NF rarely offers comments on political affairs since he believes political opinionology is an oversupplied commodity anyway. However, the staggering unprecedentedness of what has transpired in the US elections today compels him to write.
As ever, the great Mark Twain comes to our rescue:
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
The just concluded US election was the greatest-of-all-time epic reality show, simultaneously a Shakespearean tragedy and a Dostoyevskian farce, featuring a duel between history's most and least qualified candidates ever for the American presidency. Additionally, apart from the two candidates, there are several other memorable performances. There is the most hated man in the world, Anthony Wiener; an evil joker Julian Assange who strikes a Faustian bargain with Putin; there is a mysterious agent James Comey who plays a shocking, lethal role at the end. There are scandals, counter-scandals, lies, intrigue, deception, leaks, Russian hacking, FBI, sexual assault, hatemongering and worse. And yet no one believed it would really happen — not even the eventual winning campaign.
"Fucking unreal", just as Oscar Isaac says in the climactic moments of Ex Machina (2015).
"Fucking unreal", just as Oscar Isaac says in the climactic moments of Ex Machina (2015).
It is perhaps just as George Carlin said:
When you're born into this world, you're given a ticket to the freak show. If you're born in America you get a front row seat.
Add Brexit, the rise of the far right in the EU, secular stagnation — and parallels with the Great Depression and its aftershocks become eerie. To have been alive to witness epochal moments in history is always a frightening privilege. NF is tempted to say that to be alive today is to be alive in the most heady, interesting period ever but fears it's already beginning to sound callous.
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