The fracturing of the American psyche

When you’re no longer capable of distinguishing reality from fiction, mass schizophrenia is the inevitable outcome

After the assassination attempt on Trump, many of his supporters have taken to social media to suggest that this wasn’t the action of a “lone madman”, but an operation orchestrated by the American “deep state”, pointing to stories of people reporting the presence of the shooter on the roof but being ignored by the police, or asking why the police sniper waited for the shooter to fire before taking him out. This was easily predictable, and in the following days and weeks we can expect these theories to spread like wildfire.

More surprisingly, however, shortly after the shooting, the words “Staged” started trending in the US as well — a reference to the belief, apparently widespread in hardcore Dem/anti-Trump quarters, that the whole thing might have been staged by Trump himself to increase his popularity.

This might sound deranged, but it shouldn’t surprise us. This is the poisoned fruit of the complete oligarchisation of Western countries, first and foremost the US. Most people have a rational or subconscious understanding that elections are a sham and that there are unseen forces actually pulling the strings behind the scenes — forces that will stop at nothing to have their way, including murder; they just disagree about who or what those forces are.

The worst part is that they are absolutely correct: there obviously are nefarious forces — be it the national security state, intelligence agencies, the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, etc. — pulling the strings behind the scenes. Just as much of what happens “on stage” — the reality presented by mass media — is rather obviously fake.

And the inevitable consequence of this is the fracturing of the collective psyche that we are witnessing right now in America. When you’re no longer capable of distinguishing reality from fiction — can we really blame people for thinking that Trump’s already-iconic fist pump picture looks like something out of a Hollywood movie? — and when the incongruities between the reality you’re told you live in and your rational or instinctual perception of reality (democracy/oligarchy) become too jarring, mass schizophrenia is the inevitable outcome.

Regardless of who wins the elections in November, it’s hard to see how America can recover from this.

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Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope 

Latest book: The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left (co-authored with Toby Green)