The Assassination of Reality: Faux Political Assassinations, Mock Trials, and the new war against "Political Violence" - On the Theatre of American Politics

There is a curious phenomenon in American democracy today: it is no longer that politics resembles a circus, but rather that the circus envies the superior choreography of politics. What we witness in these so-called “incidents” — spectacular explosions, immaculate political assassinations, and convenient martyrdoms splashed across front pages — is nothing but capitalist theatre at its most refined.

And like all theatre, it demands an audience who simultaneously knows it is fiction and yet weeps, applauds, or screams as if it were true.

When a preacher-turned-candidate collapses at a rally in a puff of perfectly Instagrammable smoke, we know we are not watching tragedy, but advertisement. When a hedge-fund wizard evaporates from the headlines overnight, we know it is not murder but marketing. And when ordinary citizens dare to laugh — a barista posting a meme of a conservative “martyr” reborn on stage like a boy-band reunion — they are fired, not for violence, but for violating the great commandment of the capitalist spectacle: “Thou shalt not puncture the illusion.”

A Fake Left, to Kill the Real One

Here we arrive at the dark heart of the charade: these spectacles are not simply stagecraft gone mad. They are a psyops — a psychological operation designed to conjure up the illusion of a sudden, violent leftist uprising. Tesla bombs, vanished CEOs, Robin Hood radicals — all are props in a morality play. The story? That the left is not a movement of debt-burdened workers and atomized citizens demanding justice, but a mob of bloodthirsty fanatics who must be stopped before they burn the Republic.

This allows the right to pose as the eternal victim — the Party of Order, under siege from imaginary radicals — while seizing the very tools needed to suppress the real danger: not staged violence, but the natural revolutionary impulse born from obscene wealth inequality and social atomization.

The fake insurgency becomes the justification for quelling the real insurgency before it ever emerges. This is capitalism’s insurance policy: to preempt reality with spectacle.

The Punishment of Laughter

The recent wave of firings shows us the true innovation of late-stage capitalism: even joy has been privatized. Workers are not only exploited in their labor; they are disciplined in their emotions. You may hate your boss, you may dream of revolution, but you may not — under any circumstance — post a GIF celebrating the fake demise of a billionaire-backed politician.

This is not merely censorship. It is the transformation of social media into the new factory floor. Your tweets are surplus value. Your memes are raw material. And the bosses, now corporate HR departments acting as moral police, have the power to seize not only your time but your inner life.

The Wonderland Gazette confirms this shift:

“After the Faux Attack: Employers Drop Workers Who Celebrated.” Executives insist they acted to preserve “decency,” but as one dismissed worker sighed: “I laughed at a GIF. I didn’t even know the attack was staged.”

The Shock-and-Awe Soap Opera

Remember “shock and awe” — the fireworks of imperial domination over Baghdad? Now America’s ruling class has franchised the idea domestically. We don’t get missile strikes; we get faux Tesla explosions outside shareholder meetings. We don’t get the fall of statues; we get news alerts about some hedge fund titan or crypto mogul “taken out” by shadowy bands of supposed leftist Robin Hoods.

And here’s the absurdity: whether you believe these events are real, fake, or somewhere in between, you are required to treat them with solemnity. You may not laugh. You may not roll your eyes. You must mourn, even if the person you’re mourning might have been a PowerPoint slide invented by a PR firm.

The Morning Lantern spells it out:

“Theatrics for Control: How Staged Violence Repackages Fear as Policy.”
Citizens, it warns, are forced to watch themselves: “Be careful what you celebrate — your job, your rent, your reputation could be next.”

The State as School Principal

So how does the government enforce this absurdity? Not with secret police knocking on every door. No, that would be too menacing. Instead, it’s like the principal strolling into a noisy classroom. Suddenly, the chatter stops, everyone sits up straight, pencils sharpened.

We get heavily armed police patrolling major cities under the guise of crime reduction (as if there were no police force already there), not arresting anyone — just strolling. We get drones hovering above protests, not firing anything — just watching. We get FBI directors testifying in Congress, furrowing their brows like disappointed fathers. It’s a show of presence, not force.

The Public Record plays the scene:

“FBI Director Harrow Faces Heated Questions.” Democrats bark, Republicans bellow, Harrow smirks. Everyone knows the show is fake, but nobody dares spoil the act.

It is not repression. It is suggestion. And suggestion, my friends, is far more effective.

Cancel Culture 2.0

Now, remember when the left wielded cancel culture like a cudgel — fire this comedian, boycott that professor, expel this YouTuber for using the wrong pronoun? Well, the right now has its own version. Only instead of words, it’s reactions.

You clap too loudly when a corporate executive disappears? Fired. You share a meme about a “fallen” conservative pundit? Fired. You laugh at the Tesla fireworks? Fired.

As the Orderwatch editorial thundered: > “Employers are right to act swiftly. Civilization depends on decency.”

So here we are: one side cancels you for what you say, the other cancels you for what you feel. Capitalism has found a way to make even your inner giggle a liability.

The Global Stage

And let us not forget, this spectacle unfolds while the American empire faces its most humiliating threat since the invention of Coca-Cola: a multipolar world order. As Brazil, Russia, India, and China (and even a disobedient Europe) begin to write their own scripts, America doubles down on the one export it still controls: the politics of fear and distraction.

At home, the people grow restless, burdened by debt, wage slavery, and the obscene sight of billionaires joyriding into space. Abroad, the empire loses grip. And so, the elite responds with domestic psycho-dramas designed to remind the public that chaos is always one protest away.

Capitalism Devours Itself

Here lies the true comedy — and tragedy. By manufacturing spectacles to discredit dissent, capitalism undermines its own credibility. The constant simulation of crisis reveals the permanent crisis of capitalism itself.

The Underground Dispatch manifesto cuts through the absurdity:

“They Make Martyrs to Make Markets.” Each staged disappearance is followed by vetoes on worker protections, curbs on protest permits, and fattened surveillance budgets.

Like a junkie who fakes illness to get another hit, the system creates spectacles of chaos to justify its continued existence. But each fake crisis makes the next real crisis harder to manage.

The People as Audience and Actors

For the average American — living in what can only be described as the “land of the fee, home of the slave” — what does this mean? It means you are both the spectator and the prop. Your laughter is policed, your outrage choreographed, your job tethered to your compliance with the official script.

The Capitol Ledger reveals the cynical calculation:

“Expose the Theatre and Lose the Long Game?” Democrats cannot unmask the staging, because one day they will need the very same machinery.

You may think you are watching politics; in truth, politics is watching you, punishing you if you clap at the wrong time.

Curtain Call

So here is the paradox of the American political circus: it survives not because people believe in it, but because people pretend to believe in it.

Like the child who sees the emperor’s nakedness, anyone who laughs risks expulsion, unemployment, social death. Yet the laughter cannot be suppressed forever. Beneath the orchestrated spectacles, beneath the HR tribunals, beneath the pious editorials, there grows a quiet realization: that the true assassination is not of politicians, but of reality itself.

And reality, unlike the politicians, does not resurrect on cue.