America Unplugged: Where Common Sense Checked Out and Conspiracy Theories Took Over

A Deep Dive into the North American Psyche Just Weeks Before the Election.

Ah, America. Land of the free, home of the brave—and now, apparently, the kingdom of idiocy. If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if the collective brain cells of a nation took a holiday, look no further than the United States, where the absurd has become the national pastime and common sense is more elusive than a Wi-Fi signal in the subway.

Let’s start with politics, where the main attraction is less a debate of ideas and more an episode of *Wipeout*. It’s a place where, somehow, shouting at each other on Twitter passes for discourse, and legislation seems to be made via the world’s least funny improv session. Both parties have become like those relatives at Thanksgiving—one drunk on the Kool-Aid of capitalism, the other yelling through a mouthful of stuffing about equity, and neither is capable of discussing dessert without a fight breaking out over how much sugar is too much sugar.

We’ve got politicians who still believe climate change is a hoax. (I’m sorry, are you sweating in December? Yeah, me too.) Meanwhile, the rest of us are drowning in student debt, praying that avocado toast isn’t what’s keeping us from owning a house. The system is rigged, but hey, at least we’re given the illusion of choice between two senile men who think TikTok is something your grandfather’s pacemaker does when it’s running low on batteries.

But perhaps the most mind-boggling thing is that, in the midst of this slow-motion car crash of governance, many Americans seem to have happily traded in their thinking caps for a shiny new conspiracy theory. We live in a time where people will refuse to get vaccinated but will absolutely take medical advice from someone on Facebook whose avatar is a picture of a golden retriever. Apparently, some folks are now using “research” as a euphemism for “I saw a meme about it once.”

And don’t even get me started on the whole “personal freedom” argument. There is a certain subset of Americans who seem to believe that freedom means having the right to make their neighbors miserable. A mask mandate? “Government tyranny!” Seatbelts? “I’ll die like a true patriot!” Don’t ask them to recycle; they’re too busy Googling how fluoride in the water is turning frogs into socialists.

Of course, convenience has also played a role in the lobotomy of the American public. It’s become shockingly easy to order things online without thinking. Why bother going to a store and interacting with another human when you can simply bark orders at Alexa, like some kind of entitled Roman emperor? Amazon Prime has essentially become a new religion. There are people who genuinely seem to believe that two-day shipping is a human right. Who needs patience or planning when you can have an inflatable hot tub at your door in 48 hours?

And let’s talk about the way our brains have been rewired by tech. There’s no need to remember anything anymore—our phones will do it for us. How many phone numbers do you know by heart? What day is it? Does it even matter when time is a flat circle that you can scroll past on your news feed? We're all just data junkies, our dopamine hits coming in the form of likes, retweets, and that sweet, sweet feeling when the UPS guy finally delivers the standing desk you ordered while working from your couch.

The dumbing down of America is no accident, of course. The more distracted we are by TikTok dance trends and debates about pineapple on pizza, the less likely we are to notice the money being funneled out of our paychecks into the bottomless pockets of billionaires. We’re like magpies, dazzled by the shiny objects dangled in front of us—look! A celebrity meltdown! A new iPhone! Meanwhile, the rich are busy building rocket ships to escape to Mars, leaving the rest of us to fight over the last can of LaCroix.

But perhaps this is all by design. A population more concerned with canceling people over decade-old tweets than with holding anyone accountable for actual governance is easier to control. Why would we question the powers that be when we’re too busy debating whether or not we need to cut back on gluten?

In the end, the great American experiment seems to have devolved into a bizarre reality show, where logic and reason are voted off the island in favor of sound bites and hot takes. We’ve become a nation of convenience, where thinking critically is as obsolete as the fax machine, and every problem can be solved with a new app or a strongly worded comment section diatribe.

So here we are, America: fat, happy, and mildly infuriated, scrolling endlessly on our phones while the world burns around us. We may be brain-dead, but at least we have free two-day shipping.