If you haven’t seen it, the Handmaid’s Tale is a fabulous series. It describes a dystopian world in which an ultra-right religious group has seized control of portions of the former United States following a civil war and subjugated women to be nothing more than breeders and servants. It’s probably an accurate picture of what many left-leaning thinkers feel the conservative right would enact given the chance. Mrs Troutdog and I started re-watching season 3 in preparation for the newly dropped season 4. Naturally since our phones are always listening to us in the background (cue foreshadowing) I logged on to YouTube and had a bunch of Handmaid’s Tale video suggestions.

One of those video suggestions was a discussion of a map of the former United States and the territories that Gilead (the new country) occupied. This map was created by a fan of the series, pieced together by vague references in the series and the original book by Margarat Atwood. My first thought was who has enough time (or interest) to create an elaborate map on a work of fiction? But then again I don’t get people who cosplay and I didn’t play dungeons and dragons in high school. But what got me thinking is a comment the video creator made. In the TV series, most of the regions of the country seized by Gilead are the Northeast, East and West coast. The Midwest is controlled by the former United States. Here’s the rub. Gilead is a far-right religious group. The East and West coasts are dominated by left leaning progressive folks. How is it the far-right took over the liberal centers and, presumably, the left occupied the middle of the country? It doesn’t make sense.

Which leads me to where we are today. Our world has been flipped upside down. What used to be conventional wisdom, isn’t any more. For years articles, news stories, and movies have been made that declared the threat of the right wing. The right wanted to suppress speech. The right was intolerant. They were potentially violent, spawning shadowy right-wing militia groups. The left were the creative thinkers, lovers of free speech, and defenders of individual rights. Today it feels like we’re in opposite world. The right are the new counter culture. The woke left have spawned a cancel culture that strives to shut down any independent thinking. When the pandemic which shall not be named arrived, the left seized the opportunity to exert control over every aspect of your life. Power hungry governors and mayors quickly shut down business, restricted free movement and gatherings, and all but mandated martial law in some cities.

Censorship and restricting free speech are now a thing. From killing the Hunter Biden laptop story, banning a sitting president from speaking, to the intentional shutdown of Parlor, the left has done everything possible to control what information you see. Just in the last few days they actually started brazenly saying it out loud. The Whitehouse press secretary said that they are working with Facebook and other social media entities to “flag” problematic posts that spread disinformation. This should scare the hell out of you. Twitter, Facebook, and Google were already banning, suspending, or flagging accounts by the thousands that mentioned anything they deemed harmful information. Now they’re coordinating directly with the deep state to suppress any non-conforming thoughts? Scary stuff.

Of course all of this is done for your own good. We locked down to protect you. Unfortunate that you lost your business, but it was for the greater good. We’re not going to allow you to see data refuting the effectiveness of masks because that might spawn disharmony. You will not be allowed to question a mandatory vaccine, government lockdowns, election audit results, who killed Ashley Babbitt, Hunter Biden’s business dealings, or border policies. You silly little citizen, not to worry, the adults are in charge now. Go back to your fun Facebook password phishing memes, the state is here to protect you. The bad orange fascist is gone now. And if any of your family members or friends seem to be, you know – “extremists”, you can always report them to the FBI.

“The beatings will continue until moral improves”

Captain Bligh, HMS Bounty