Now just so you know, I haven’t always been political, couple decades ago I was one of those blissful unaware sorts, with little to no knowledge of policies or pundits, parties of left or right, I was completely uninterested. Then, I don’t know, I guess it really started after 9/11, and having had no TV for well over a year, I was not inundated with the 24/7 news cycle that held the public interest in those days after the attacks, so I wasn’t spoonfed my news, I had to go out looking for it.

Maybe it was Mom’s death just weeks after, and I learned how loss can focus the mind, hunting for the distractions to fill the void her loss made inside me.

Maybe I was hunting the snark.

In those years that followed, watching as Bush Jr. ratcheted up the war machine, and out I went on a hunt to find what truths lay hidden elsewhere, outside the North American news bubble, news not funnelled through the propaganda machine, news from the outside world.

Watching, looking around at so many wide-eyed in fear, and I didn’t feel that way at all from my perusal, the sky was not falling, far as I could tell.

I went seeking answers not from some talking head on TV, no capitalist cable news station owned by one media mogul or other, I sought something more unbiased, more balanced, an alternate point of view. Out there, the news was rather telling in its condemnation of the fascination Americans have with themselves, and this idea they are better than the rest. That the average American was oblivious to how the world at large viewed them sort of surprised me, but it shouldn’t have, I guess, rarely are any of us aware of how we are seen by others.

After 9/11 there was a certain consensus that I read, how American’s were naive to believe themselves immune to terrorism, and these acts that many countries had experienced in one fashion or another for decades, sometimes centuries, and they were making mountains from molehills.

Then came their Homeland Security and Patriot Act, and I read that these things were eroding American’s freedoms, their rights, but fear reigned, and things changed.

That paranoia at the thought of such evil amongst us, it spread.

America once brought with it this message concerning their greatness, and like missionaries bringing the word of God to the heathen masses, lets say the message they brought was not always received with open arms, but still it spreads like a wildfire.

To be honest, I am one of those that believes that what we are witnessing today has been a long time in the making, a nucleus of an idea, whose mandate was simple – weaken the West, specifically the United States – take back the balance of power that had been gradually shifting in the direction of this one right way sort of liberalism, of left-wing ideologies and multiculturalism, feminist power and anti-capitalist thinking, and let chaos reign, shake the tree to the core, burn down the house, start anew.

At the same time you have one group aching for the past, another was thinking of the future, and overtime these camps grew farther and farther apart.

Actual acts of terrorism is one way to get the point across, as fear has a way of focusing the mind; yet, it only goes so far.

I guess one could say that fear is a tenderizer, and over the years as technology advanced and morphed, and eventually we were carrying around a tracking our every movement personal device, but not me, for years I was outside that loop. Again, out of the bubble, up there at Tim’s lake, isolated from the smartphone app crazed anthill of humanity 3 hours away.

It was only a matter of time before someone realized the possibilities, how to utilize such a direct way to reach an audience, and thus technology has been turned into a weapon.

I can’t help but think that whilst all eyes have been focused so keenly on that Red menace throughout these rumpTus years, the real danger has been the pervasive influence from a new sort of Jihadist, hidden within our fear centred psyche, directing some towards the very thing they at one time scorned.

Yes, the devil really sometimes is in the details.

The way I see it, I think some have to ask themselves, at what cost are they willing to pay for getting what they believe they want?

The reality right now is that there is a contingent of the right wing that really does desire an authoritarian tyrant, even though I don’t entirely understand the motivation, I have to acknowledge that the simple answer to all of this is that there are those who believe there is some kind of benefit for them.

Authoritarianism is a concentration of power, a select inner circle of minions who will directly gain financially, but as well will gain a certain level of power they could otherwise not achieve within a democratic system of governance.

I watch as it brings out the greed in many, how they flock to those who exude tyrannical tendencies like vultures to long dead roadkill.

We must not forget that dictators are only as powerful as the minions who follow them, who do their bidding, who see for themselves a personal benefit in supporting such a totalitarian bully. Barr, Graham, Mnuchin, Giulaini, and that pack that protect him, all of them are wealthy with apparently no sense of morality, who only serve their bank account, narrowly focused on their own ends, and their own servitude to an amoral conman, all apologists to an unstable commander of chaos and violence.

There is a real us against them mentality, and those who fuel the right-wing extremist ideologies bare a striking resemblance to those other extremists that used to fuel mainstream fear, back in the day – sort of funny almost that they don’t see that – well, scary funny, not haha funny.

This leader who basically sucks the air out of the room, who causes seasoned professionals to feel ill whenever he speaks, who ramps up the rhetoric to a nauseating degree, and whose sole desire is his own needs, and definitely not those of his country.

He has become the figurehead of that movement of longing for the past types, the good ol’days, that mythical time they think once existed, that lie they’ve been fed for so long of their own greatness. That greatness that America spread around the world, wrapped up in a bow of democracy, like a Trojan horse, force fed globally by capitalist moguls whose sole goal was their own gain. Extracting oil, gold, diamonds, building shopping malls and golden arches spreading around the globe like measles, raping and pillaging nations for profit, and this sort of greed and power grabbing never generally ends well for the average Joe in its wake.

Communities dying on the vine to some made in china chain store, empty storefronts laid waste by many all to willing to buy it on the cheap, at the expense of everything they once held dear – like their jobs, their pensions – for made in America ideas, sold back to them at rock bottom prices.

Every day I hear people express this sense of confusion, but I’ll give ya a clue, and that’s that every single word out of that commander of chaos’ mouth is a lie.

We are certainly living through interesting times, like some sick practical joke.

And let’s just say that the only people who are benefiting are those with no interest in anyones welfare but their own, full stop, don’t pass go, that is the bottom line, anything else is a snow job.

Mr. President, would do all these wonderful things, if, he wasn’t such a crook, if these lawmakers would get off my back? As if the first, what, how many months he had to do wonderful things when the Republicans controlled both the senate and the house, um, stopped him? Nice try.

He’s so sad and lonely, tough job, not enough accolades? Cry me a river, and buck up butter cup, you are in for a bumpy ride.