The general vibe that a lot of Americans are reporting back with

(This was clear enough in the text of the first three books, mind—it was obscured by my own preoccupation with beautiful, awful becomings)

Absolution has illuminated them as, yes, the pathetic flailing of fascists, but also as the ugly alternative to the utterly consuming transfigurations of Area X—an uncertain future, in which we may not recognize ourselves, but in which we *are* selves, not the debased tools of Capital 2/