Well, haven’t we all been treated to quite the show lately? Of course I’m talking about the debates for the Republican Party’s primary in Florida, which have degenerated into an unseemly picking over the corpse of Reagan-era optimism, each candidate trying to prize from Zombie Ronnie’s rigor mortised grasp the famed Talisman of Americana. Shameful and disgusting.
The mind readily grasps the allure of laying claim to the mantle of the august Uncle Dutch (i.e., being the only legitimate basis of rule, the “One Meme to Rule Them All”). Therefore it is hardly surprising that its power should attract the devious lust of unsavory creatures from beneath even the dankest rocks in the even the darkest corners of America’s mushroom garden. That is merely natural and expected, actually a necessary function of narrative causality, being all the better to highlight by means of contrast the enlightened munificence and nobility of the True Heir of the king who single-handedly defeated the corrosive and perverse troglodytes of The Evil Empire.… Read the rest
Douglas Coupland has written dozens of books, but will probably always be best known for his classic novel 