No Victims, Only Volunteers: We Blame the System While Perpetuating It

Prologue: The Blame Game – America’s Favorite Sport

“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it”

"If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself."

- George Orwell

Blaming “the system” has become America’s favorite sport. It’s bipartisan, contactless, emotionally satisfying, and best of all—it requires no skill, no sacrifice, and certainly no accountability. When life disappoints us, when leaders betray us, when things don’t go our way, we have a ready-made scapegoat standing in the wings, perfectly dressed for the role. “It’s not my fault,” we say. “It’s the system.”

Lose your job? That’s on the system. Didn’t bother to vote in the local election because the ballot was too long and brunch was calling? System again. Re-elected the same corrupt incumbent for the third straight term? The system tricked us. Somewhere along the way, we all adopted an emotional support excuse named The System, and any time reality punches us in the face, we just point to it and say, “Talk to him.”

But here’s the kicker: the people who blame the system the loudest—the ones who hold the microphones, wear the lapel pins, and rage with righteous indignation—are, in fact, the system itself. And not the overworked civil servant part—the cocktail-fueled fundraiser, backroom-deal, hedge fund donor-drenched part. These are the same officials who rail against “Washington dysfunction” while drafting the dysfunction in committee. The ones who decry corruption while accepting it in unmarked envelopes and Super PAC donations.

It’s the greatest hustle in modern public life. Run against the machine. Win. Blame the machine. Profit from the machine. And when your approval ratings drop? Just start blaming it louder. The more things fall apart, the more politically profitable it becomes to say, “I tried to stop it.” That way, every failure becomes a campaign ad for your next term—and every policy disaster is just more evidence that your hands were tied.

Meanwhile, we the citizens, play our part in the charade. We post angry memes. We scream at the TV. We switch cable news channels as if ideological whiplash counts as civic participation. We act shocked when our elected saviors become standard-issue cowards the moment the microphones are off. And then we do it all again in two or four years, often with a little less conviction, a little more resignation, and a brand-new sticker that says, “I Voted.”

But the brutal truth is this: the system didn’t break itself. It didn’t trip over its own bureaucracy or malfunction out of sheer fatigue. We broke it. They rigged it. And we watched it happen, half-interested, fully distracted, always assuming someone else would step in and fix it. We sat in the stands and cheered while the referees were bought and the rulebook rewritten in invisible ink. And when the scoreboard started blinking nonsense, we blamed the stadium.

This wasn’t oppression. This was a subscription. Nobody forced us into this. We opted in. We followed the script. We clicked “I agree” without reading the terms. Because opting in felt easier than standing out. Because blaming the system feels better than blaming ourselves. Because victimhood, these days, is comforting—clean, righteous, and most of all, passive.

But the system only works this way if we keep volunteering. It only thrives on dysfunction if we continue to tolerate it, excuse it, participate in it, and normalize it through repetition. The politicians didn’t lie alone. We repeated it for them. We forgave it. We justified it. And we rarely, if ever, asked for a refund.

So, take a good look around. The rules are fixed. The referees are bought. The winners never leave the podium. And still, somehow, we show up to play.

The game isn’t just rigged. It’s familiar. And maybe that’s why we stay.

No victims. Only volunteers.

Let the games begin.

Chapter I – The Performance of Power

They rage against the machine—until they inherit it, name it “The People’s Office,” and start selling tickets.

There was a time—at least in our collective mythology—when politicians were public servants. Stewards of policy. Statesmen with rolled-up sleeves and dog-eared copies of the Constitution. These days, they're more likely to carry a ring light than a legislative agenda. The modern elected official isn’t here to govern. They’re here to perform. And they do it with such conviction, you’d think they actually believed the lines they’re reading.

Politics has become reality television in a suit. Every hearing is a highlight reel, every debate a branded content opportunity, and every tragedy a backdrop for a performative moment of silence followed immediately by a press release. They don't write laws; they deliver monologues. They don’t cross the aisle; they cross-promote. And when something goes wrong—and it always does—they don’t fix it. They schedule a town hall, look deeply concerned, and blame a “broken system” while checking their approval rating on the way out.

These are the same people who stage-walk through factory floors in safety goggles for the photo op, then vote to deregulate those same industries over cocktails with donors that evening. They pound the podium about healthcare, then invest in private equity hospital chains. They go viral for “destroying” their opponent in committee, only to grab dinner with them later that night—sponsored, of course, by the lobbyist who wrote the bill neither of them read.

And we eat it up. We’ve trained ourselves to respond to style over substance. We no longer demand plans, we demand passion. We don’t expect outcomes, we expect outrage. We vote not for competence, but for catharsis. And our politicians, ever the savvy actors, give us exactly what we want: the illusion of effort, choreographed fury, and just enough chaos to keep us distracted while the real deals happen offstage.

The performance doesn’t end at the Capitol steps. It continues on cable news, social media, and the TED Talk circuit. Elected officials use their office as a launchpad to brand themselves—selling books they didn’t write, hosting podcasts they barely understand, and fundraising off the very dysfunction they helped create. “Everything’s broken,” they say. “Send money so I can keep working on it.”

Meanwhile, legislation stalls. Infrastructure crumbles. Working families sink deeper into debt while the cost of eggs becomes a national crisis. But the show must go on. As long as there’s someone watching, there’s someone buying the act.

What makes this dangerous isn’t just the waste, the gridlock, or the galling hypocrisy. It’s that we’ve accepted it. We’ve stopped expecting leadership and settled for performance. We’ve become patrons in a long-running political drama where nothing changes but the cast. And like all good audiences, we clap when we’re told, we boo on cue, and we return every two or four years hoping the next show will be better than the last.

But this isn’t entertainment. This is governance. Or it was supposed to be.

And if it feels like nothing real ever gets done, it’s because the work of governing has taken a back seat to the work of appearing to govern. The stage lights are on, the script is worn thin, and the actors are exhausted. But they’ll keep performing as long as we keep showing up—cheering, posting, donating, and voting for the familiar.

No one dragged us to the theater. We bought the ticket, took the seat, and laughed at all the right lines. We’re not victims of this charade—we’re subscribers. Monthly auto-renew.

The curtain hasn’t fallen. It’s just the intermission. And the second act is usually where the real tragedy begins.

Chapter II – The Donor Class Writes the Script

The actors get the applause. The donors get the profits. And the people? They get the invoice.

Behind every tearful plea from a senator to “restore the soul of America” is a billionaire writing checks with one hand and rewriting tax policy with the other. The modern American donor class doesn’t just influence politics—they own it, rent it out, and redecorate it in their image. They’re not behind the curtain anymore. They’re center stage, holding the script and waiting for the next underpaid actor-politician to audition.

