Kaitlin Harper

A Study of America’s Milquetoast Media’s Sanitized Mythologies and the Unseen Horses of Power Galloping Beneath the Carousel of Consent.

The media is the bleach for the sins of governments, militaries, and corporations

Each morning, the news resets. Another set of crises parades before the public: wars, political scandals, corporate collapses, and social upheavals. The headlines are bright, the faces are fresh, the indignation is newly minted. However, the horses spinning on the carousel are familiar. They remain almost identical in shape, gait, and direction. They are painted in new colors, assigned new riders, but the ride itself remains immutable.

What the public rarely perceives are the horses left in shadow. These silent beasts carry the weight of structural violence, entrenched inequality, systemic omission, and unchecked power. In the sanitized cult of Americanism-the veneer of freedom, diversity, and exceptionalism-these hidden horses are systematically pruned. Public discourse presents a carousel of repainted horses: vivid, visible, and selectable. The horses capable of challenging the carousel's track, its axis, and its very architecture are deliberately excluded. They are like homogenized milk and Wonder Bread: stripped of flavor, texture, and substance, engineered to be shelf-stable, digestible, and unthreatening.

Wonderbreading and Homogenized Milk: Brave New America

• Homogenized Non-Fat Milk: A literal whitewashing. All the fat, flavor, and bacteria have been removed in the name of "health," "efficiency," and longevity. Milk that once arrived from a cow known to the consumer is now pasteurized into industrial anonymity. It is a symbol of America's obsession with sterility, control, and safety over authenticity. "We removed the cream, the bacteria, and the soul-and called it progress."


• Wonder Bread: A product so perfected that it no longer decomposes. Its cultural metaphor is clear: America produces shelf-stable citizens-bleached, enriched, and engineered for mass appeal. Each slice is spongy, identical, and interchangeable, much like cubicle workers or mall consumers. Even our bread has forgotten what it was made from—the phrase 'white bread' functions as both a literal and a cultural descriptor: bland, safe, uniform.

These metaphors illuminate the carousel's hidden horses: the stories omitted, the abuses concealed, the ideological and moral deficits left unexamined.

Every day, people consume media, never stopping to think that media exists for three reasons:

1) To sell laundry soap and Viagra pills, to promote Medical Advantage, et al. 2) To distract people from their rage; to act as a pressure-relief mechanism. 3) To Sanitize and Purify Governments, Military Force, Oligarch Corporations (of which the media themselves are).

Hidden aspects of modernism and authoritarian rule glossed over by the media:

The unpainted horse of American authoritarianism

Mainstream narratives emphasize democracy, yet scholars document domestic authoritarian impulses: the erosion of civil liberties, the expansion of surveillance, and the consolidation of elite power. Towler and Parker demonstrate a tangible connection between racism and authoritarianism in United States politics. Osborne et al. report that citizens' political rights and civil liberties have declined globally, including in liberal democracies. The horse unseen: anti-imperialist narratives often focus abroad yet fail to interrogate the forms of repression embedded at home. These stories are homogenized for public consumption, stripped of the grit and moral ambiguity that reality entails.

Ideological hypocrisy – the horse hidden by media capture

America celebrates liberty and justice for all. Beneath the veneer lies entrenched racial inequality, class stratification, and elite capture. The story of progress rarely interrogates who benefits and at whose expense. The omitted horse: critiques of Americanism's ideological machinery, revealing how patriotic framing shields systemic exploitation. These narratives are Wonder-Bready: uniform, digestible, and sanitized. Frank R. Solt, "Diversionary Nationalism? Economic Inequality and the Formation of National Pride" - shows how rising economic inequality encourages states and elites to manufacture or amplify national pride as a diversionary ideology.

Sanitized immigration stories – corralled by media speak

America prides itself on the "melting pot" myth. However, segregated suburbs, cultural enclaves, and social friction are largely ignored. Agent-based models of host-guest dynamics demonstrate that enclaves form when social link remodeling leads to irreversible isolation. A network model of immigration: Enclave formation vs. cultural integration. The unseen horse: Conflict, tension, and adaptation challenges in immigrant communities are absent from the narrative. The story is homogenized, non-fat, and free of the discomfort necessary to understand social cohesion. American and NATO-member media sanitize migration, hiding the conflicts within American Pie narratives.

