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Under the Big Top—The Political Three Ring Circus

By Edward Pozzuoli

October 30, 2026

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In Anytown, USA, children looked forward each year to the circus coming to town, with its traveling troupe of exciting acrobats and exotic animals creating a magical, unique form of entertainment. In recent years, the word “circus” has shifted to describe a chaotic spectacle such as a high-profile trial, a dramatic family get-together, or a tumultuous election. It’s where noisy, disjointed, and somewhat comical groups gather to cause distraction, commotion, or disruption as suggested by the subtitle, “The political three-ring circus.”

This “three-ring circus” of elected politicians and performers stage different “shows” to influence our country’s philosophical, cultural, and political future. Their dramatic theatrics capture and entertain the audience, but who is watching, and are they watching the right performance?

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Step Right Up

One of those older influential rings is, as mentioned in “The Swamp–Muddy Waters Run Deep” (The Savvy Street, July 3, 2026):

The traditional DC Beltway, the remnants of Washington’s established professional politicians…they have morphed into a cohesive, coordinated, distinct group. The non-partisan objective of these bureaucratic institutions is to retain and increase power, aided by the complicit media and covert intelligence agencies.

A cadre of walking-dead zombies, led by an ancient turtle, marches; slow-moving strong elephants; foolish jackass donkeys; apostate rhinos; cunning foxes; treacherous jackals; hostile hawks; capricious chameleons; web-spinning spiders; sweeping-tentacled octopuses; and the rest of the slimy swamp-creatures around this ring. They incite and spread false fear in the name of the common good as they parade with a pompous, untouchable air, taking the crowds for granted and expecting them to keep returning. They don’t realize that many are bored with their usual disingenuous routines, the same old song and dance. Most have become appalled and disillusioned, or complacently apathetic, and just want to move on.

A secondary ring of this carnival exhibits irrational “crazies,” with their slick ideological charlatans, intransigent turbaned zealots, and hordes of devoted blind groupies displaying their naked docility. All participants in this ring share a common fiber of tearing the threads of individualism that fashioned our Western enlightened values. Their mission is to strip our garments and dress us in the frayed, tattered rags of collectivism. The nation’s audience watches this clown show in bewilderment as they display their menagerie of seductive snakes, cunning crocodiles, hapless hyenas, sightless sheep, campy camels, perfidious pantomimes, and the discombobulated characters of Wile E. Coyote and Elmer Fudd. They have strayed “off the reservation” of the swamp with coercive collectivism, trying to redefine an all-inclusive “big tent” under the guise of democracy. A few spectators stay, and some are even curious, but most are frightened or sadistically insulted and want to continue to the main stage.

The vast majority of the general public gathers in the large center ring “under the big top.” By far the largest audience, they wander in and out of the other two rings, then settle in to watch the main event. This group clearly isn’t homogeneous; it has extremely varied backgrounds, understandings, and political preferences. Still, they’re all there for the same purpose: to be astonished, to applaud skill, and to enrich their insight while feeling peacefully secure enough to appreciate the performances. They are entertained by the threatening but restrained lions and tigers similar to Siegfried & Roy; the American native buffaloes prancing across the arena’s prairie; seamlessly choreographed canines; the high-wire balancing of freewheeling felines; the acrobatics on bareback galloping mustangs lassoing wild turkeys; and the peaceful doves flying under the watchful eye of the protective soaring bald eagle. The ringmaster trains and guides them with a carrot and whip, reminiscent of the ultimate showman, P.T. Barnum.

Sure, each of these rings has its share of clowns deflecting attention like a comedic illusionist and assorted sideshow freaks presenting grotesque views of society’s ugly underbelly. But most gather under the big top with appreciative, hopeful excitement and inspiration, and then leave with encouraged optimism.

The carnival is a theater of political absurdity and a spectacle of partisan dysfunction.

