When the Clowns Take Over

clown
“something frightful starts to show through”

Fear is spreading throughout the country over the sightings of strange and sinister-looking clowns in towns and neighborhoods. No one knows who they are, where they come from, and why they are appearing. All that is known is that they are “creepy.” Some clowns are trying to lure children to them causing people to rightly fear them.

Normally clowns are innocent enough when they appear in circuses, rodeos and children’s parties. This is because everyone knows that clowns are real people offstage. They have normal lives much like our own. Clowns represent false characters, which the audience pretends are real for a short time for entertainment purposes.

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It is when the clowns start mixing fantasy with reality that they take on a sinister look that unsettles people. It is when they start appearing in places where they should not be that something frightful starts to show through.

The clown sightings are very much like the present election cycle, which has, not by chance, been compared to a circus. Politics has long had a circus-like atmosphere as politicians have turned it into a form of entertainment where voters are lured to the polls by hyped-up promises and well-honed sound bytes. However, usually candidates maintain some kind of link between the image of themselves and the reality of their lives.

But this year’s circus presidential election has been very different. The major political parties have chosen candidates that are intensely disliked by large swaths of voters. They have each proposed a false narrative for their candidates that everyone pretends is real for a short time for the benefit of winning the election. Few know or even want to know what they suspect lurks beneath.

However, as this brutal election campaign progresses, scandal-mongering, insults and name-calling have erupted and broken out of the two narratives, showing different faces of the candidates. Each digs up dirt on the other, and incivility rules. There is, for example, the current debate in which the two sides have descended to tabloid levels lobbing about all that is lewd and foul-mouthed.

Tradtional forums for political discourse has been moved online with exchanges of tweets and videos in which each side insults the other. The election is taking a turn where ugly and deplorable things start to appear like the bizarre clown sightings everywhere, and voters are prompted to take fright and ask what is happening to the nation.

Voters don’t like the show and wish it were over. They want their money back. They do not like seeing the circus enter their homes and neighborhoods. It scares the kids and sends “creepy” signals of worse things to come.

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Indeed, in the land of clowns, everything is false and staged. People don’t stand for anything but flow with applause and laughter. It is a realm of unreality where acts have few consequences; one can promise everything and the outlandish is considered normal. It is a place where everyone is in complicity and plays along with the show (especially the media) as long as good times last.

For many voters, there is a sense of desperation as the election leaves them frustrated and troubled. This isn’t the time for circuses and clowns. The nation faces immense challenges. It should be the time for some one to step up to the plate displaying the dignity and honor proportional to the hard times ahead. And because none of this is happening, these voters now grieve and pray for the nation.

Elections should be about which is the better candidate to lead the nation especially in times of crisis. This election seems to be about which candidate can deliver the better circus.

As seen on CNSNews.com