Translated: Governing is all about narrative control. Kerry articulates the "International Order's" solution to the unwelcome phenomenon of an uncontrolled populism and of a potential leader who speaks for the people: Simply, "freedom to speak" is unacceptable to the prescriptions agreed by the "inter-agency" – the institutionalised distillation of the "International Order."

Eric Weinstein calls this The Unburdening: The first Amendment; gender; merit; sovereignty; privacy; ethics; investigative journalism; borders; freedom … the Constitution? Gone?

Today's reality unhinged narration is that Iran's launch on Tuesday of 200 ballistic missiles – of which 181 reached Israel – were overwhelmingly intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome and Arrow missile defence systems. and with no deaths to show for the assault. It was "defeated and ineffective," Biden pronounced.

Will Schryver however, a technical engineer and security commentator, writes: "I don't understand how anyone who has seen the many video clips of the Iranian missile strikes on Israel cannot recognize and acknowledge that it was a stunning demonstration of Iranian capabilities. Iran's ballistic missiles smashed through US/Israeli air defences and delivered several large-warhead strikes to Israeli military targets."

The effect and the substance then lies in "proven capacity" – the capacity to select other targets, the capacity to do more. It was in fact a restrained demonstrative exercise, not a full attack.

But the message has been erased from sight.

How is it that the US Administration refuses to look truth in the eye and acknowledge what occurred, and prefers instead to ask the entire world, who saw the videos of missiles impacting in Israel, to "move along" – as the authorities advise, pretending that there was "nothing substantive to see here." Was "the affair" just a nuisance to system governance and "consensus," as Kerry so branded free speech? It seems so.

The structural problem, essayist Aurelien writes is not simply that the western professional class holds to an ideology – one that is the opposite to how ordinary people experience the world. That certainly is one aspect. But the bigger problem lies rather, with a technocratic conception of politics that is not "about" anything. It is not really politics at all (as Tony Blair once said), but is nihilistic and absent of moral considerations.