While this metaphor reflects our current political landscape, the carnival is a theater of political absurdity and a spectacle of partisan dysfunction. It demands a philosophical spirit of honest, principled identity and a profound, substantive evaluation within a broader framework aligned with our creed: “truth, justice, and the American way.”

 

A Reductive Binary

The choice is simple: freedom or statism. Both the ingrained establishment and the ideological crazies are anti-reality, anti-reason, anti-individual, anti-freedom, anti-West, and anti-American, essentially forming the same political ring. They have revised the first three words of our Constitution to reflect their essence: “We the State–We the Marxists–We the Jihadists.” To achieve their top-down control, whether for absolute power, ideological dogma, or 72 virgins, coercion and offensive force are tools of domination. Ultimately, the individual will be subordinated to the collective, mirroring much of Europe’s recent social turmoil. The acquiescence to postmodern propaganda has dispensed with established truths, objective morality, and critical thinking. When these collectivists are in control, freedoms will be lost, rights will dwindle, and our “free will” will not be free, but will incur the cost of dictated indoctrination. The insolence of these collectivists toward their citizenry is best captured by the observation of nineteenth-century historian Alexis de Tocqueville, who noted: “A man’s admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.” The civility of our formerly enlightened country will decay into violent warring factions, marked by a psychological angst and paranoia—a nation estranged from its founding principles.

America’s sense of life is resilient.

But America’s sense of life is resilient, and when we analyze the above correctly, the center ring under the big top will provide the needed alternative to help liberty flourish. Whatever this diverse, multifaceted group consists of, its overarching commonality stems from our Founding Fathers’ pivotal first words in the Constitution: “We the people.”

 

The Sovereign Citizen

These three consequential words were first articulated by English philosopher John Locke, who strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson. In Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, he wrote, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” with the State as a servant that respects our natural, sovereign individual rights. Historically, the architects of our Republic drew deeply on Western thought and Greco-Roman traditions, and they furthered these ideas during the Enlightenment. They intellectually shaped a moral nation founded on liberty, rights, and self-government, and this “new birth of freedom” profoundly advanced Western civilization. As a professor and historical scholar, John David Lewis, noted in a statement to his class a day after the tragic 9/11 Islamist Jihadist attack on our nation:

Western civilization is moral because it is good. The purpose and motive of Western civilization is life, the exact opposite of the death-worship seen in nihilists of all stripes. Ours is the morality of life and theirs the morality of death.

It is clear which circus rings he was referencing, as the anti-American groups are seeking to destroy our Western culture through an irrational, destructive attack on “the good for being good.”

The vast, pluralistic group in the main ring should seek the truth and champion “the good.” Pursuing these values will empower individuals to flourish in social harmony and peaceful coexistence. This broad multidimensional coalition includes MAGA and anti-MAGA, dissatisfied Republicans and jilted Democrats, independents and libertarians, various ethnic and religious associations, natives and immigrants, populists and isolationists, intellectual thinkers and common-sense ordinary folk; all of which embody rational patriotism and want no part of the competing authoritarianism of the other rings. This wide-ranging coalition of different perspectives better illustrates the “big tent.”

This group will not dogmatically agree on every issue, but should aspire to bridge their differences through honest dialogue and critical thought, exploring rational alternatives for a better America. Aligning with this group will not require giving up one’s individual agency for a group identity that is compulsory in the other rings. As writer and research fellow, Tom Bowen with the Ayn Rand Institute (The New Ideal), observed of today’s muddied emotional temperament:

Increasingly, our culture pushes us to view ourselves as passive members of one group or another. What matters, we’re told, is not the choices we make as individuals, but the group to which we belong.

 

The Shifting Party Landscape

Being pro-American or anti-American represents the only antithetical groups. The first promotes reason, individuality, and freedom; the other, irrationality, collectivism, and enslavement. For the last 175 years, every president in our two-party system has been either a Republican or a Democrat. Even as their ideologies continually shift to reflect changing social, cultural, and economic attitudes, their fluid identities remain intact. Are we facing another polar reversal and a political reshuffling of the deck chairs? With the “crazies” hijacking the Democratic Party and the country club Republicans of the “Grand Old Party withering, we must shed any obsolete and archaic party definitions.

