This novel was written in the prosperous and less partisan late 1990s. Bill Clinton was the President at that time. This story was considered, by me, to be an impossible nightmare worst case scenario in the American timeline. Then came the Bush-Cheney Dark Years and the 9-11 event that through lack of vigilance happened on their watch. Fear became the new currency. A new issue of Discounted Americans emerged from the low and faux informational citizenry. Unbelievable, but The Discounted were convinced by the rich business class to rage and vote against their own wellbeing. Surely this started as a joke….but it bloomed into the new Republican Party. Hear Wall Street laughing? The “Post Truth, Anti Intellectual” era is here; I hope it will be short. But, at last it is cool to be dumb. Businessman- statesman- politicians are for sale. Bigotry is barely concealed. Curiosity is an unknown trait. The Discounted Individual’s fearful worldview is validated by Fox “News”, his/her church, resistance to change and like type friends. That worldview typically limited to RV trips to the Grand Canyon and Branson. Paris? A city in Texas and a few other states. On the upside….where I live, ‘you don’t have to be very good to be excellent’.