Earlier today, I watched part of a recording of the President's recent "State of the Union" address, and I found myself thinking that life just seems more and more surreal with every passing year.
It wasn't even the content of the speech that seemed surreal, so much as the protracted sycophantic pageantry surrounding it all, and the way it all came across more like something from a grade school stage production than serious politics.
And yet?
Is this some kind of "new normal" we might as well get used to? Is this the new standard of world politics, or just an isolated example of something we'll likely never experience again?
I feel tired, even thinking about it. Evidently, I'm not alone.
My YouTube feed seems to contain more and more clips from vloggers offering suggestions on "how to move to another country in less than 24 hours" and such.
But is that really any better? I'd like to think that it is, and that we have just lost sight of reality, here in the USA.
My relatives back in Denmark are worried about me; worried about what the USA has become. My cousin — who has been coming to the US for summer holidays for years — said that she was not going to come back. I asked why, and she said she was afraid she'd get arrested for "driving a car while Danish."
It was only half a joke.
In some ways, I'm not as worried about the whole circus as I am about the long term ramifications of what is happening in the US, and what US policy is doing on the world stage.
It really does feel like a surreal clown show!
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, in the sense of thinking that our politicians and elected leaders should be some kind of "statesmanlike." Maybe I'm old-fashioned in believing that it's more or less a requirement, if you want to be taken seriously.
But I suppose that maybe I'm wrong...
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Created at 2026.02.27 00:40 PST
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