Leave the world behind: The government’s use of controlled chaos to maintain power

OPINION:

Will 2024 be the year the Deep State’s exercise in controlled chaos finally gives way to an apocalyptic dismantling of our constitutional republic, or what’s left of it?

All the signs seem to point in this direction.

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For years now, the government has been pushing us to the brink of a national nervous breakdown.

This breakdown — triggered by polarizing circus politics, media-fed mass hysteria, militarization and militainment (the selling of war and violence as entertainment), a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness in the face of growing corruption, the government’s alienation from its populace, and an economy that has much of the population struggling to get by — has manifested itself in the polarized, manipulated mayhem, madness and tyranny that is life in the American police state today.

Why is the Deep State engineering this societal madness? What’s in it for the government?

What is playing out before us is a chilling lesson in social engineering that keeps the populace fixated on circus politics and conveniently timed spectacles, distracted from focusing too closely on the government’s power grabs, and incapable of standing united in defense of our freedoms.

It’s not conspiratorial.

It’s a power play.

Rod Serling, the creator of the “Twilight Zone,” understood the dynamics behind this power play.

In the “Twilight Zone” episode, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” Serling imagined a world in which the powers-that-be carry out a social experiment to see how long it would take before the members of a small American neighborhood, frightened by a sudden loss of electric power and caught up in fears of the unknown, will transform into an irrational mob and turn on each other.

It doesn’t take long at all.

Likewise, in Netflix’s apocalyptic thriller “Leave the World Behind,” unexplained crises lead to a technological blackout that leaves the populace disconnected, disoriented, isolated, suspicious, and under attack from mysterious ailments and each other.

As one of “Leave the World’s” characters speculates, the culprit behind the escalating catastrophes, which range from WiFi outages and mysterious health ailments to cities under siege from rogue forces, maybe the result of a military campaign intended to destabilize a nation by forcing people to turn against each other.

It’s not so far-flung a scenario when you consider some of the many ways the government already can manufacture crises in order to sow fear, fuel hysteria, destabilize the nation and institute martial law.

• The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture health crises.
• The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture civil unrest and political upheaval.
• The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture economic instability.
• The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture environmental disasters. 
• The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture communications blackouts.
• The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture terrorist attacks.
• The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture propaganda aimed at mind control and psychological warfare. 

We must never forget that the government no longer exists to serve its people, protect their liberties and ensure their happiness.

Rather, “we the people” are the unfortunate victims of the diabolical machinations of a make-works program carried out on an epic scale whose only purpose is to keep the powers-that-be permanently (and profitably) employed.

This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.

It’s telling that in “Leave the World Behind,” before disaster strikes, the main characters — on their way to a family vacation — are utterly oblivious, connected to their electronic devices and insulated from each other and the world around them. Adding to the disconnect, the family’s teen daughter, Rose, is fixated on binge-watching episodes of “Friends,” even as the world falls apart around them. As TV critic Jen Chaney explains, the sitcom’s presence in the story “underlines how human beings crave escapism at the expense of embracing the actual present, a different way of ‘leaving the world behind.’”

We’re in a similar escapist bubble, suffering from a “crisis of the now,” which keeps us distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from reality.

Yet in addition to being distracted by our electronic devices and diverted by bread-and-circus entertainment spectacles, we are also being polarized by political theater, which aims to keep us divided and at war with each other.

This is the underlying cautionary tale of “Leave the World Behind” and “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” which resonate with a biblical warning, as well: we are being manipulated by forces beyond our control.

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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest books “The Erik Blair Diaries” and “Battlefield America: The War on the American People” are available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.