vitalwholeness

You courted the unhinged fringe as a way to scour up more votes, build a crowd, intimidate all who would oppose you, and you got them.

But now they’ve got you.

The moral stench of their racism and violence wafted across the borders that divide the monarchy from the pawns and suddenly it occurred to you: I can’t simply manipulate and use this unholy coalition; we have created one another in each other’s image.

You had succeeded in keeping their eyes off the primary project, the cause of enriching yourself and others like you. You did this by occupying them with a seething bucket of rage-filled lies, over and over.

It worked a long time.

Until, that is, the rot crept into your own house and the windows that broke were yours.

On that day, the bill came due and the credit card maxed out. When the collector came, he told you just what he wanted you to say.

And you politely obliged.

A few of the broken-legged team that had clung to you and the unhinged fringe wandered out of the smoke and debris, dazed and muttering, “How did it go this far?”

But you were not available for comment.

Because you were using all your energy appearing like a nice victim, scolding the fringe and ordering them to be unlike themselves.

                            ***

Since you left, the cleanup has been monumental, like the aftermath of a hurricane, littered with pieces, fragments, and tattered flags.

The fringe is still here, being what it always has been. The weak, gullible and deluded are still here, always swayed by words of the next terrifying world.

But you, their cheerleader and advocate, enabler and high chieftain of social corruption, are gone. That’s not everything, of course, but it is something, if only a cautionary tale for a future we have yet to write.