A Return to the Circus

A Special Visitation

Photo by Gabor Barbely on Unsplash

Author's Note: As democracy faces its gravest test, I found myself drawn back to the mythology of the Grand Praxis Series—that philosophical mythopoetic exploration I developed through twelve essays exploring coherence, collapse, and civic responsibility. For longtime readers, this represents a special return to that world; for newer readers, perhaps an invitation to explore it. What follows is not merely metaphor but a navigation tool for our darkest moment.

The lights are dim now. The tent stands empty, illuminated only by a single bulb hanging from the center pole. Sawdust still bears the imprints of the day's performances, but the crowds have gone home. In this quietude between spectacles, the circus reveals its true nature—not as entertainment but as the stage upon which our collective meaning unfolds.

Ah, yes. The circus.

You've been in the ring long enough to know how this works. The high-wire act of democracy balancing above the abyss. The trapeze swing of constitutional principles catching us when we fall. The clown show of propaganda designed to distract from the genuine danger.

But tonight is different. The atmosphere has shifted. The air itself feels charged with foreboding, as if the tent itself senses what approaches—not just another performance, but a fundamental transformation of the circus itself.

I find myself sitting on a weathered bench near the center ring. The silence is almost complete, broken only by the occasional settling of canvas in the night breeze.

“They're coming for the tent itself now, aren't they?”

The voice startles me—low, gravelly, touched with a British accent. I turn to find Christopher Hitchens seated beside me, tumbler of whiskey in hand, cigarette smoldering between his fingers. Not as an apparition or dream, but as the embodiment of a particular way of seeing—clear-eyed, unflinching, refusing to look away from uncomfortable truths.

“Yes,” I reply. “Not just to perform within it, but to own it. To determine who may enter and who must leave. To change its very structure.”

Hitchens takes a long drag, the ember glowing bright in the dimness. “The danger was always there. The authoritarian impulse never truly disappears; it merely waits for its moment—for sufficient weakness in the democratic immune system.”

“But this quickly?” I ask. “This completely?”

“Tyranny advances with startling speed once the barriers fall,” comes another voice from the shadows. Thomas Jefferson emerges into the pool of light, his expression grave. “I warned of this. We all did. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, yet vigilance has given way to spectacle, to distraction.”

He moves to join us, his 18th-century attire somehow not incongruous in this timeless space. “What you are witnessing is what we feared most—the republic transforming into empire, with a figure who would be king replacing the citizen who would be president.”

“And so many cheer it on,” I observe. “They see strength where there is only brittle ego, vision where there is only vengeance.”

“That is how it always begins,” says a third voice, softly accented in French. Albert Camus steps from behind the center pole, hands in the pockets of his rumpled suit. “Not with reluctant acceptance of necessity, but with enthusiastic embrace of the strongman who promises to resolve all contradictions, to eliminate all tensions.”

Camus approaches, his expression both weary and alert. “They mistake the promise of simplicity for the promise of truth. But the authentic life—and the authentic democracy—exists precisely in the tension, in the contradiction, in the refusal to collapse complexity into comforting falsehood.”

Jefferson nods in agreement. “The constitutional system we designed wasn't meant to eliminate tension but to harness it—to set ambition against ambition, power against power. When one branch surrenders to another, when loyalty to a person supersedes loyalty to principle, the entire structure becomes vulnerable.”

“And here we are,” Hitchens interjects, “watching a nation that once inspired revolution across the globe now willingly embracing the very tyranny it was founded to oppose.” His voice carries not condemnation but profound disappointment. "The tragedy isn't that evil men seek power—they always have. It's that good men convince themselves that evil can be contained, managed, normalized."

From the entrance of the tent, another figure approaches—older, with a prominent nose and penetrating gaze. Socrates moves with unhurried steps, his simple robe a stark contrast to the elaborate costumes usually seen in this space.

“Perhaps,” he suggests, “we might begin by examining what we mean by 'republic' and 'democracy.' For if we cannot agree on these definitions, how can we recognize their corruption?”

Before anyone can respond, I notice a man in a business suit standing near the exit, a briefcase held casually at his side. He has been a presence throughout my time in the circus—sometimes observer, sometimes participant, but always there at crucial moments of recognition.

He catches my eye and approaches, setting his briefcase on the sawdust floor. With deliberate movements, he opens it to reveal dozens of folded notes, identical to those I've been passing and receiving.