These people aren’t civic-minded philanthropists. They’re market-manipulating ideologues, bored tech moguls, real estate predators, and influence fetishists. What they want is not good governance—it’s insulation. They want deregulated markets and pre-regulated outcomes. They want tax codes that bend like yoga instructors. They want laws that keep them rich, reputations that keep them adored, and policies that ensure you, the public, remain distracted enough not to notice the hand in your pocket.

Look closely and you’ll see them everywhere: Ken Griffin of Citadel, who pours millions into elections to protect the carry interest loophole that makes his fortune virtually tax-free. Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn billionaire-turned-political fixer, who spends like a moral savior but behaves like a political arsonist. Harlan Crow, personal benefactor to Supreme Court justices and noted collector of Nazi memorabilia—because nothing says “judicial impartiality” like all-expense-paid yacht trips with a man whose art tastes lean Third Reich.

And then there’s Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley warlord who wants to destroy the administrative state while maintaining a weapons contract with the Pentagon. George Soros and the Koch network—ideological opposites who nevertheless agree on one thing: when democracy is inefficient, money works faster. These are the donors who don’t care about left or right. They care about return on influence. Their portfolios are diversified, and so are their puppets.

These men (and let’s be honest, it’s nearly always men) don’t just want to be powerful. They want to be worshipped. They want fawning coverage in The Atlantic and breathless introductions at Aspen panels. They want awards for innovation in social impact while gutting public institutions and exploiting regulatory dead zones. They want to be seen funding climate initiatives while flying private to conferences about sustainability. They want to be called thought leaders, not what they are - oligarchs in Patagonia vests.

The politicians know who they work for. When a congressman tells you he’s “fighting for the little guy,” look up who paid for his campaign bus wrap and who’s throwing him a dinner in NY, LA, SF or DC. When a presidential hopeful says she’s “for the people,” check who maxed out at her wine cave fundraiser last quarter. The donors don’t give a s*^t about the language (or you). They care about the leverage. Legislation isn’t passed anymore—it’s negotiated, drafted in think tanks, and slipped into 2,000-page pork-barrel omnibus bills five minutes before the vote.

Sometimes the donors don’t even bother with subtlety. They show up on the boards of universities whose curricula they influence, get their names slapped on hospitals and performing arts centers, and fund media outlets they can nudge from time to time—just to make sure the stories stay polite. They want to be the solution to the problems they quietly profit from. They fund scholarships after defunding public schools. They support voting rights initiatives while also investing in surveillance startups. This is not contradiction. It’s strategy.

And we? We rationalize it. We repost their philanthropy. We follow their foundations. We fawn over their curated humility. We eat it up like lovesick lemmings. We treat them like benevolent royalty for dropping a few coins into the public fountain they helped drain dry. Somehow, we’ve confused visibility with virtue. Because a billionaire funds a climate study, we forget he owns a private fleet. Because she endows a chair in gender studies, we forgive her for bankrolling the very candidates who gutted reproductive healthcare.

They want you to believe that they’re saving the world with innovation and charity, when in reality, they’re engineering a system where their children, silver spoon in hand, never have to share it.

And we let them. Because deep down, we’re all junkies addicted to the myth. The one where maybe—just maybe—if we behave, if we vote right, if we don’t rock the boat, we’ll get a seat at their table. But we won’t. Not really. The only thing we’re guaranteed is a seat in the audience. We’re not citizens anymore—we’re spectators in a democracy that’s been put into private escrow.

You want to know why your rent is sky-high? Why your prescription costs more than your car payment? Why your town’s public school can’t afford working bathrooms but somehow your local congressman has a new ad up every twelve seconds? Look up who’s writing the checks.

Because these donors aren’t donating—they’re investing. And every dollar has a purpose. And that purpose is never you.

They don’t care what color your sign is. They don’t care what party you pledge to. They don’t even care what issues you pretend to care about during election season. They care about one thing: leverage. The kind that buys silence. That blocks reform. That writes the first draft of every law and the final version of every budget.

They don’t care if you win. They care that they never lose.

And as long as we keep accepting it—as long as we keep pretending it’s normal, ethical, inevitable—then we are not victims. We are accomplices.

No victims. Only volunteers.

So put up or shut up. Stop whining. Stop hash-tagging your anger like that’s a substitute for resistance. Stop applauding legislation written by lobbyists and repackaged with an American flag.

If you want to change this system, you’re going to have to name names, burn bridges, and be ready to lose comfort to gain clarity. You’re going to have to stop asking for permission and start demanding accountability. You’re going to have to ditch your heroes. Most of them sold you out long ago.

And if you’re not ready for that? If you’d rather stay on the sidelines, yell at the screen, and retweet rebellion from your ergonomic desk chair? Fine.

But do it quietly.

Because you’re not part of the solution. You’re part of the show.

You already paid for your ticket. Enjoy the drama. Just don’t pretend you didn’t help write the script.

Chapter III – Red vs. Blue: The False Choice Circus

You think you’re in a battle for the soul of America. You’re not. You’re a contestant in a rigged, seriously f*#ked-up reality show—filmed on a soundstage, scripted by consultants, and funded by billionaires with private jets, emotional support yachts, and egos that need their own staff. Two colors, one script, no refunds—and you’re the shill with a foam finger and a campaign bumper sticker that doesn’t stick in the rain.

Every election cycle, the producers crank up the drama like it’s sweeps week. "This is it," they shout. "The most important vote of your lifetime!" Cue the swelling music, the panic fundraising emails, and the political ads featuring slow-motion flags, sepia-toned veterans, and B-roll of steelworkers no candidate has ever met. It's not a campaign—it’s a reboot. A new season of the same tired show, complete with plot holes, wooden characters, and enough recycled talking points to choke a landfill.

Red vs. Blue is not a political divide. It's a commercial franchise. Two competing labels with one corporate parent. Pepsi vs. Coke. iOS vs. Android. Bud Light vs. Coors—with just as much nutritional value and twice the outrage. One side says government is the problem. The other insists it’s the answer. But neither delivers anything but speeches, merch, poorly-lit podcasts, and matching subpoenas.

Let’s talk about those “critical” issues we’re told to foam at the mouth over. Women’s rights. Reproductive freedom. LGBTQ+ protections. Immigration. Climate change. Racial justice. Voting rights. Each of them rolled out like the climax of a Marvel movie—epic stakes, swelling strings, desperate last stands. And then, just as the credits are about to roll: “Sorry folks, the filibuster got us again. Maybe next season.”

