Washington has changed a lot, but the air of unreality remains

Current moment in the US capital has reached a particularly surreal peak.

On the streets of Washington DC, at least in its tonier quarters, well-dressed men and women wearing wireless earbud headphones ride ecologically friendly electric-powered scooters and discuss vegan offerings at new eateries.

In the adjacent halls of power, politicians discuss coups d’etat abroad and boast on television about destroying other countries’ economies.

An entire subgenre of science fiction, ranging Stanislaw Lem’s Futurologist’s Convention to the film The Matrix, is premised on entire populations lulled into mass delusions. They take pills, or are hooked up to machines, or see the world through some other type of augmented reality that masks the horrific truth.