The Fool Killer
Is a character of American Folklore I hadn't been acquainted with until recently. He's a kind of boogeyman who'll come after you if you're being stupid or foolish. Reading an essay on him by writer Stephen R Bissette I found his origin to be strikingly at home in 21st century America.
" Folklorists have definitively traced the Fool Killer's origins to a series of satiric newspaper editorials published as letters between 1857 and 1879. The Fool Killer was a literary invention designed to [b]satirically savage populist extremism and secessionism [b] ."
In other words, the toxic political climate we're living through now isn't the exception to the rule. It's the norm.
" Folklorists have definitively traced the Fool Killer's origins to a series of satiric newspaper editorials published as letters between 1857 and 1879. The Fool Killer was a literary invention designed to [b]satirically savage populist extremism and secessionism [b] ."
In other words, the toxic political climate we're living through now isn't the exception to the rule. It's the norm.