Vote blue to protect Roe v. Wade, they said. Then Roe vanished faster than a senator at a union rally, and all we got was a strongly worded tweet from someone with a book deal and a weekly podcast. Vote red to stop crime and chaos, they said. And now your mayor’s hiring private security while your public library installs panic buttons and your kid’s math teacher moonlights as a bouncer.

You want LGBTQ+ rights? Want to stop book bans? Want immigrant dignity? Of course you do. So do most people. But where’s the follow-through? Where’s the legislation that doesn’t die in committee? Where are the hearings that don’t end in viral moments for someone’s campaign reel? Instead, we get slogans, enamel pins, TikToks, and Pride Month LinkedIn headers—and then they all hit the same steakhouse to celebrate doing absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, the culture war rages—not as a genuine conflict, but as a premium subscription service. Drag queens versus school boards. Gas stoves versus the Constitution. Mr. Potato Head versus civilization itself. We’ve reached the point where people are more emotionally invested in cartoon candy mascots than in tax brackets. And Congress? They’re loving every minute of it. The more we scream at each other, the less we scream at them.

Political identity has become lifestyle branding. Red states buy guns, gas-guzzlers, and tactical grills. Blue states drink $9 coffee, compost their guilt, and live in existential fear of saying the wrong thing about oat milk. Everyone has a podcast. Everyone has a merch store. Everyone is a brand ambassador for a party that wouldn’t return their call without a donation.

And while we bicker about whether Elmo is too progressive, the billionaires behind the curtain are cashing in. They’re funding both parties like a Vegas bookie hedging every game. They’re shorting your democracy like it’s a startup about to get acquired. The only thing bipartisan in Washington is the champagne tab at The Palm—and even that’s probably tax-deductible.

Think you’re mad at the other side? You’re not. You’re mad at the illusion. The Truman Show with a flag pin and a midterm calendar. The reality is you’ve been cast as an unpaid extra in a political drama with no ending and no residuals. They don’t need to fix anything. They just need you to pick a jersey, post about it, and hate the people in the other one.

This isn’t governance. It’s grievance theater. And we’re not the electorate—we’re the audience. Applauding the same lines. Booing on cue. Buying the t-shirts.

No victims. Only volunteers.

Put up or shut up. If your team wins and nothing changes, maybe it was never a team. Maybe it was just the costume department doing its job.

Stop cheering for the mascot. Start demanding a refund. And for God’s sake—unfollow at least three politicians tonight. You’ll feel better. And your blood pressure might thank you.

Chapter IV – Manufactured Outrage: The D.C. Supply Chain

Welcome to the outrage economy—Washington’s most reliable export and America’s last truly renewable resource. Forget corn. Forget coal. Forget software. The only thing this town produces with any consistency is manufactured outrage, sold wholesale, slapped with a patriotic sticker, and delivered straight to your bloodstream via social media. It's not governance—it's methadone for the politically exhausted.

Every week brings a new scandal—hand-crafted, pre-salted, and algorithm-approved. It arrives faster than Amazon Prime and angrier than a teenage YouTuber. A clip, a tweet, a 20-second soundbite of something “unacceptable”—and suddenly the public is frothing like a Frappuccino. You rage-tweet. They fundraise. You scream into your phone. They schedule a hearing with a witness who looks great in thumbnails. You donate $25. They send a sticker. You think you're part of the movement. You’re part of the marketing funnel.

These scandals aren’t accidents. They’re inventory. They’re the boxed wine of democracy—cheap, predictable, and guaranteed to give you a headache. This isn’t a bug in the system. It is the system. Carefully cultivated chaos, harvested and weaponized for re-election. They don’t need to fix anything—they just need to convince you that someone else broke it.

Politicians don’t want resolution. They want recurring revenue. They want to turn your anger into quarterly projections. Every “unprecedented” event becomes an excuse for another press release, another PAC check, another trip to cable news to pretend they’re shocked—shocked!—that the same thing that’s happened for the last 40 years is happening again. Then it’s back to brunch. Back to the golf course. Back to the Botoxed smirk of a committee chair who last read a bill during the Obama administration.

This isn’t left vs. right. It’s not even good vs. evil. It’s Mad Max: Beltway Edition, starring a bipartisan coalition of chaos entrepreneurs, tweeting in all caps from opposing sound stages. One sells fear. The other sells guilt. But both end at the same merch table: mugs, hats, and signed copies of books they didn’t write.

And just when you think, "Well, surely this one will matter," the news cycle refreshes like a Vegas slot machine. New outrage. New villain. Same game. Your grandmother’s on Facebook calling someone a traitor. Your coworker is unfriending your dentist. And the actual law that started it all? Quietly buried in subcommittee like a mob rat in a Jersey marsh.

If you want to know who’s behind it, don’t look at the politicians. Look at the media consultants, the Twitter randos turned strategy directors, the content mercenaries who write sob stories for a fee and change hashtags like socks. These people aren’t public servants. They’re outrage engineers, contractors in the demolition business of your sanity.

They don’t want you calm. Calm people don’t repost. Calm people don’t text donations to a six-digit number while crying in a parking lot. Calm people might actually read the legislation—and God help us if that happens. That’s not engagement. That’s a risk.

No, they want you caffeinated, tribal, emotionally weaponized, pissed-off and a little bit stupid. The perfect consumer in the American rage machine. Because your anger is the fuel. Your clicks are the currency. And your attention span? That’s the leash they’ve got wrapped around your throat while they tell you to scream louder. And you do—into the void. While they head to happy hour.

No victims. Only volunteers.

You want to fix it? Start by turning down the volume on the circus. Unfollow your favorite outrage vendors. Cancel your subscription to the apocalypse. Skip the online mob. Read the actual bill. Follow the actual money. Ask yourself: Who benefits when I lose my mind?

Then do the one thing they fear: don’t give it to them.

Because until we stop dancing for dopamine and screaming for sport, the D.C. outrage factory will keep humming—and they’ll keep laughing all the way to the bank, sipping bourbon from crystal tumblers labeled “Democracy.”

Chapter V – Everyone’s a Nazi

Remember when calling someone a Nazi actually meant something? Like, actual Nazis—goose-stepping, swastika-wearing, book-burning, world-domination, killed my ancestors, enthusiasts? Now it means someone who disagrees with you about parking policy, pronouns, or pumpkin spice lattes. Everyone’s a Nazi, and no one knows who’s running the camps because we’re all too busy building guillotines out of retweets.

This is what happens when language loses its brakes. When words like fascist, genocide, oppression, and treason get tossed around like cornhole bags at a backyard BBQ. The stakes stay high, but the meaning evaporates. And the people who actually survived those things? They’re watching from the sidelines, horrified that their lived trauma is now just someone else’s snarky headline.

