Daddy's Disciples

THE Big Lie, or große Lüge, is alive and well. Principles and ideals, if they ever truly existed among the psychologically troubled denizens of social media, are becoming alarming inconsequential as an increasing number of people actively shape their own 'political' narratives in order to compete with those manufactured by their equally duplicitous rivals on the other side of the barricades. One of the current trends on the Right, for example, is to post a comic-strip meme in which the final frame shows Vladimir Putin laughing at the pending demise of the Western economy or celebrating the Occidental drift towards cultural self-destruction. In actuality, this simplistic and childish tendency is a way for shallow fantasists to invent their own story-lines and add a modicum of significance to their otherwise meaningless lives.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with trying to create your own reality, in the present age of widespread dishonesty and misinformation there is absolutely no attempt to highlight the more obvious similarities between their infallible superhero in the Kremlin and the parasites back in Washington. As long as Putin is seen to laugh at the expense of Biden and his debauched offspring, therefore, the former's support for plutocracy, international finance, technocratic dictatorship, environmental despoliation, pharmaceutical trickery, widespread corruption, systematic brainwashing and the authoritarian police state is perfectly fine. Let's be honest, these sycophants don't care whether the propaganda is real or not. All that matters is that their friends, their enemies and the girls they are either trying to impress or disgust on social media associate them with the mythical 'strongman' they are completely incapable of ever becoming.