Dwain Northey (Gen X)

There’s a certain regal confidence required to look a room full of people dead in the eye, kick over the furniture, set the curtains on fire, and then calmly explain that what they’re actually witnessing is a tasteful renovation. This administration doesn’t just dabble in gaslighting—it has elevated it to a kind of performance art. If there were a monarchy of manipulation, they wouldn’t merely sit on the throne; they’d insist the throne doesn’t exist while you’re actively bumping into it.

The script is always the same: don’t believe what you’re seeing. Not the footage, not the transcripts, not the before-and-after comparisons that practically narrate themselves. No, no—those are illusions. What’s real is the explanation being handed to you after the fact, carefully repackaged and lacquered with just enough indignation to make you question your own memory. Did that happen? Are you sure? Because according to them, what you watched unfold in real time is either wildly misunderstood or didn’t occur at all.

It’s a remarkable strategy, really. Reality becomes optional, like a streaming service you can cancel when it stops being convenient. Contradictions aren’t problems—they’re features. Yesterday’s statement isn’t something to reconcile with today’s; it’s something to deny ever existed. And if you happen to produce receipts, well, now you’re the one being unreasonable. Why are you so obsessed with consistency? Why can’t you just accept the new truth, freshly minted and ready for consumption?

What makes it almost impressive is the sheer audacity. There’s no subtlety anymore—no attempt to gently nudge perception. It’s a full-on insistence that up is down, left is right, and the thing you just heard was never said. And if enough people repeat it loudly enough, suddenly the conversation shifts from what happened to what are we even allowed to agree is real?

That’s the trick, isn’t it? Not convincing everyone of a single lie, but exhausting people into uncertainty. Because once you’re tired of arguing with the obvious, once you start second-guessing your own eyes just to keep the peace, they’ve already won. The crown doesn’t sit on the head of the one who tells the most convincing story—it belongs to the one who convinces you that stories are all there is.

And so the performance continues: the fires burn, the furniture stays overturned, and from the podium comes the steady reassurance that everything is fine—better than fine, actually—and that if you think otherwise, the problem couldn’t possibly be them. It must be you.