Social media didn’t invent this—but it did give it steroids, a Red Bull IV drip, and a caffiene-fueled leaderboard. Congratulations: You’re now ranked in moral clarity by how quickly you can accuse a stranger of committing war crimes because they bought the wrong chicken sandwich.

We’ve gone from “Never Forget” to “Never Forgive,” unless of course you’re a celebrity with a PR team and an apology written by ChatGPT. Then it’s all good. Back to the red carpet, you brave survivor of a Twitter spat.

Meanwhile, real threats? Real extremism? It’s slipping through the cracks like smoke in a house fire, because everyone’s screaming about metaphors. We’ve replaced vigilance with virality. Nuance with name-calling. Debate with digital Molotov cocktails. And the crowd roars with every explosion, because nuance doesn’t trend—but righteous fury does.

Your cousin voted Republican? Nazi! Your coworker questions a vaccine rollout? Nazi! Your neighbor doesn’t compost? Definitely a Nazi! You didn’t post a black square fast enough? You’re basically Goebbels with a ring light. Your uncle still uses Facebook and forwards cat memes from 2012? Ultra-Nazi! (he might be running a shadow dictatorship from his recliner).

Why stop there? Let’s go full frikkin’ bingo card. He’s Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Mussolini, Stalin, Osama bin Laden, Rasputin, Kim Jong-il, John Wayne Gacy—plus Hitler, with a side of gluten. If they vote differently than you, they’re not just wrong, they’re a genocidal maniac with a mustache and body count.

At this point, the only way to avoid being labeled a Nazi is to publicly confess your sins before breakfast and livestream your wokeness verification test administered by a freelance activist with a ring nose and a TikTok channel. One wrong answer? Congratulations—you’re trending, and not in a good way.

The worst part? We’re not even mad anymore. We’re addicted to the moral high. To the rush of being right. To the echo-chamber applause that says, “Yes, queen, call them out!” as if emotional arson is a civic duty. You can’t pay rent, but you can cancel someone. Justice!

But here’s the thing—when everyone’s a Nazi, no one is. You cheapen the horror. You drain the history. And you make it easier for real monsters to hide behind the costume jewelry of your outrage. When the word means anyone, it protects everyone—even the ones it was meant to expose.

We’re not building a better world. We’re reenacting trauma theater with emojis and hashtags. No script, no intermission, no conscience. Just a never-ending digital Hunger Games where the winner is whoever screams the loudest while holding a latte.

No victims. Only volunteers.

So, if your strategy for justice is shouting “Nazi!” at a PTA meeting or accusing your Uber driver of fascism for taking the wrong route—maybe take a beat. Step outside. Touch some grass. Call your grandmother. Read a history book. Then ask yourself: Am I helping? Or am I just performing righteousness for likes and digital headpats?

Because while you're busy canceling your ex-boyfriend's podcast and accusing your dentist of eugenics for overusing fluoride, the real fascists are quietly organizing. They’re boring, well-funded, terrifyingly focused, and very scary. They’re not on TikTok. They’re not live-streaming their outrage. They’re writing policy, buying influence, and laughing at our circus – right under our noses.

Meanwhile, we’ve turned the word “Nazi” into a kitchen sponge—overused, over-wrung, and reeking of moral mildew. We scream the label like it’s a game of woke Duck Duck Goose—except now it’s Duck Duck Death Camp and everyone’s tagged.

If there’s any hope left, it’s in remembering what actual evil looks like—not petty, not viral, not just someone you disagree with at Thanksgiving. The real thing. The quiet build. The erosion of freedoms. The machinery behind the curtain.

Otherwise, we’ll keep screaming at shadows while the real devils buy more power, more silence, and more time.

So, stop. Take a breath. Laugh at the absurdity. Cry at the reality – and Vomit if you must.

But most of all—think.

Because history has enough villains. We don’t need cosplay ones.

Chapter VI – The Cult of Identity (And the Death of Individuals)

Let’s get something straight Sports Fans - identity used to be who you were—a complex, chaotic, evolving story. Now it’s a downloadable badge, a pre-fab label, and a performance piece written in hashtags and mood-board fonts. We’ve gone from "I think, therefore I am" to "I hashtag, therefore I’m valid."

Welcome to the Cult of Identity—where your worth is defined not by your character, ideas, or courage, but by the number of checkboxes you tick on a Diversity Bingo card. It’s a world where introspection is passé, victimhood is currency, and the most oppressed wins the mic.

In this new gospel, individuality is heresy. Complexity is a liability. If you dare say, “Actually, I don’t see myself entirely through that lens,” you’ve committed thoughtcrime. There’s no room for nuance—just flags, pins, bios, and disclaimers. And let’s not forget the LinkedIn warriors whose personal pronouns are longer than their resumes.

The irony? This is marketed as liberation. But it feels a lot more like a very stylish prison. One where you’re encouraged to decorate your cell, host panels about your cell, get sponsors for your cell—but God forbid you ever walk out of it. Because freedom means risk. And risk gets you unfollowed. Or worse—de-platformed by a bot moderator named Chad who once got canceled for liking a Joe Rogan post.

It’s like Robin Williams in a straitjacket doing Shakespeare on TikTok. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and a little bit insane. Because somewhere between self-discovery and self-obsession, we lost the plot. We traded identity for identity merch. We went from asking, “Who am I?” to shouting, “LOOK AT ME!”

The death of the individual isn’t some Orwellian conspiracy—it’s a TikTok trend. Watch as millions perform their pain for algorithms that turn trauma into traffic. Watch as the next generation gets taught that speaking in I-statements is selfish, and collectivist rage is “authentic expression.”

And woe to you if you try to change. If you evolve? You’re “inauthentic.” If you stay the same? You’re “problematic.” Basically, if you breathe, you better do it with a trigger warning.

The Cult doesn’t want resolution. It wants perpetual tension—because peace doesn’t post well. The Cult doesn’t want you to heal. It wants you to identify, narrate, re-identify, and monetize that narrative like a startup founder with a trauma pitch deck. Shark Tank meets group therapy. “For that reason, I’m out.”

God help you if you’re a boring human. If you’re middle-aged, middle-income, neurotypical, unremarkably heterosexual, spiritually agnostic, and fond of dogs and decaf—you are the enemy of relevance. Your identity doesn’t trend. You don’t belong on the brochure. You’re not even a guest star in your own life. You’re the control group.

No victims. Only volunteers.

