Are we living in a twilight zone? | Opinion - murrayledger.com

Some of my older readers may remember episodes of a CBS television show called “The Twilight Zone” that aired from October 1959 through June 1964. It was created and hosted by Rod Serling.

In each episode, something mysterious and disturbing would happen. In the opening one, for example, a man in Air Force fatigues finds himself in a town with no people. He believes he has amnesia and grows increasingly obsessed with loneliness until he collapses.

At the end of the show, we discover that the man was the subject of an Air Force experiment in which Sgt. Mike was kept alone in an enclosed chamber for 484 hours, the time it would take a human to get to the moon (as this was imagined in 1959).

In another “Twilight Zone” episode, people in a small neighborhood turn against each other as strange happenings such as lights and appliances going on and off mysteriously keep occurring. The frightened neighbors grow increasing distrustful of each other until finally, one man is killed by mistake.

My Google search defined a twilight zone as “an ambiguous, uncertain or intermediate state between two clear conditions, often feeling surreal, strange and beyond normal reality.” A twilight state can also be described as “a mental state where logic fails” and “you are daydreaming or losing touch with reality.”

Are Americans today living in a twilight zone?

In just over a year, our political, economic and social environment has been marked by rapid and often inexplicable changes. We have seen tariffs come and go, government agencies and their personnel disappear, and a reworking of our foreign policy to support dictatorships instead of democracies.

American citizens have been murdered for protesting against a brutal immigration crackdown and deportations of non-white immigrants, some of whom are citizens, legal green card residents, or “aliens,” even some who are lawfully seeking asylum due to dangers in their home countries.

Americans are both stunned and confused by the lawless behavior of the President and his cabinet cronies. We keep hearing people say that “we are better than this” but then wonder why our appeals to legislators in Washington D.C. fall on deaf ears.

We are similar to characters in “Twilight Zone” episodes in our feelings of unreality and our growing distrust of each other.

We use the polite word “polarization” as a way of softening the truth. To say we are polarized suggests that the division among Americans is somehow our fault. It is not.

Polarization began during President Clinton’s second term when Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told his Republican colleagues to refer to the Democrats as enemies instead of opponents.

The truth is that President Trump and his gang of power-hungry sycophants are doing their best to make us enemies of and hateful toward those whose political views differ from ours. The crude, lying, hate-filled language used by President Trump and Stephen Miller is deliberate.

After all, a game in which “you and them fight” makes it easier for Trump and his MAGA buddies to hold on to power. If Americans remain frightened, confused, and divided, it gives Trump’s Project 2025 gang the time they need to complete the replacement of our Constitution and government with a plutocratic dictatorship, one run by and for the very wealthy.

The American people, Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives and Liberals, need to awaken and realize that we are being manipulated by distractions named Greenland and Trump’s racist posts.

It is time to stop focusing on Trump’s unfavorable poll ratings, wringing our hands over all the good people and workers being deported, worrying about tariffs, and the fate of Jerome Powell.

These are symptoms of the problem we have, not the underlying cause.

Massive peaceful protests need to continue and increase in size and number. Members of Congress need to undergo backbone-replacement surgery and emerge from it realizing that our founders did make the legislature the first and most important of the branches of government described in our Constitution.

Should this happen, we might then see a series of impeachments and convictions that will take us out of the twilight zone.

*Ken Wolf is a retired Murray State University history professor. He does not officially represent any political party, and his thoughts and views are his own. He can be reached at *[email protected].

Editor’s Note: Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the editorial opinion of the Murray Ledger & Times.