We removed the cream, the bacteria, and the soul - and called it progress

Selective diaspora – the talking horse narrative

Diaspora contributions are celebrated, yet internal fractures-political radicalization, economic exploitation, clan dynamics-remain unreported. Diasporas and Conflict observes that diaspora communities may actively participate in Conflict by transferring financial resources. The hidden horse: internal power struggles and structural imbalances within diasporas are rarely analyzed, particularly in progressive media that prioritize external oppression.

Foreign policy blind spots – dark horses hiding in media shadows

U.S. interventions are portrayed as altruistic or defensive. Detailed investigations into covert operations, regime change complicity, and moral costs rarely appear. The horse off the track: aggressive imperial behavior by the United States is masked as noble. Narratives are Wonder-Bready: carefully structured, uniform, digestible, and sanitized for public acceptance. L. A. O'Rourke (2020), "The Strategic Logic of Covert Regime Change."

Sanitized health history – the medical/industrial horse

Public health crises receive attention; yet profiteering, regulatory capture, and failed alternative interventions are lightly examined. Studies link authoritarianism to pandemic outcomes shaped by political structures. The hidden horse: the interplay of medical-industrial power, ideological commitments, and public health neglect is rarely scrutinized. The narrative is non-fat: stripped of ethical and systemic richness. The media focuses on the minority cured of cancer, and causes, prevention, and mortality rates are shielded from public view.

Selective moral panic – the public as media-spooked horses

Leftist activism is often depicted as radical, while right-wing extremism is framed as an aberration. The rise of militias, purges, and internal ideological violence within progressive spaces receives insufficient attention. The horse not painted: internal policing of dissent within the left. Stories are homogenized, sterilized, and sanitized for consumption. Almost nothing spooks, divides, and enrages the public better than media political division via extremist rhetoric - The Increasing Frequency of Terms Denoting Political Extremism in U.S. and U.K. News Media (Rozado & Kaufmann, 2022).

Greenwashed environmentalism – green horsepower

America positions itself as a climate leader. However, extractive industries, consumption patterns, and corporate capture remain understated. The hidden horse: contradictions within environmental policy, where technological innovation is celebrated while destruction continues both domestically and abroad. AI is the new Gross Carbon Emitter, yet it is touted as a "miracle panacea" (the new opium of the people).

The agency of greenwashing (Journal of Management and Governance, 2023). "Corporate corruption of the environment: sustainability as a process of compromise" - Corporate corruption of the environment: sustainability as a process of compromise (2013).

America manufactures shelf-stable citizens: bleached, enriched, and engineered for mass appeal

Techno-optimism and hubris

American scientific progress is portrayed as benevolent. Ethical dilemmas, corporate control, and public harm are rarely addressed. Human Rights Watch documents how domestic surveillance undermines press freedom. The invisible horse: the ethical entanglements of technological progress embedded in American power. With Liberty to Monitor All. The dirty deeds of Tech are relegated to the broken horse that nobody rides on the carousel.

Sanitized religion – the hidden by omission horse

Religion is framed as America's moral backbone. Less reported are institutional complicity, oppression, and collusion with state power. The horse skipped: religion as a power broker aligned with national and ideological interests. Pastor Sam, as Church Pastor, Charlatan, and State Surveillance Role Player, replete with his State-selected "Church Elders." The Church is a paid haven for Statists and Sociopaths.

Monitoring and Surveillance of Religious Groups in the United States by Derek H. Davis from The Oxford Handbook of Church and State in the United States (2010).

Idealized equality DEI as a predatory horse

Gender equality and LGBTQ inclusion are celebrated. Structural inequities and heterodox critiques of gender ideology are rarely examined—the hidden horse: the performative nature of diversity, which sanitizes dissenting perspectives. When everyone has a tattoo and a piercing, it is no longer scary. When every story in America is gay and lesbian, it is queer Wonder Bread, ubiquitous monoculture, uniform slices poised as building strong American bodies in 12 ways.

When everyone and everything are DEI and unique, it becomes white noise emanating from identical slices of white bread. Ethnic others become wonder breaded and mainstreamed into familiar patterns of speech, vocalization, and acceptable roles and behaviors. Accents are coached out of mainstream media voices. DEI: How Racialized Organizations Exacerbate Workplace Racial Stratification through Exploitative Diversity Work (Alicea, 2024).

Patriotic conformity – the All-American horse

Criticism of the nation is framed as un-American. The unspeakable horse: suppression of heterodox voices and the expectation that marginalized groups adopt sanitized, media-approved vernacular. The saint-nation with story after story of American exceptionalism.