We’re not saying identity doesn’t matter. Of course it does. But it’s not all that matters. There’s a deeper question—one the cult doesn’t want you to ask: What do you believe? What do you do? Who do you love? What are you building? What have you survived? Not what label fits you best, but what light burns inside you despite the world’s lazy categorizations.

Because identity isn’t a filter—it’s a foundation. And foundations don’t trend.

We can honor history without becoming its hostage. We can celebrate difference without becoming a parody of ourselves. And we can resist oppression without outsourcing our identity to algorithms and activist-influencers who wouldn’t know introspection if it smacked them with a hardcover Baldwin.

Put up. Or shut up. Because real strength doesn’t need applause. Real identity doesn’t need a slogan. Real people don’t need a permission slip to be who they are.

You are not your pronouns. You are not your hashtags. You are not your trauma score. You are not a marketing segment.

You’re a damn person.

And the world needs more of those.

As Frank might’ve said: “You’re not your tribe, your trauma, or your trending topics—you’re a whole damn orchestra. So quit playing the same broken record and start composing your own damn symphony.”

Chapter VII – Triggernometry 101: How Safe Spaces Became Deadly

Once upon a time, a "safe space" meant something kind. A nook in the storm. A room where you could cry, exhale, say the hard thing. But like your favorite indie band or your grandma’s cookie recipe, it got hijacked by the Culture Industrial Complex and turned into a smoldering crater of irony and unintentional comedy.

Today’s safe space isn’t safe. It’s a biohazard. It’s emotional asbestos. The only thing safe is your right to never be challenged—so long as you agree with everyone else in the room. One wrong word, one side-eye emoji, and you're toast. Or more accurately, you're the toast that identifies as gluten-free but got cross-contaminated by an offensive syllable.

And God help the brave soul who asks, “Are we sure this is a good idea?” That’s it. That’s the whole war crime. You might as well goose-step into the faculty lounge wearing a ‘Live Laugh Love’ t-shirt and a MAGA hat while handing out Chick-fil-A coupons.

Safe spaces became minefields the minute we mistook comfort for truth. Now they’re padded cells lined with TED Talk slogans and lavender-scented rage. They promise security but deliver suppression. Because when you wrap every idea in bubble wrap, eventually the truth suffocates too.

We’ve institutionalized fragility. Institutionalized it! Made it an entire cottage industry. You can major in it. Monetize it. Put it in your Twitter bio with a hotline number and a tip jar. "Hi, I’m Jules. My pronouns are they/them, and I’m triggered by fonts, microaggressions, and any reference to the early 2000s."

And God forbid you make a joke. Humor is now a hate crime. The new comedy club is a university complaint form. You walk in with a punchline; you walk out with a subpoena. Somewhere in the afterlife, Orwell’s updating “1984” in real time, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa are getting flagged for violating community guidelines, and Jesus just got suspended for misinformation.

We’ve got gender-neutral panic buttons. Trigger warnings before episodes of Friends. HR departments issuing demerits for "tone crimes." A manager in Portland was recently placed on leave for saying, and I quote, “Let’s circle back.” Too aggressive. Too patriarchal. Too colonial. They replaced him with a conflict-averse therapy hamster named Moonbeam.

And just when you think it can’t get dumber - colleges now offer emotional support lizards. Not even kidding. A student brought a bearded dragon to a post-election group cry. It wore a sweater. It had pronouns. It received tenure.

There’s a reason we used to call them growing pains. Not content warnings. Growth hurts. Learning is uncomfortable. Being wrong is supposed to suck. It’s how adults emerge from children, how steel is forged, how a democracy survives. Not with fainting couches, but with friction.

We’ve got professors afraid to teach Shakespeare. Comics afraid to tell jokes. CEOs with burner accounts just to share an honest thought. Because in these minefields, even intention gets prosecuted. Your apology is a confession. Your silence is complicity. Your nuance is a war crime.

What was once empathy is now enforcement. A weaponized tenderness. We’re not healing—we’re policing tone, hunting deviation, and auditing each other’s trauma credentials like TSA agents for feelings.

And the absurdity is biblical. Universities now offer petting zoos to calm down students traumatized by political debates. HR departments hand out coloring books. Coloring books! Because nothing says workforce readiness like a 38-year-old CFO weeping into a picture of a unicorn because someone disagreed with their Slack post. I once saw a barista have a full-blown existential meltdown because a customer (me) asked for milk instead of a soy beverage.

The milk, by the way, was whole. Apparently, these days that’s hate speech.

No victims. Only volunteers.

The tragic punchline? The people these minefields supposedly protect? They’re not thriving. They’re anxious, medicated, suicidal, and pissed. Because coddling doesn’t breed strength. It breeds resentment. And when you wrap people in trauma bubble wrap, the world becomes an allergy.

Want a real safe space? Build a world where people can speak freely, listen bravely, and screw up without being publicly executed by the algorithm. That’s safety. That’s freedom. That’s courage.

But until then—watch your step. Or better yet, bring dynamite. And maybe a therapist. Preferably one who doesn’t bill by the pronoun. And for God’s sake, leave the hamster at home - unless he can do your taxes.

Chapter VIII – The Fetishization of Failure

Somewhere along the line, we stopped rewarding success and started fetishizing failure like it was a kink on OnlyFans. Not the fun kind. The kind filmed in a moldy studio apartment where everyone’s crying, but still trying to sell you a mug that says “Progress, Not Perfection.” If you’ve stumbled, struggled, or screwed up epically—congratulations! You're now a thought leader. Bonus points if you did it publicly and wrote a Medium post about it while sipping kombucha in a reclaimed wood co-working space with inspirational quotes in cursive font.

We live in a culture where failure isn’t just a step—it’s the whole damn staircase. No one wants to climb anymore. They want to trip, land in a pile of self-doubt, Instagram the bruises, and hashtag it #resilience. Forget grit. Forget perseverance. All you need now is a good therapist, a podcast, a Patreon, and a line of self-soothing merch. Want to be a brand? Start with a breakdown.

Failure used to be something you overcame. Now it’s something you monetize. Whole careers are built around the trauma-industrial complex. Lose your job? Start a coaching business for people who lost their jobs. Get dumped? Launch a TED Talk called "How My Divorce Taught Me to Love My Inner Dragon.” Bomb a startup? Congratulations—you’re now a “serial entrepreneur” with a GoFundMe for your spiritual awakening and an NFT of your emotional wreckage.

We used to celebrate the comeback. Now we just loop the breakdown. With filters.

