The Dark Net

Much of what's threatening lies in the realm of the unseen. For instance, both QAnon and the Deep State that Democrats and Retrumplicans alternately rail against are like Ellison’s Invisible or Dostoevsky’s Underground Man. The notion of a base itself is imperceptible since it is by definition so labile. A portion of the lumpenproletariat, for instance, were once rust belt workers who supported Obama. This nebulous entity which surfaces at MAGA rallies sometimes even eludes a demographic--and then are the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who, at one time, existed under the radar of   right wing politics. The dark net, where child pornography and sex trafficking exist, are like the unconscious. There's also the dark force and Satan if you're inclined toward the Manichean and monolithic. The Seventh Seal should be reshot against a contemporary backdrop, The Queen’s Gambit meets coronavirus with Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor played by the star of The Apprentice. “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven” were the Miltonic lines appropriated by Steve Bannon is Errol Morris’s deceptively benign American Dharma. The Matrix is populated by shining glass towers of reality TV. Beneath ground is dark matter.

read "The Real Thing" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to "Make America Great Again" by Pussy Riot