If one reads Richard Condon’s 1958 novel The Manchurian Candidate or sees the original film (1962) or its remake (2004) one would realize my comparison to today’s events. In the novel (and films) we see a patrol of U.S. soldiers being captured and then brainwashed by the enemy. The ones who survive this terrible experience are returned home, not realizing that they have been behavior modified.
Since Trump took office we have seen millions of our fellow citizens, many good and decent folks, appearing to be brainwashed by the right wing. Before Trump, and perhaps helping to clear the field for this type of demagogue, we had the infamous Tea Party movement. Those poor slobs got suckered into thinking that they were true patriots fighting the diabolical Deep State. Little did they know that the movers and shakers of their movement were actually members of that Deep State. Yes, there is what many of us on the true Left call the Deep State, and it has really two heads to this monster, a Republican head and a Democratic head. Factions of this Super Rich system do fight with each other, but the lasting results are for the Super Rich to stay on top of the water… as we all drown.
With the MAGA run government under Trump all hell broke loose. Instead of ‘draining the swamp’ they filled it up with more of the same. To keep the natives active in their vitriol, the Trump crew played upon the white supremacist anger towards people of color, especially the undocumented. Building a wall to protect them from the continuous scourge was one of the bones Trump threw to the ravaging crowds of MAGA. Ending of entitlements (which would actually AID many of those MAGAs) was another juicy red meat bone. Government spending was seen as the dreaded Socialism and Communism, unless of course, it was for our military spending, which is still going through the roof (mattering not who actually occupies the White House and Congress). Tax cuts, which even a high school civics student would realize, was always to fatten the portfolios of the less than 1% of us.
Then came the pandemic, which of course the Trump crew downplayed originally as A HOAX. It soon became the ‘China Flu’ or ‘Kung Flu’ once Trump and crew realized it was actually REAL and very dangerous. The MAGA crowd, along with many of my fellow Lefties, kept denying the existence of this virus, calling it just another Flu. When the figures went too high to discount them as being ‘Phony statistics’, Trump and crew pushed for a vaccine… and quickly! Well, that happened and by 2021 many, even some MAGA adherents, got the shots and breathed better. Yet, during all of this, and contradicting their belief in the vaccine, many still would not favor the wearing of masks. We began getting a slew of websites (some that this writer once wrote for and read daily) stating so called ‘Facts’ by various so called doctors and scientists. They droned on and on that wearing masks was foolish, futile, even dangerous. I asked fellow Lefty friends of mine, Hoaxers and Anti Vaxers, this ‘What if’ question: What if we had no pandemic and there was a cold virus going around. If you worked in an office and a co worker came in coughing and sneezing, would you rather see them wearing a mask and keeping their distance from you, and you yourself wearing one to protect you a bit from their spreading germs? No one actually would answer me.
We still have about half of those eligible to get the vaccine refusing it. We have my Florida governor and a fellow horse’s rear from Texas with edicts to deny mandates on wearing face masks. The schools will soon be opened and it will be up to the parents to mandate their kid wearing one. Between the MAGA parents and those who will see how embarrassed their child may become if showing up in a mask, there will be CHAOS! How many more tragic results of this new Delta Variant before these Manchurian Americans are deprogrammed by TRUTH?
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