And let’s be honest—this isn’t humility. It’s performance porn. It’s cultural masochism. It’s political voyeurism. Pain has become the punchline and the paycheck. We're all starring in our own emotional snuff film, live-streaming our meltdowns and calling it growth. We’ve turned therapy into theater. Trauma into TED. And shame into a side hustle.

We’ve crossed the line where even tragedy is content. Killing people up close like it’s reality TV—because it is reality TV now. Every drone strike is livestreamed with a timestamp. Every war crime’s got a retweet button. And while bodies drop, we suicide-scroll 24/7 through our socials, feeding our sickness with algorithmic gore like it’s a new fetish—one we can’t admit, but keep coming back to. Tap. Watch. Wince. Repeat.

You want real failure? Try building something for ten years and watching it fall apart in a week. Try facing bankruptcy with two kids and no Plan B. Try surviving cancer, then being told you’re not “trauma-informed enough” to speak on a panel. That’s failure. The rest? It’s curated collapse. Trauma cosplay for likes and speaking gigs.

No victims. Only volunteers.

And while you’re busy eroticizing your own destruction, the world’s burning around you. LA is a dystopian Netflix pilot. D.C. is political theater with bad actors and even worse script notes. Ukraine and Israel are drone-snuff zones with maiming and death streamed in real-time to our iPhones. And we’re all eating popcorn, posting hashtags, and binge-watching the death-scroll apocalypse like it’s season four of a reality show called Dancing with the Drones: Bloodbath Ballroom Edition.

Iran’s boiling. Congress is a low-class kindergarten fight club. Red vs. Blue has become the longest-running improv tragedy in history. And the most divisive thing you can do now? Ask people to stop posting about their pain long enough to hug their kids or water their garden. We used to tend our gardens. Now we tend brands. Pain-forward, outrage-enhanced, algorithm-approved brands.

This isn’t a call to shame failure—it’s a call to stop worshiping it. To stop building shrines to breakdowns. Struggle is real, but it’s not a résumé. Stop selling us your wounds like miracle cures. We don’t need another sob story turned six-figure summit. We need quiet strength. We need people who dust themselves off without a merch drop.

Put up. Or shut up.

Fail. Learn. Move the hell on. Because if your pain is your brand, then what’s your plan when you heal?

You’re not your rock bottom. You’re the climb back up. But only if you start climbing.

Now if you’ll excuse me—I’m going to go hug my family and prune the hell out of my roses before someone tries to turn that into a trauma memoir.

Chapter IX – The Gospel of Grievance: Monetizing Outrage, One Hashtag at a Time

Once upon a meltdown, we discovered something glorious: outrage pays. Not just emotionally, not spiritually, but cold, hard, algorithmically optimized cash. In the old days, you needed a job, a skill, maybe a sense of purpose. Now? All you need is an indignation pipeline, a handful of trending topics, and the ability to weaponize your trauma like it’s a Super Bowl commercial.

Welcome to the outrage economy—where your pain is a product, your enemies are engagement, and victimhood is the new Ivy League. And the best part? You don’t even have to be a victim. Just look like one. Sound like one. Feel like one. Post like one. Hashtag it. Pin it. Monetize it.

You don’t need a degree, just a dark backstory and a ring light. Want to skip the line at life? Claim oppression in three easy steps. Bonus points if you can cry on cue—extra bonus if you can cry and sell merch mid-tears.

We’re all in the grievance game now. Red states, blue states, vegans, gun owners, yoga moms, coal miners, astrology influencers, and anarchist baristas - everyone has their own sacred outrage. Even your neighbor with the unwashed Subaru and 12 bumper stickers has a TikTok series now: "Diary of a Lactose-Free Revolutionary."

And the more performative the rage, the higher the click-through rate. Who needs unity when division drives traffic? Every debate is a death match. Every disagreement is a hate crime. There’s no such thing as “bad press” when your follower count climbs every time someone calls you a bigot, or a snowflake, or both.

We’ve turned our national dialogue into a professional wrestling match—just with more microphones and less athleticism. And just like pro wrestling, everyone’s in on the grift. Cable news books the grudge matches. Social media sells the popcorn. And behind the curtain, the real winners cash in while the rest of us scream into the void. It’s kayfabe for politics, and everyone’s cutting promos.

You see it everywhere: online shop bios that read like war memorials. “Survivor of toxic work culture. Advocate for emotional labor. Purveyor of ethically-sourced vengeance.” Subtweet martyrdom is the new diplomacy. Burn someone in your story, light a candle in your merch store.

And hey—shoutout to my Sports Fans: you’ve perfected the genre. Every rivalry is now existential. Your team didn’t just lose—they were assassinated by systemic bias and a corrupt league. And don’t even get me started on the fantasy football therapists and playoff grief circles.

The real tragedy? Real grievances do exist. Real injustice is out there. But it's getting drowned in the cacophony of faux-outrage influencers cosplaying revolution from an Airbnb in Tulum. Posting selfies in their Che Guevara bikinis while dictating manifestos on an iPhone 16 Pro Max.

In the gospel of grievance, forgiveness is blasphemy. Resolution is a sellout. The algorithm wants rage, so rage is what you deliver. Morning, noon, and doom-scroll. You’re not allowed to move on. You have to relive it, repost it, repurpose it. Turn your trauma into content. Don’t heal—monetize.

Remember when we tried to build bridges? Now we build bonfires. Burn it all, stream it live, and pin it to your profile.

No victims. Only volunteers.

You want to change the world? Start by logging off. Start by listening. Start by not being professionally offended for a living. There's no prize at the end of this rage-a-thon. No trophy for most morally outraged. Just burnout, bitterness, and another episode of cultural cannibalism livestreamed on your favorite app.

Welcome to America: land of the free, home of the perpetually pissed off. Where every day’s a Twitter fight, every night’s a Facebook funeral, and every morning you wake up wondering, “Whose reputation are we destroying over breakfast?”

Tune in next week for Trigger Happy: Reloaded, brought to you by the same people who monetized your last meltdown and sold it as a “healing journey.”

Chapter X – You’re Canceled Sweetheart: America’s Favorite New Team Sport

Once upon a time, you had to do something truly vile to get banished from polite society. Now? All it takes is mentioning Trump in anything less than a hex, praising Elon Musk without a trigger warning, being a straight wealthy white male, identifying as Republican, forgetting to post a DEI statement, having a traditional family, practicing an organized religion, dressing too well, owning a home in the wrong zip code—or, heaven forbid—asking questions. Especially the kind that begin with "Why" or "What if." The nerve of some people. Welcome to the new blacklist, curated by groupthink and delivered straight to your inbox by an algorithm with trust issues.

