We live in a very strange time, when Kamala Harris and Dick Cheney have united with the CIA and the FBI to stop the deadly threat to peace and democracy posed by Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Elon Musk, and Tulsi Gabbard. Somebody pinch me.

Some call what we’re living through a “timeline,” a splinter in some fictional multiverse where the writers got out of control, and everything since 2016 has been a coke-addled fantasy that belongs in the trash can. To that I say, “If only.”

But maybe I shouldn’t complain. The world before Donald Trump rode down that golden escalator was in many ways an elaborate fiction, a Kabuki play where nothing was really what it seemed. But everyone thought it safer to just go along and pretend.

Let’s Pretend to Believe Our Rulers as They Pretend to Protect Us

We pretended that the first Gulf War was about preserving democracy … as we fought to save a monarchy, then needlessly left our troops in Saudi Arabia, enraging radicals like Osama bin Laden. And urged the Kurds to rebel, then left them to be killed.

We pretended that the George W. Bush administration had done a bang-up job protecting us from the blowback of our adventurism — but it had simply been crippled by foolish internal obstacles. So instead of investigating how our spies let 9/11 happen, we handed them (via the Patriot Act) massive new funding and unprecedented powers to spy on and target innocent Americans. That started with apolitical Muslims whom the FBI bribed and entrapped into “terrorist” plots the agency had invented. Should it really have surprised us that the next administration (Obama’s) used the same powers against pro-lifers, conservative Christians, and Tea Party patriots? Maybe when Muslims complained about FBI infiltrators at their places of worship, Christians should have listened.

We pretended to believe that we could set up a functioning, secular democratic regime in Afghanistan, which we decided to bomb and occupy until it turned into Switzerland. Then we pretended that Iraq had been in bed with its enemy, bin Laden, and helped with his attacks. When proof of that didn’t materialize, we claimed that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, that the “smoking gun” proving that claim might be a “mushroom cloud in Manhattan.” Unless, of course, we invaded. Then we’d be greeted with cheering crowds and reimbursed with oil revenues, and we’d leave behind a tolerant, multi-religious democracy.

When none of that worked out, we pretended that ISIS was a “JV team” and not a serious threat to Shi’ites, Yazidis, Christians, and other dissenters from its fantastical caliphate. We LARPed that we’d accomplished our mission and pulled out all our troops — leaving Iraq the sock puppet of Iran and more than 600,000 dead civilians. We also pretended that the rebels in Syria were “moderates,” even as they affiliated formally with al Qaeda.

A Four-Year Empathy Break

Then something amazing happened. Somehow, Donald Trump broke through and defeated both wings (Republican, then Democrat) of the War Party and sauntered into office. For four years, he lived in the real world of suffering people, each of whose lives really mattered — at least to him. Again and again, whenever he speaks about military conflicts from Syria to Palestine to Ukraine, Trump mourns the lives needlessly and recklessly lost. Even now, he’s tweeting about the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia — which the rest of the world has conveniently decided to forget.

Very gratified to see President Trump speak out about the persecution & displacement of Armenian Christians in Artsakh. It’s our job to call out the hypocrisy of the foreign policy establishment & we refuse to simply sweep this issue under the rug. pic.twitter.com/djOFHnOLDx

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) October 24, 2024

And in Trump’s four years in the Oval Office, a lot fewer lives were lost. Russia and Ukraine were arguing, not fighting. Conflict in Afghanistan diminished, and a cold peace largely prevailed. The Kurds and Syrian Christians defeated the “caliphate,” and created a region with genuine democracy and even religious freedom. Arab states and Israel were making hard-headed deals from nobody walked away satisfied but nobody got humiliated.

Of course our War Party, with its investment both in grandiose national fantasies and lucrative defense industries, couldn’t let matters stand. An unprecedented coalition of Deep State operatives and big media conglomerates spent four years hobbling Trump and trying falsely to impeach him. After a justly disputed election, the War Party waltzed back into power — and promptly started prosecuting its political opponents, starting with Trump.

More Billions for the Merchants of Death

It was back to business as usual. Joe Biden recklessly and suddenly pulled out of Afghanistan, leaving behind for the Taliban $90 billion in equipment that we’d just have to buy again from those friendly defense contractors. He also left behind more than a dozen dead Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans who’d sided with the U.S., tragically convinced that we might actually save their country. Our War Party nuked the talks between Russia and Ukraine, ensuring that a grinding war would cause some 600,000 casualties so far, and direct more hundreds of billions in borrowed money to … our defense industry. Nice work if you can get it.

And now the U.S. government funds both sides of the brutal conflict in Gaza — having unlocked billions in cash for the cruel regime in Tehran that backs Hamas and sent many billions more to an Israel that seems bent on simply emptying Gaza entirely, turning it into a wasteland buffer zone like the DMZ in Korea. And at every stage of this fantasy, billions of dollars keep moving, from taxpayers to weapons manufacturers. And innocent, helpless people die — far from the news cameras, far from the Beltway, far enough that we can go on pretending.

After reading this litany of callous contempt for human life, corporate greed, and crass abuse of power, should we really be surprised that traditionally Democratic constituencies are abandoning the Establishment and its anointed DEI candidate? That Arab Americans and Lebanese Americans are announcing they won’t vote for Harris, and the War Party that’s destroying so many Middle Eastern lives? Or that opinion polls show Trump earning unprecedented support from Latinos, black Americans, blue-collar workers, and other communities which our rulers have taken for granted and treated like dirt?

Maybe this timeline has a surprise happy ending. Keep praying.

Jason Jones is a senior contributor to The Stream. He is a film producer, activist, and human rights worker. He is also the author of three books, the latest of which is The Great Campaign Against the Great Reset.