Public policy discourse has entered an era of media-driven hyperreality, becoming detached from the lived experience of the polity. Bumper-sticker political symbols, such as “the war on drugs,” have displaced vibrant discussion of public issues. This depreciation of the public discourse can be apprehended if we conceptualize this problematic as a postmodern phenomenon. By borrowing vocabulary and concepts from postmodern thought, we can try to figure out what is going on. How is modernity different from postmodernity? How does reality become hyperreality? After a description of postmodern conditions—and the implications of this for public policy discourse—the “war on drugs” is deconstructed to supply a vivid example of the slippery slope from reality to hyperreality.
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