Welcome to Cancel Culture, the national pastime where facts don’t matter, context is contraband, and mercy is for suckers. This isn’t justice—it’s bloodsport. Think dodgeball meets Salem, with a side of Yelp reviews and a ten-minute Vice doc about your downfall.

And just like any good American sport, there are rules. Except nobody tells you what they are until you’ve broken them. It’s Calvinball for the morally superior—every move counts, unless you’re in the wrong jersey. Then it's game over, sweetheart.

See, in the old days, we burned witches. Now we cancel baristas. Or authors. Or scientists. Or your Aunt Janice who posted the wrong meme before brunch. Didn’t use the updated acronym? Didn’t pre-apologize for your ancestry? Forgot to cite three trauma-informed footnotes before sharing a thought? Cancelled. De-platformed. Digital pariah. Enjoy the exile. We hope you’ve downloaded the GoFundMe app.

Because in 2025 America, cancellation isn’t just a punishment—it’s performance art. There’s a choreography to it now:

• Step 1: Find the villain.
• Step 2: Flood the feed.
• Step 3: Demand the apology.
• Step 4: Reject the apology.
• Step 5: Profit.

And oh, do we love the profit. Whole industries thrive on it. Consultants, TikTok explainers, DEI whisperers, PR assassins—they all eat at the banquet of the damned. Your misstep is someone else’s business model. Cancel culture is a jobs program for the perpetually outraged and terminally online.

It’s also… fun. Let’s admit it. Canceling someone feels good. It’s the dopamine rush of public shaming without ever leaving your sweatpants. You get to play God with a WiFi signal and a sense of moral superiority so inflated it needs its own parking space.

And my beloved Sports Fans? You’re in on it too. Your team’s rival says something spicy at a press conference? Time to launch a forensic deep-dive on their high school yearbook. Let the games begin. The whole country’s a stadium now, and everyone’s a heckler with a Harvard-level opinion on character assassination.

But here’s the twist in this dark comedy: we all have skeletons. We all have receipts. And we’re all one bad screen grab away from being next. You’re not safe. I’m not safe. Even your cat’s Instagram account could be problematic by next Tuesday.

There’s no redemption arc in Cancel Culture. No comeback tour. No “my bad” with a sincere hug. You’re done. Your sponsors drop you. Your employer panics. Your college revokes your honorary degree. Your dog’s walker ghosts you. And your legacy? Reduced to a six-second clip edited by someone who wasn’t even born when you made the mistake.

No victims. Only volunteers.

You want to survive this team sport? Learn the playbook. Stay silent. Stay safe. Or better yet—play dirty. Get ahead of your own cancellation. Leak your own emails. Write your own takedown piece. Call yourself problematic before anyone else can. It’s defensive canceling, and it’s the new black.

So, next time someone asks how you’re doing, smile sweetly and say, “Not canceled - Yet.”

And if you do get canceled? Make merch. Start a podcast. Pitch Netflix. America loves a martyr—until next week’s scandal breaks and your pitch deck’s already stale.

Welcome to the show, sweetheart. You’re canceled. Now juggle flaming chainsaws on TikTok, cry into your ring light, and don’t forget to hashtag your downfall. The crowd’s thirsty, your sponsors ghosted, and your OnlyFans link better be working—because dignity just got demonetized. Smile big, America’s watching. This is your 15 minutes of shame, and your Google past is forever.

And here’s the part that really hurts—some of these people we’ve canceled? We should have helped. We should’ve reached out, asked questions, shown grace. Instead, we laughed. We retweeted their public meltdown, memed their apologies, cheered as their lives crumbled like a reality show elimination. Shame on us.

Ask yourself: do you remember the 1950s McCarthy witch hunts, or do you just choose to have selective amnesia? Thousands of careers destroyed, families shattered, artists exiled, a country divided, all in the name of “national purity”. We said, “never again.” Over and over we say “never again”. And yet—look around. We’re right back in the arena. Just swap out communism for “problematic,” and torches for smartphones. The scripts change, but the mob never sleeps.

Do we really have such short memories? Are we really that stupid? Because the bad guys didn’t win back then—we let them. We let fear win. And now we’re letting it happen again. Not because we’re evil, but because outrage is easier than empathy. Shaming someone is easier than listening. Canceling them is easier than helping them grow. Our rife epidemic of “Rectal Myopia” (your head stuck up your a**) is a very comfortable place to be. I have my head in the sand, so I must be invisible, and so is everything around me.

Maybe the real cancellation is our collective conscience. Lights out. Curtains drawn. Echo chamber secured. All that’s left is the sound of one more life imploding while we click “like” and move on to the next sacrifice.

Chapter XI – Exit the Stage (or Burn the Script)

You’ve been canceled, shamed, meme’d, streamed, dry-cleaned and live-Tweeted into oblivion. Now what? Do you slink away into obscurity, become a footnote in someone else’s Reddit thread? Or do you tear up the script, flip the spotlight, and rewrite the ending yourself?

Because here’s the dirty little secret: the curtain call is yours to decide. You can walk off with your dignity, or torch the whole theater on your way out—and maybe salt the earth, just to make sure no one builds another TikTok thinkpiece shack on your ashes.

In the golden age of performative outrage, exiting quietly is considered suspicious. Apologizing is weakness. Staying silent is guilt. Speaking too soon is arrogance. Waiting too long is manipulation. You see the trap? It's a Rube Goldberg machine of shame, and you’re the hamster.

So, burn the damn script.

No, seriously. Roast it. The script they wrote for you—the contrite blog post, the teary YouTube apology, the “I’ve grown from this” tour complete with sad trombone music and ring light tears? Throw it in the bonfire and roast marshmallows over it. Make s’mores and feed them to the ghost of your canceled self.

You don’t need a redemption arc written by people who never believed in you to begin with. Especially not the ones who spell “resilience” with a hashtag and sell $29 PDFs called “Healing Through Accountability.”

Because maybe—just maybe—the real rebellion isn’t groveling. It’s living. Loudly. Honestly. Unapologetically. With humor. With grit. With grace. With your receipts in one hand and a bourbon in the other. And maybe a good cigar, because cancel culture hates tobacco almost as much as it hates nuance.

The exit isn’t shame—it’s freedom.

And freedom is funny. Darkly funny. Like watching your own trial on CNN and realizing the jury’s been replaced by TikTok influencers, HR interns, and people who list “Empath” as their career on LinkedIn. Like being escorted out of your own life by people in pastel blazers who majored in Feelings with a minor in Clapbacks and now run workshops on how to “de-center your truth.”

So, go ahead, laugh through the tears. Cry while you laugh. This is emotional CrossFit for the 21st century soul. No machines. Just raw pain, irony, and the haunting realization that your reputation depends on whether or not someone screen-recorded your facial expression during a panel in 2014.

