The Far Right’s ‘Upside-Down Reality’ is Still Going Strong — and Doing Grave Damage

A bonkers ‘alternate reality’ is wrecking America and playing havoc with our lives

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Just over a year ago, I wrote at length about the “Upside-Down,” the vicious and devious ‘alternate reality’ that’s been sweeping across and undermining our nation. This nasty ‘reality’ is a real-life version of the horrific “Upside-Down” portrayed in the Netflix hit “Stranger Things.”

Today I want to perform a ‘wellness check’ on American society, see where things stand one year later, and examine exactly how this perverse and violent ‘alternate reality’ is created and maintained and why it is still so successful.

First, a reminder: the “Upside-Down” is all about FEAR and RAGE — inducing and feeding off primeval, gut-level emotion. The “Upside-Down” needs intense fear and moral/emotional hysteria to keep expanding, so it constantly stimulates the seething emotional reactions that sustain it: hatred, loathing, resentment, White rage, paranoia, racism, pent-up violence, and of course even more fear.

In order for the politics of rage and fear to work effectively, people’s worst inner fears — of immigrants, economic hardship, job loss, moral collapse, being ‘replaced’, being ‘canceled’, losing…