For decades, anti-Democratic interests have been working to erode the public trust in the institutions that define our government(s).
By increasingly leveraging pre-existing fears (and in many cases, hatreds), these interests have sought to create an increasingly polarised discourse.
They have succeeded.
Fuelled by misinformation—bogus facts, fake news—they have created a daisy chain of logical fallacies in which society finds itself tangled.
Truth becomes malleable. Centrism is branded inherently foolish (at best) and disingenuous (at worst). We find ourselves sliding—left or right—the rope flaying the skin from our hands. Despite the pain, we cling even tighter.
And in the great gulf between us, the fraying thread of Democracy becomes ever weaker; until, eventually it snaps.
Both sides will be hurled roughly aside, landing heavily, apart from each other, and each side will blame the other for causing the rope to break.
The rope—once taut, now limp—remains affixed to our bloody palms. And it now becomes a whip with which each side seeks to enslave the other.
Democracy, forgotten, is the emptiness where the centre used to be.
The game is now a war.
Once again the world will descend into great darkness.
For how long: who can say?
Michael Scott Hand 