Cancel culture doesn’t care about facts—it cares about vibes. It rewards outrage and punishes subtlety. If your story doesn’t fit the archetype of the fallen hero or groveling villain, then you don’t get a second act—you get a bootleg DVD on eBay titled “Problematic: The Cautionary Tale.”

So, mock them. Mourn them. Move past them.

The real sin isn’t what you said—it’s that you didn’t beg hard enough to be allowed to say it. That you didn’t join the prayer circle of consensus, light a candle to the gods of performative purity, and cry on cue. Well, screw that. There’s no sainthood for survivors in this bloodsport. Just scars—and one hell of a story.

So, exit the stage. Or kick over the teleprompter, blow a kiss to the audience, moon the critics, and remind them: this was your story all along. No edits. No footnotes. No focus group. Just fire.

No victims. Only Volunteers.

Chapter XII – What Would Frank Do?

Hell, Sports Fans - I’m coming in hotter than a congressional meltdown on C-SPAN.

Frank would say this: stop watching the dumpster fire and start putting it out. Because if you're not drenched in smoke and shame by now, you're not paying attention.

Look at LA - once a city of dreams, now a performance-art apocalypse with valet parking and AI-generated urine maps. Look at Ukraine—war streamed in 4K, drone strikes crossfaded like a Marvel montage, and narrated by influencers with “war aesthetic” moodboards. Look at our own backyard, where Blues and Reds bludgeon each other with soundbites and bankrupt your children while acting like coked-out infants on psychedelic trauma retreats. They beat their gongs, light their torches, and then ask you to thank them for the performance. On your dime. And your time.

They’re not leaders—they're looters in bespoke suits with $90 haircuts and $900 morality.

And we let them.

No victims. Only volunteers.

We scroll. We sigh. We “stand in solidarity” with the outrage-of-the-week while doing absolutely nothing except nuking microwave popcorn and rage-sharing headlines between bathroom breaks. Our minds are being looted. Our souls? Mortgaged. And our silence? That’s the real theft—a moral foreclosure with your name on the deed.

Want to talk immigration? We all came from somewhere. The only difference? Most of us showed up through the front door—with a suitcase, a dream, and a basic respect for the house. We didn’t break in, scream at the wallpaper, post ourselves on social-media and demand dessert. We brought a dish and we shared with everyone – and then we offered to do the damn dishes.

Frank would tell you to stop journaling your outrage and start sandblasting it into action. Burn your hashtags. Grab a hammer. Fix something. Fight for something. Volunteer for a local cause. Run for office. Hug your kid without a screen between you. Go visit your dad and mom (or cherish their memories) before another AI chatbot replaces them altogether.

The time for commentary is over. The intermission has ended. And if you’re still waiting for a hero - look in the mirror. If we don’t get onstage now, we deserve the finale we’re barreling toward—and spoiler alert - it not only doesn’t end with a standing ovation, it ends badly – very badly.

So, put up or shut up, Sports Fans. This isn’t a scrimmage. It’s the soul of the Country. Game on - it’s fourth down and forever.

We are not Victims - And we do not volunteer.

Chapter XIII – The Veritas Way

So, what now? After the cancel mobs, the drone wars, the moral collapse, and your neighbor’s 8-year-old lecturing you about your carbon footprint while sipping from a juice pouch made by slave labor in a country we pretend doesn’t exist? What’s left?

Clarity. Sanity. Veritas.

The Veritas Way isn’t a program. It’s not a TED Talk. It’s not downloadable. It sure as hell isn’t trendy. It’s the opposite of everything that got us into this mess: It’s real. Earned. Grounded in action, not hashtags.

Here’s the Veritas Way:

• Tell the truth—even if it costs you. Especially if it costs you.
• Pay people for performance. Not politics. Not popularity. Not PR.
• Keep your metrics clean and your ethics cleaner.
• Laugh loudly. Lead with courage. And for God’s sake, get out of your own echo chamber.
• Don’t be the smartest person in the room. Be the most curious.
• Leave the world better than you found it - or at least leave fewer messes.

And above all? Show up. Not performatively. Not virtually. Actually.

Veritas isn’t perfect. It’s not polished. But it’s honest. And right now, honesty is the rarest currency we’ve got.

If you made it this far, congratulations. You still believe something can change. That means you’re either stubborn, delusional, or deeply committed to not letting this whole carnival go up in flames.

Good - You’re our kind of people.

Epilogue – Vox Populi: The Final Warning

So, here we are. All out of safe words. No more commercial breaks. The algorithm’s out of empathy, the feed’s gone feral, and your Echo Dot just sighed at you in disappointment. The American experiment has become a group therapy session held in a burning McDonald’s.

We used to disagree and debate. Now we just cancel, clap back, and livestream the takedown. The mob isn't coming—it's already here. It's holding your phone, laughing at your memes, and using your identity as an NFT collateralized by likes.

This isn’t politics anymore—it’s performance art with a body count. It’s war tourism for the emotionally bored. It’s a culture so desperate for dopamine we binge-watch civilizational collapse like it’s the new season of Succession. Spoiler alert: in this finale, everyone dies a little bit dumber.

We laugh while we burn. Cry while we scroll. We throw punches at shadows and wonder why it still hurts. Meanwhile, the real villains take another victory lap in silence—undisturbed, unfired, and overpaid.

But there’s still time. Not much—but enough.

You don’t have to fix the whole damn system. Just don’t feed it. Don’t applaud the madness. Don’t join the mob. And if you see someone being ripped apart for a bad joke or a 10-year-old post, throw them a rope—not a rock.

The voice of the people used to mean something. It still can. But only if we use it before it’s replaced with a perfectly optimized AI-generated Deep-Fake echo of what we used to care about.

Speak up. Stand up. Show up.

This isn’t the end - It’s the callback.

Now go - go make some noise.

Welcome to Vox Populi……

FBG (Dedicated to all those incredible single mothers raising the future of our Country, especially the one that lives in the wilds of Turlock, CA..)

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PS: If this piece made you laugh, nod in agreement, or mutter “he’s talking about me behind my back, isn’t he?”—I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at fglassner@veritasecc.com. I personally read and reply to every message—no assistants, no AI, just me (usually with a strong espresso in hand). Whether you’re a board member, CEO, CFO, burned-out executive, investment banker, activist shareholder, client, consultant, lawyer, accountant, ex-wife, one of my beloved twin sons, AI Bot, or just a fellow traveler in the great corporate circus, I welcome the conversation.

Thanks!