown immune to contradiction. Once, I might have paused if a man said one thing Monday, another on Tuesday, and something wholly incompatible on Wednesday. No more. That was the old me, the citizen me. Now, I prefer the simplicity of loyalty. Our new creed: Obedience over understanding. Submission over scrutiny. Shout louder, and the facts fall away like leaves in a storm.
Democracy? Please. Too slow, too noisy, too full of people with opinions. Who needs 330 million voices when one voice, angry, rich, sunburned, can say it all for us? I used to believe in the Constitution, but then I realized itÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™s just an old piece of parchment, probably French or something. If the Founders really wanted us to follow it, whyÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™d they make it so long and full of commas?
Health care? Who needs it? YouÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™re going to die anyway. Why delay the inevitable? Why bankrupt the treasury just to prolong someoneÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™s misery when they could be skipping off to heaven in a golden chariot? Let the market decide who lives and who gets a coupon for aspirin. Besides, if you donÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™t have insurance, just ask the man whose brain was eaten by a worm. He said the pain was ÃÛ·èÖ±²¥œa little spicyÃÛ·èÖ±²¥ and that Jesus appeared to him in an air fryer. ThatÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™s the kind of testimonial we need in our new health system: grit, faith, and a high pain tolerance.
LetÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™s face it: What this country needs is not a president but a dealer. Someone who can sell you a lemon and convince you itÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™s a Cadillac of freedom. ThatÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™s why I support the plan to hand over our government to an out-of-work car salesman from Tuscaloosa who once won ÃÛ·èÖ±²¥œEmployee of the MonthÃÛ·èÖ±²¥ at a Buy-Here-Pay-Here lot and believes every federal employee is part of a communist conspiracy.
WeÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™re firing the scientists. What have they ever done besides invent the Internet, cure diseases, and warn us about melting glaciers? WeÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™re purging the climate experts. Who needs them when we have YouTube preachers with weather apps? Economists are out, too, replaced by televangelists and casino magnates who understand the real laws of prosperity: Believe, give generously to the leader, and wait for your miracle.
In our glorious future, all judges will be influencers. All textbooks will be tweets. All elections will be suggestions. We will salute not the flag, but the brand. Truth will be whatever the man at the top says it is that day, and lies will be whatever he said yesterday.
We are not a nation anymore. We are a loyalty program.
Our founding documents? Rewritten as promotional material. Our Capitol? Turned into a private event space for corporate baptisms and autocratic auctions. And our schoolchildren? Educated in the great American tradition of shouting ÃÛ·èÖ±²¥œfake newsÃÛ·èÖ±²¥ whenever confronted with a library book.
Of course, there are critics, angry, literate people who still use words like ÃÛ·èÖ±²¥œpluralism,ÃÛ·èÖ±²¥ ÃÛ·èÖ±²¥œseparation of powers,ÃÛ·èÖ±²¥ and ÃÛ·èÖ±²¥œbasic human decency.ÃÛ·èÖ±²¥ But we drown them out now with bullhorns and bumper stickers. WeÃÛ·èÖ±²¥™ve discovered that slogans work better than principles. Especially when printed in all caps.
And so, here we stand. Proud. Loud. Willfully unknowing.
We have chosen our path: a slow descent into a velvet autocracy, where the only thing that matters is faith, not in God, not in country, but in the great and orange oracle who speaks nonsense with the confidence of a prophet and the memory of a goldfish.
Do not pity me. I am free now, free from nuance, complexity, and thought.
And in the silence where reason once lived, I shout:
LOCK HER UP!
DRAIN THE SWAMP!
BUILD THE WALL!
BUY MORE HATS!
And I believe it all. Because believing is easier than thinking.
