Metaphor for American Politics I found this knotted rope being used as a decoration in a taqueria while I was waiting for my order. Sometimes you just see things in ways that are more than what they are in reality. In this case, besides seeing a knotted piece of rope, I also saw a credible metaphor for our recent political experience in America. We’ve gone from what I feel was a more ordered place, where regardless of which was the leading party, there were recognizable patterns and shared norms, where there were lanes to guide us as a people while protecting individuality and freedom. But somehow, we suddenly became tied in knots of derision which changed the way we were and left us weakened, in a state of separate, biased and opinionated threads.