I think I remember from college reading DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA and the author, Alexis de Tocqueville, expressing alarm at discovering that the columns of our stately houses were made of wood. Now, if he were to knock on our democracy itself, he would find that it is fake--faux representative government.
I had such a moment as a kid encountering woodgrain Formica, a dishonest material, or an honest material forced into a dishonest representation of itself, anyway, commercial servitude. Color Formica up nicely and it looked good without the grain. I have it in my kitchen, a warm-green version looking like what it is.
Synthetic as hell. So now we've got this kind of government, imitation democracy. It's ersatz America, woodgrain, veneer. We're Naugahyde. Pleather. Inauthentic to the core. Democratic but not. Christian but not. Industrious but not. Independent and free but not. Everything but not.
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