“We can't go on together
With suspicious minds
And we can't build our dreams
On suspicious minds”
- Elvis Presley
What if the American people had suspicious minds? What if America’s ruling elite only saw an ever-growing suspicion in the American people’s eyes? What if most Americans — from all walks of life and for their own reasons — learned not to trust the American elite’s noble lies?
What if most Americans learned not to trust the corporate press or mainstream media? What if most Americans came to see the prestige media as a megaphone for the powerful and connected to advance certain preferred narratives — rather than as a truth-seeking marketplace of ideas meant to serve the interests of everyday Americans? What if most Americans became hungry, ravenous even, for a worthwhile alternative to the legacy media?
What if more and more Americans no longer saw the point (or the return on their investment) of sending their children to universities and colleges at exorbitant costs, often including mountains of debt? What if more and more American parents started questioning the government’s education system top to bottom — not only as a waste of money but as a corrosive force working to destroy the very values they had once hoped to instill in their children? What if more and more young American adults began to see more lucrative and meaningful options for their lives and careers outside the university system and government education?
What if most Americans learned not to trust “the experts” at the FBI, the Pentagon, the CIA, the NIH, the CDC, the Federal Reserve or the entire administrative state itself? What if the FBI and CIA blithely committed crimes every day with impunity and routinely spied on Americans in contravention of their basic liberty to be left alone? What if the Pentagon continually failed to pass basic audits or decisively win wars? What if the NIH and CDC had been caught in public health lie after lie in the midst of a global pandemic? What if the Federal Reserve had massively devalued the people’s wealth and savings over a century in order to surreptitiously debt-finance the administrative state as well as bailout corporate cronies and banks the world over?
What if most Americans realized they have been made hopelessly dependent on those very same institutions and experts they have learned to distrust — and that this was done slowly but surely over many generations by design? What if America’s elite institutions and experts regarded such growing public suspicion as an insult to their integrity and a dangerous challenge to their prerogatives and privileges? What if the “will of the people” was regarded as a dark threat to the “democracy” the elites had built and managed over the generations?
What if the power of elite institutions was used to tip the scales and corral the people’s popular will every election cycle? What if the choices offered on election day to voters were always first curated by elite interests before the people ever had a true say?
What if the institutions of government struck out against suspiciously-minded Americans for their dissent and distrust? What if Americans who had learned not to trust the experts were swiftly branded as conspiracy theorists and thought criminals by those very same experts? What if most Americans started trusting conspiracies not approved by the government or committing “thought crimes” on purpose in a spirit of rebellion?
What if this dynamic only sowed more dissent and more division between the ruling elite and the American people? What if the chasm between the ruling class and everyday Americans continued to grow? What if the new deals of yesteryear seemed old and stale? What if this disconnect became so massively intolerable that Americans sought to divorce themselves from their dependency on the ruling elite?
What if the ever-growing suspicious minds of the American people were actually an omen to something new and promising? What if a new American dream — restored and rebuilt on stronger foundations — could only be realized once Americans embrace their suspicious minds?
What if the most patriotic thing an American could do in 2023 is to not trust the government or its corporate cronies?
What if most Americans realized it is not only their right but their duty to alter or abolish any government proven contrary to securing their liberty?
What if revolution against tyranny never stopped being the most fundamental right and duty of the American people?
What if, after all, your suspicious mind was justified?
What would you do about it, citizen?
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 9 am-12 noon. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback, please email newsandviews931@gmail.com.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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