This optical illusion percolated in my mind for several days until I realized it was a perfect visual metaphor for the fake patriotism the GOP uses to bamboozle Americans into voting against their own best interests.
Think about it.
In this picture, a strategically placed shadow of a flag makes the woman at the microphone appear to hover above the sand. The GOP uses a similar flag-shadow illusion as a mainstay in the its electoral strategy.
Republicans systematically wrap themselves in the flag and claim to be on a patriotically higher plane than their opponents in every election and political discussion.
Using the deception of trading form for substance, they wear flag pins and label anyone not wearing such a pin unpatriotic. Yet, once in office, they work to establish policies designed to materially undermine the Constitution and to deny the rights of those they consider to be their political and social enemies.
To these ideologues the flag is nothing but a useful shadow, the absence of light, with which they prop up the dark illusion of their self-proclaimed, counterfeit superiority.
The flag is indeed a powerful symbol, but I have yet to see a flag, let alone the shadow of one, bring improvements to the lives of of the citizenry. That job falls to those willing to stand in the sand helping the people who do the actual work of building our nation.
Those who hover above their fellow citizens on the shadow of a deception are not patriots. They are, at best, small-minded charlatans; and, in today's America, they may quite possibly be willing collaborators working to sell out our nation to the highest bidder for personal gain.
