For the better part of a decade, the ruling class and their corporate media lapdogs have executed a masterclass in divide and conquer. They have successfully weaponized social media algorithms to ensure that you hate your neighbor over issues that, statistically speaking, will never impact your daily life. The machine thrives on outrage, moral signaling, and tribal affiliation, turning entirely niche issues into existential worldview clashes while the state quietly builds a panopticon in our backyards.
We have been conditioned to tear each other apart over superficialities. Whether it is a statue of a long-dead politician in a city park or corporate HR departments mandating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion trainings, the establishment hands down the scripts and the masses predictably read their lines.
Look at the absolute hysteria surrounding transgender athletes in college sports. If you measure the outrage by the sheer volume of screaming online, you would think this is the most pressing crisis in human history. Yet, as NCAA President Charlie Baker recently testified, out of more than 510,000 collegiate competitors, there are fewer than 10 known transgender student-athletes.
Millions of people are devoting countless hours of their fleeting lives to wage digital warfare over an issue that affects less than 0.002 percent of the athletic population. The same goes for the compelled use of pronouns and the endless online battles over misgendering. Trans-identifying individuals make up barely one percent of the population, meaning the average adult can go months or years without ever encountering a situation where pronoun enforcement dictates their reality.
Yet corporate HR policies and viral confrontation videos keep the flames fanned, pitting individual conscience against institutional demands while the people in power laugh all the way to the bank. These issues are specifically designed to keep the masses at each other’s throats. As long as the left and the right are busy fighting over who uses which bathroom or whether a piece of bronze should be melted down, they are completely ignoring the boot on both of their necks.
But a profound shift is happening, and the establishment is terrified. Despite the billions spent on propaganda to keep us divided, there is one undeniable issue that is bringing society back together: our shared disdain for the surveillance state. It turns out that making an argument for the government to track your every move, log your license plates, and listen to your conversations is pretty difficult to do without sounding like a complete tyrant.
Regardless of which flavor of freedom you prefer, the realization that the surveillance state is the enemy of all peaceful people is finally taking root. My account on Twitter/X is notoriously shadowbanned, artificially throttled by the algorithms to keep this exact anti-authoritarian message from reaching the masses. Yet, I recently posted a meme about a man destroying Flock safety cameras and pleading not guilty on the grounds that mass surveillance violates our fundamental rights.
Hellbound and Down 