“The notes are being intercepted now,” he says without preamble. “The authorities have deemed them dangerous—not because they contain falsehoods, but because they contain truths that threaten the emerging order.”

“Then we must find new ways to pass them,” I reply.

“Yes,” he agrees. “But first, you must understand what you're truly facing." He gestures toward the others gathered in the dim light. "They've seen it before, in different forms, in different times. The pattern remains the same.”

Socrates steps forward. “They begin by attacking the very concept of truth—claiming that reality is whatever power declares it to be. When I questioned the sophists who taught that 'man is the measure of all things,' I was condemned not for being wrong but for being dangerous to those who preferred comfortable lies.”

Jefferson continues: “Then they capture the institutions designed to check power—courts, legislatures, the mechanisms of accountability. They do not abolish these institutions; that would provoke resistance. Instead, they hollow them out from within, replacing independence with loyalty, principle with expediency.”

“Next,” Camus adds, “they create an internal enemy—a segment of the population to blame, to fear, to focus hatred upon. This serves both to unite their followers and to justify extraordinary measures in the name of protection.”

Hitchens sets down his empty glass. “Finally, they declare emergency—permanent emergency—that justifies the suspension of normal constraints. Constitutional protections become luxuries that a nation under siege cannot afford.”

The man with the briefcase nods. “And all of this happens with the acquiescence of people who should know better—who do know better—but who convince themselves that adaptation is wisdom, that accommodation is survival, that silence is prudence.”

I look around at these figures—not as historical curiosities or philosophical abstractions, but as fellow witnesses to the pattern now unfolding. “So what do we do? How do we hold the center when the center itself is being redefined?”

Socrates speaks first. “We continue to ask questions—not to show cleverness, but to reveal truth. We force contradictions into the light where they cannot hide.”

Jefferson follows: “We remind citizens of their power—that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that consent can be withdrawn when power becomes tyranny.”

“We refuse the comfort of despair,” Camus adds. “We acknowledge the absurdity of our situation without surrendering to it. We create meaning through resistance itself.”

“And we speak plainly,” Hitchens concludes. “We call things by their proper names. We do not euphemize, we do not equivocate, we do not pretend that what is happening is normal or acceptable or inevitable.”

The man with the briefcase closes it with a deliberate click. “The notes must continue to circulate,” he says. “But they must evolve. They must become not just observations of the circus but invitations to resistance.”

As if on cue, the single bulb above flickers—once, twice—then stabilizes. The canvas walls of the tent stir in a sudden breeze that seems to originate from within rather than without.

“They're coming,” Jefferson says, glancing toward the entrance. “Those who would remake the circus into something else entirely.”

“Then we must be going,” the man with the briefcase replies. He hands me a single folded note—different from the others, marked with a seal I haven't seen before. “When the moment comes—and it will come—open this.”

One by one, they move toward the shadows—Socrates, Jefferson, Camus, Hitchens—not vanishing but withdrawing, remaining present but unseen, like the principles they embodied.

The man with the briefcase is the last to go. “Remember,” he says as he steps away, “the circus has weathered dark times before. The tent has stood through storms that seemed certain to tear it down. What matters now is not certainty of victory but clarity of vision. See what is happening. Name it without flinching. And know you are not alone in the witnessing.”

And then I am alone in the center ring, holding the sealed note, surrounded by the apparatus of democracy—the high wire of constitutional balance, the safety nets of institutional checks, the platforms of civic engagement—all still intact, but all now threatened.

Outside, I can hear them approaching—not citizens coming to participate, but forces coming to claim ownership. To declare that the circus belongs not to all but to one. To transform performance into power.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And the American Republic stands at the edge of transformation into something it was designed to prevent.

The center must be held—not because it is easy, but because it is ours to hold. Not just the center of the political spectrum, but the center of our democratic covenant—the foundational principles that make self-governance possible.

Hold the center. Push back the flood. Keep walking the wire.

This is the Grand Praxis of citizenship. This is the work of democratic preservation. This is the moment that tests whether we truly believe in the experiment launched two and a half centuries ago, or whether we will surrender it for the false comfort of authoritarian simplicity.

The note in my hand seems to pulse with its own light. Not yet, I think. But soon.

I tuck it away and turn toward the entrance, ready to face what comes—not alone, but carrying the wisdom of those who came before, who recognized this pattern, who refused to look away when democracy itself hung in the balance.

The circus continues. But now the performance is ours.

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Go forth. May God keep you. May coherence hold you. May truth light the way. And may love carry you home.