The progressives and the Democratic Socialists of America, together with academia and the elite uber-wealthy, have installed a Marxist agenda to reinterpret the Democratic platform. They cast aside the “normies” (moderate democrats), who are frantically searching for another tent. This new collective alliance is aided by an incestuous media and driven by command orders. They will push the party further left to expand centralized power, control all economic decisions, enlarge the Federal workforce, foster anti-human social engineering, crush innovation, and govern with an uncompromising iron fist. History has shown that the result will be a tyrannical, despotic rule, only this time with a revised definition of the Democratic Party.

Redefining the Republicans will be more difficult, as they must represent an all-encompassing, diverse citizenry in the center ring. They must reaffirm our commitment to reason and freedom, and more broadly to Western thought; rein in government overreach; reduce the regulatory State; enforce objectively codified laws; and govern with a rights-respecting limited government. With this group’s ingrained biases, entrenched business practices, and inculcated beliefs, it may take a generation to reorient this mixed coalition, especially given our youths’ misguided education. They must grasp and define what pro-Americanism exemplifies, but the process of reframing the Republican Party’s philosophy as a reasoned one must begin immediately.

Most people are unfamiliar with the philosophical concepts of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, but they are all familiar with philosophy’s fourth branch: governance. Whether they know it or not, this affects every daily business and personal encounter. Still, they rarely see it as stemming from the three higher abstractions, with individualism as the ethical foundation required for any moral government. As Ayn Rand describes in her 1963 essay “Racism” (The Virtue of Selfishness):

Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or, peaceful coexistence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights—and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the   individual rights of its members.

Individualism, when properly understood, is volitional and indispensable for this center ring to continue championing our great country. In the other rings, the collectivist ethics is not optional, but compulsory. Rand also explained in her 1944 essay “The Only Path to Tomorrow” (Reader’s Digest):

Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group—whether to a race, class, or State does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called the “common good.”

Understanding and distinguishing between these two words, individualism and collectivism, is foundational to revealing pro-American or anti-American ideologies. The proper choice is imperative if we want to preserve our precious Republic and perpetuate freedom for posterity. We should all heed Abraham Lincoln’s sagacious observation, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

 

The Journey Toward a Better Tomorrow

The diverse group on the main stage cannot guarantee our future sovereignty, but if nurtured properly, it offers the only prospect of liberty and sovereign self-determination. While fundamental principles are binary, this broad-based group is not perfect or philosophically consistent. Still, working amicably and congenially together can enhance our country’s well-being. Despite disagreements, a society that encourages open dialogue without fear of reprisal can cultivate a positive path forward. As French philosopher and writer Voltaire contended, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Our nation stands perilously close to midnight on humanity’s Doomsday Clock.

Our nation stands perilously close to midnight on humanity’s Doomsday Clock. We must repudiate all these irrational collectivists and reclaim the spirit of rugged individualism in America. History reminds us that any form of collectivized statism suppresses and stagnates human advancement.

While generational change always finds new directions, the Greek philosopher Aristotle returns us to our Western roots. His ethos is the moral character that establishes credibility and integrity; his logos offers discourse grounded in logic and reason; and his pathos appeals to authentic emotion. If “we the people,” together with the stewards of our political class, can forge a Socratic dialogue using these methods of persuasion, we may once again return America to the “shining city upon a hill,” serving as an inspiration for freedom, justice, and democratic self-government.

The traveling road show of this center ring under the grandeur of the big top will bring the theater of democracy across the cities and plains of our glorious nation. It will display our people’s diversity and the struggle of competing ideas, while remaining true to the founding principles of our Republic. The American people are not merely spectators, but participants in this ongoing pursuit of freedom, making this “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

 

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