Criticism of the nation is often framed as un‑American, producing a climate of patriotic conformity in which dissenting voices from marginalized groups or otherwise must adopt media‑approved vernacular to remain acceptable. In her article "Imperialism and Black Dissent" (2023), Nina Farnia demonstrates how the U.S. national‑security/imperialism apparatus has historically disciplined Black and radical dissent by recasting critique as a threat to the nation.

Complementing this legal‑historical dimension, the study "Values, Ideological Attitudes and Patriotism" (2014) by Silvia Livi et al. finds that "blind patriotism" — uncritical allegiance to the nation—is strongly associated with intolerance toward heterodox viewpoints and demands for conformity. Together, these works furnish both theoretical and empirical support for the notion that dissent is delegitimized through patriotic discourse, and that marginalized groups, in particular, may be pressured to internalize the sanitized "All‑American" narrative or risk being effectively silenced.

The story of progress rarely asks who profits and who pays

Economic myth-making

Free markets and entrepreneurship are celebrated. High finance, shadow banking, derivatives, and tax avoidance rarely receive scrutiny. The omitted horse: financial engineering that centralizes wealth and erodes democracy, disguised by patriotic narratives.

Curated civics education

Universities promote free speech and democracy. Elite influence, oligarchic funding, and ideological shaping of curricula remain largely hidden—the invisible horse: campus power dynamics that mirror the broader national narrative.

Myth of inclusive America

Diaspora communities are presented as harmonious. Internal conflicts, marginalization, and radicalization remain absent from public discourse—the hidden horse: structural fractures beneath the "melting pot" myth. Successfully assimilated and indoctrinated aliens are woven into American success stories. MS-13 and Tren de Agua members who refuse to speak English are never interviewed or headlined.

Technological exceptionalism

The United States is framed as a global technology leader. Domestic surveillance, corporate data exploitation, and algorithmic control are minimized. The horse evaded: hidden harms of technology and replication of American models abroad.

Capitalism as patriotic

Free-market ideology is intertwined with national pride. Exploitation, regulatory evasion, and inequality are obscured. The missing horse: critique of capitalism's role in empire and inequality, particularly in media that present anti-capitalism as foreign or abstract.

The melting pot myth curdles when tasted closely

Selective historical amnesia

American exceptionalism relies upon a patriotic edit of history. Interventionist and imperialist acts are reframed as liberatory. The horse kept off: the United States' interventionist past and global footprint remain largely unexamined.

The carousel continues to spin. The horses are repainted: new wars, new scandals, new outrage. However, the structural architecture remains constant: the track, the pivot, the axis of omission. Americanism sells the myth of inclusion, diversity, and progress, but only as long as the narrative adheres to the prescribed path.

The carousel is Wonderbready: its horses bleached, homogenized, and uniform. Only by noticing what has been removed-the fat, the flavor, the soul-can the public begin to recognize the carousel's full weight. The ride may appear bright and inviting, but its structure conceals systemic omission. The question is whether one will remain on the merry-go-round or step away and inspect the horses hidden beneath the surface.

The media varnishes Statism into a religion, and authoritarianism is rebranded as government motherly love. The FBI and NCIS are portrayed as a religion —an entirely benevolent, warm-and-fuzzy cocoon. TV and Internet algorithms filter reality, weaving authoritarianism into a friendly, helpful web of deceit. The Tech Titan Internet and television explain the murders, assassinations, and disappearances (literal and figurative) of government as mainstream pop culture stories.

Even search engines (via AI) are mostly complicit in hiding the truth. One exception is Semantic Scholar, a source of vetted articles. Looking for news, information, and truth outside of state-approved sanitized bread and bleached milk. We live in an era in which it is imperative to seek alternatives to state-run media in NATO member countries.

It is one thing to read about one corporation caught in a greenwashing lie; it is on a different level to seek out scholarly studies on greenwashing:

1. Militarism in Environmental Disguise: The Greenwashing of an Overseas Military Base – Peter Harris (2015, International Political Sociology)
2. Greenwashing: Appearance, Illusion and the Future of 'Green' Capitalism – Joe Williams (2024, Geography Compass)
3. 'State Greenwashing': An Overlooked Phenomenon? – Temitope Tunbi Onifade (2025, Journal of Environmental Law)

To see the truth, one must step off the carousel - to stand still long enough to notice which horses never move.

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The Crisis Carousel of Americanism: The Shadow Horses We Do Not See

Kaitlin Harper