Previous chapters at the bottom.
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Dear Uncle Screwtape,
In my last letter, I recounted the chief method by which we first sharpened the divide between the two political tribes here in the States. The Right soon learned to regard the liberals as little better than the authors of a new holocaust -- murderers of children in spirit if not in name. From there it was a small step to seeing the other side as monsters, wholly given over to evil.
All the while, of course, they remained blissfully unaware of the ruin their own obstinacy could unleash. Like us, they cannot imagine how the world might have unfolded had they chosen otherwise. Yet we delighted in every refusal, convinced that the alternative course would have yielded us little pleasure.
How greatly we rejoiced when they cast aside the restraints on their weapons that had so effectively stemmed the bloodshed of a decade. The years since have been delightfully awash in shootings at their schools and in their streets. Yet they treat each shooting as a hymn to the license they prize above human life.
We were ecstatic when they rushed to war on mere assumption and at last without cause, multiplying the dead by the hundreds of thousands and wounding the soul of a generation. Then there is their continual resistance to extending care to the whole nation -- a compassion their counterparts in other nations have, to our irritation, stubbornly maintained.
In the end they cannot see how we have exulted at their choices as well, for they have splendidly multiplied suffering. Meanwhile, the better world that might have unfolded -- at least on this score -- remains happily veiled from their eyes.
You will recall that after the wars and the economic convulsions at the dawn of this millennium, the creatures briefly turned in a different direction. Indeed, the majority even favored modest restraints upon their weapons, broader care for the weak, and greater opportunity for those we had long labored to suppress and abuse. You may remember, Uncle, how I once sought your counsel on guiding a nation when its people begin to suspect that the profitable course is not the one we desire.
That was when we first set in motion what you so aptly named "the Revolt." Through the devices we contrived in those days, we have ever since bent the machinery to ensure that a determined minority might impose its will upon the many. And now, at last, our design nears completion. In nearly every regard we are having our way, and the soil is well prepared for the master to lay his proposal before the Enemy.
As you know, for decades we have nurtured factions intent on seizing the machinery itself. We fed their delicious paranoia that the liberals were hatching the same designs though, as you and I both know, that side can scarcely keep a secret without preaching a sermon. Instead, we encouraged work in secret, behind closed doors, with them convinced they were plotting to save America for the Enemy.
Then we fanned into flame that most exquisite of moral perversions -- the belief that the end justifies the means. We persuaded them that deceiving the public was, in fact, an act of virtue, a necessary falsehood for the common good. It seems to me there are three kinds of their politicians. First, the hopelessly unsuccessful sort who insists on telling the truth. Second, the deceivers who distort the truth for what they think a greater good. Last are those who speak and do whatever best advances their own ambition.
It is from that second sort that we launched the Revolt, with the dependable help of the third. We convinced a few schemers that it would be best to quietly subvert the Constitution -- in the name of the Constitution. We persuaded them that they were not merely defending the true America but acting for the Enemy Himself. It required only a few discreet betrayals. But the end, we assured them, would more than justify the means.
Another letter will follow shortly describing how we prepared the Enemy’s adherents to receive such deception. In the meantime, may your devices prove fiendishly effective.
Your devoted nephew,
Wormwood
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Previous chapters
- 1 -- The Operations
- 2 -- The Veil Technique
- 3 -- The Fog
- 4 -- Hard Hearts
- 5 -- Focus on Feelings
- 6 -- Blinding Indignation
- 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
- 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
- 9 -- Moral Inversion
- 10 -- Reliable Race
- 11 -- Misdirection
- 12 -- The Very Elect
- 13 -- The Great Wedge
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