Applause for the Apocalypse

Once upon a time—not so very long ago, though it feels like forever now—the people gathered in the center of town, grinning like children too long kept indoors. They heard music. Strange music. A waltz, maybe, or a calliope just slightly out of tune. They followed the sound like mice after a flute, past empty churches and dollar stores and the overgrown parking lot where the Sears used to be.

At the center of the square stood a man in clown paint, his face drawn up like a wound made to smile. His eyes sparkled like bottle caps. His tie flapped in the wind like a carnival banner. He didn’t speak at first—just tilted his head, gave a little bow, and began to dance.

Oh, how he danced.

A strange little jig with knees that bent too far, arms flapping like flags in a storm. He danced like a man trying to stay one step ahead of the truth. And the people clapped. They clapped because they were tired. They clapped because they were scared. They clapped because it felt good to stop thinking for a while.

He told jokes. Told them their enemies were hiding under their beds—immigrants, activists, college professors with purple hair and syllabi full of feelings. He told them hard work was for suckers, empathy was for losers, and truth was for those who couldn’t afford better lies.

And they laughed. Oh yes, how they laughed.

They hadn’t laughed like that since before the mortgage crashed, before the pills ran out, before the weather started acting funny. It felt good to laugh, even if it didn’t make sense. Especially because it didn’t make sense.

Like Tiny Tim, tiptoeing through the tulips with his high voice and haunted eyes—so sweet, so strange, so harmless. But look again and you’ll see: the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. The tulips are plastic. The ground is made of ash.

🎵 Tiptoe... through the timelines... with meeeee... 🎵

The clown was something like that. Not quite funny. Not quite safe. But familiar. Like a childhood toy found in the attic—moldy, broken, full of shrapnel but still yours.

And so, when election time came, they made him King.

He didn’t ask for much—just loyalty and laughter, and maybe your Social Security number. He waved from golden elevators. He pointed fingers. He told them they were special, and he meant it the way a fox means it when he compliments the hen.

They believed him.

Because believing was easier than remembering.

You see, remembering means looking back. And what’s back there?

A marketplace, long ago, with chains clinking and brown bodies bartered like livestock. A preacher in a powdered wig shouting about liberty while a boy his own age is whipped behind the house.

A textile mill where twelve-year-olds stitched fortunes for men who called them “laborers” and called themselves “blessed.” A railroad built on broken backs and ghost towns.

A country of contradictions so layered, so absurd, you’d think it was satire. And maybe it is. Maybe we’re just another verse in the song that never ends, the one they sing on loop at the asylum gates.

🎵 They’re coming to take me away, ha-haaa... to the funny farm... where life is beautiful all the time... 🎵

Where the banks smile while evicting families.

Where the food deserts bloom in poor neighborhoods.

Where the schools look like prisons and the prisons look like profit.

Where history books whisper lies and statues shout them.

Where the winners write the script and everyone else mimes along.

But no one wants to read that story again. Not when there’s a clown dancing.

Not when he tells you it wasn’t your fault. That it was the others. The brown ones. The trans ones. The poor ones. The loud ones. The ones with college degrees and student debt and too many pronouns.

He tells you it’s not about race, then tells you to “go back where you came from.”

He says he loves women, then grabs them by the silence.

He says he’s rich, then files for bankruptcy in the dark.

And you believe him. Because he’s entertaining. Because he's a character. Because he makes you feel like you're in on the joke.

But you’re not. You’re the punchline.

It was always a performance. Always. From the moment the first slave ship docked to the moment the last hedge fund bought up the neighborhood.

America is a theater built on stolen land, funded by stolen labor, selling tickets to a dream that’s mostly smoke and mirrors.

The Founding Fathers were playwrights of myth. They wrote freedom in cursive while holding people in chains. They told us all men were created equal while drafting exclusions in invisible ink.

Fast forward—Industrial Revolution: the set changes. Coal dust, rail ties, pink slips. A man with no fingers is told he’s lucky to have a job. His son dies in a factory fire. The company sends flowers. The mayor sends thanks.

Cue applause.

The New Deal puts band-aids on bullet holes. The Civil Rights Act gives speeches and shadows. Redlining. War on Drugs. Welfare queens. Super predators. Crack babies. Mandatory minimums. Privatized hope.

Act after act, tragedy played as farce, then sold as progress.

And somewhere between Leave it to Beaver and the War on Terror, the people forgot how to read subtext.

They only saw the costumes. They mistook the actor for the script.

So when the clown entered stage left, grinning like a skull in greasepaint, they didn’t see the warning. They saw entertainment.

He said he’d make America great again, and they didn’t ask when it stopped being great, or for whom.

They didn’t ask what “again” meant.

They didn’t ask what the cost was.

They just laughed.

🎵 You laughed, I laughed, we all laughed... until we didn’t. 🎵

But the music grew louder. Shriller. Off-key.

The clown didn’t stop dancing. He couldn’t. His whole body was wound like a jack-in-the-box, spring-loaded with grievance and ego. The moment he stopped moving, he’d collapse.

So he danced faster.

He lied more.

He built walls—real and imagined.

He threw paper towels at hurricane victims like party favors.

He turned rallies into revivals and voters into congregations.

He fired truth from cannons and lit fact on fire.

He called the press enemies.

He called himself chosen.

And the crowd—God help the crowd—they cheered. They bought red hats and Facebook ads and bumper stickers. They argued with strangers and alienated siblings and held up signs that said “NO MORE BULLSHIT” while living in a world made entirely of it.

They didn’t notice the stage was burning.

Or maybe they did, and just hoped the fire would only reach the others.

The children watched from the wings. Not laughing. Not clapping.

They had sugar in their mouths—processed, packaged, subsidized—but it couldn’t cover the taste of dread. They were taught history in fragments and fiction in full color. They didn’t know how to fix it. But they knew something was wrong.

They knew the clown wasn’t funny anymore.

They knew the song had become a scream.

🎵 And they’re coming to take us away... to the dream farms... where nothing hurts because nothing’s real... 🎵

They started writing signs. They started marching. They started organizing, even as their elders said they were lazy, entitled, delusional. But they had no choice. The air was thick. The future was melting. The promises were paper.

And the clown?

Still dancing.

Still waving.

Still smiling that too-wide smile.

But his makeup had started to run.

And the crowd—what was left of it—had begun to look confused. Some whispered. Some backed away. A few took off their hats, ashamed.

But others—others clapped louder.

Because when you’ve bet your soul on a joke, the only thing worse than the laughter stopping is realizing the joke was on you.

This is the American story told in falsetto and fear. A loop of pageantry and punishment. A waltz through denial. We laugh to keep from crying. We dance to avoid standing still.

We elect clowns, not because we’re fools, but because fools are easier to forgive than monsters.

But monsters they become.

And circuses, once charming, collapse.

And songs, once funny, become prophecy.

🎵 They’re coming to take us away... not just him... not just them... all of us... ha-HAAAA. 🎵

Unless we turn it off. Unless we rise from our seats. Unless we exit the theater and tear down the tent.

And plant something real.

Because the clown can’t dance without an audience.

And the music only plays if we keep clapping.

And the madness only wins if we mistake it for meaning.

So tiptoe, if you must.

But tiptoe toward the truth.

And leave the tulips for the ghosts.