Before you read this, understand this is not an invitation to debate my humanity, my discernment, or my devotion to the dignity of all people. I know how easily critique is dismissed when it comes from someone unwilling to stay silent.

I write this with full awareness that people I know, people near me, and even some who say they love me, may disagree. That’s fine. I’m not here for applause. I’m not here for arguments, either. I’ve seen enough to draw my own conclusions. And I’ve learned the hard way to spend my energy with care.

This piece is for those still listening with their whole spirit. For those with eyes open and a heart not yet hardened. For those trying to build something better, not just for themselves, but for everyone.

If that’s not you, move along in peace.
But if it is, read slowly. And let it reach you.

 

The lie isn’t freedom. It’s that this was ever free.

America isn’t broken. It is functioning with chilling precision. What looks like chaos is choreography. The gears still turn, but only in service of extraction, consolidation, and erasure. This is not failure. This is fulfillment. For generations, the machinery of American power has been engineered to reward obedience, exploit suffering, and rebrand cruelty as policy. It never required consent. Just compliance.

We are not watching the decay of a republic. We are watching the final stage of its monetization.

When Brown University quietly agreed to pay $50 million over 10 years to the Trump administration in order to restore federal research funding, most people shrugged. But the implications are seismic. One of the world’s leading academic institutions essentially paid ransom to maintain access to public resources. Not because it was criminal. But because it was legal. That’s the tell. That’s the game.

This is what racketeering looks like when it has a legal team and a logo. It is not hidden. It is televised. The Constitution is quoted like a sales script while justice is auctioned to the highest bidder. This is not a government. It is a stage production. The audience just happens to live inside it.

What we’re witnessing is not governance. It is a protection racket with executive privilege. This country does not fail the most vulnerable by mistake. It fails us by design. The rot was never around the edges. It was always in the blueprint. The enslavement of Black people, the theft of Indigenous land, the genocide, internment, exploitation, surveillance, and silencing of marginalized communities are not bugs in the code. They are the operating system.

To understand America is to understand that cruelty is not a glitch. It is currency.

So now, institutions once tasked with serving the public have become bargaining chips in a sprawling, state-sanctioned shakedown. Every policy is a lever. Every budget is a threat. Dissent is punished. Compliance is negotiated. Brown University was just the polished, Ivy League version of the same message communities of color have heard for centuries. Fall in line or fall apart.

This is RICO-level corruption without the inconvenience of prosecution. Because when the system is the crime, there is no justice to appeal to.

At this very moment Republican senators such as Ron Johnson and Rick Scott are fighting to block a ban on insider trading for elected officials while they remain in office. A bill called the Honest Act advanced out of Senate committee on a narrow 8‑7 vote, led by Sen. Josh Hawley and backed by Democrats. Most Republicans opposed it. Senator Rick Scott called the effort an attack on the wealthy and said people should not be punished for making money. Senator Johnson similarly voted against it in committee. Scott even pushed amendments to review decades of trading by Nancy Pelosi and her husband. This is not about ethics. It is about preserving access to private profit for the powerful at the expense of public trust.

To be clear, this didn’t start with Trump. He is not the disease. He is a symptom with a better PR team. The truth is harder to swallow. The machine runs smoothly under both red and blue lights. Lobbyists replaced lawmakers years ago. Billionaires don't donate. They invest. And they expect returns. The courts have been seeded with loyalists. The regulatory agencies have been emptied or co-opted. Every safeguard has been hollowed out. And the rest of us are left to fight over language while laws are written in blood and money.

This isn’t governance. It’s governance cosplay. And it’s wearing a gun.

We are told to vote harder. To trust the process. To be patient while our lives are legislated out of reach. But what happens when the process itself is the weapon? What happens when the ballot becomes a pacifier for the public while the powerful never lose?

This country is not failing. It is cashing out. We have billionaires racing to colonize space while the rest of us crowdsource basic survival. We are forced to buy back our own dignity one fundraiser at a time. We are being evicted in real time from the idea of America. And no one is coming to stop it. Because the ones who could stop it are the ones who sold it.

There is nothing accidental about this. There is a playbook. It is brutal in its efficiency:

·       Deceive the public. Call truth fake and feed them fear.

·       Defund public trust. Starve education and blame the hungry.

·       Dismantle safeguards. Flood the courts and fire the regulators.

·       Demonize accountability. Call it radical, call it criminal, call it un-American.

·       Divert and dominate. Sell outrage while hoarding the outcome.

This is not just political rot. It is moral collapse masquerading as economic order. We are governed by middlemen for the ultra-rich. There is no public service. Only public relations. The laws are still printed. But they are no longer followed.

And still, some people would rather side with their own oppressors than lose the illusion of proximity to power. That is how deep the conditioning goes. We have been taught to mistake access for equity. Visibility for value. Familiarity for freedom.

If this sounds bleak, it is. But truth is not meant to soothe. It is meant to wake.

This isn’t just how America treats its citizens. It is also how it treats its allies. The same pay-to-play tactics are exported under the guise of diplomacy. The same financial threats and legal theater are used to bully other governments into silence or complicity. America operates globally like the godfather of a new mob ring. It enforces loyalty through economic coercion while maintaining the illusion of democratic partnerships. Other nations still play by the old rules of optics and consensus. America no longer needs the appearance of legitimacy. It trades in brute reputation. It dares the world to call it what it is.

So what now? What do we do when the map was a myth and the compass was rigged?

We name it. We mourn it. We stop pretending this is sustainable. We stop framing collapse as mismanagement. We stop gaslighting ourselves into believing the empire was ever ours to inherit.

We tell the truth. We protect each other. We build new systems. Small ones. Local ones. Honest ones. Not because they will save us all. But because they might save someone. And in this moment, that is enough.

America isn’t broken. It was sold. And the receipt is still warm.

The question isn’t who broke the system. The question is who still believes it can be fixed. And who is brave enough to build something better when it cannot.