I am angry. That’s probably the most honest thing I can say right now.
I know a lot of us are angry, so this isn’t some cathartic discovery or anything. The anger is real, and consuming, despite whatever mechanisms we’re all taking to vent or suppress it.
I don’t know about you, but venting and suppressing isn’t helping.
I’m a relatively calm guy. I don’t have a temper, or fly off the handle.
I’m not violent. I’ve never been in a fight or laid hands on another human being. The very few times I found myself in a situation that I thought could lead to violence, I was able to remain calm and talk it down. And I’ve always been proud of that.
But I’ve also always had a secret.
There have been many times, more than I could count, that I wanted to be violent. That I wished for an excuse to unleash my anger in a physical altercation against some goon who rightfully deserved it.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt that in my life. But I can tell you the last time.
It was an hour ago.
Most of the time, I feel like such anger is directed at Trump, or the sycophants in his orbit. Or the cosplaying soldiers in the streets of our cities.
But as much as I despise what they are doing, and what they stand for, it’s not actually them that gets me so enraged.
It’s knowing that all of this can end if only enough of us stood up and demanded it.
It’s knowing that all of this horror is going to continue until enough people feel it personally.
It’s knowing that most of us will simply shrug and go about our days, pretending all of this is “just fine” until it’s someone we know or love that gets killed.
The anger that I feel isn’t about the events, it’s about what we are as people.
I’m having a very difficult time understanding why we don’t care more.
And that’s why my anger burns me so much. Who do I direct that at?
I already did the thing where you cut people out. Mostly, I did a lot of quiet quitting on relationships. Sometimes, not so quiet.
I didn’t go to my last high school reunion because I know most of my old classmates cheered from the rooftops in November 2024.
I avoid fraternity gatherings because I’m afraid I’m going to lose my shit if someone starts telling me why we need to “deport them all.”
I ended an almost decade long friendship with someone I considered a brother because one day, he started telling me why the migrants all need to go, and how we’re “a republic, not a democracy.” I tried sticking it out, but everything he ever said after that was colored by his MAGA talking points.
I unfriended and blocked everyone I was connected to that I see supporting them.
And none of that helped. The rage continues.
I am angry. And now I know why.
I’m angry because I feel utterly betrayed.
Not just by any one individual or group. That hurts, but it’s not the core of it.
I’m talking about the kind of betrayal where you realize the world you thought you were living in doesn’t actually exist. Where the moral floor you assumed we shared turns out to be optional.
Who are all these friends and neighbors still waving Trump flags? Who are the people still defending a man who has made it unmistakably clear what he is, and what he’s willing to do to stay in power?
But even that isn’t what burns the most.
What burns is the people who see it. Who acknowledge it. Who say, “Yeah, that’s bad.”
And then go back to their lives as if awareness alone absolves them of responsibility.
Because the pattern is always the same.
We tell ourselves we’ll act when it’s undeniable.
We tell ourselves we’ll act when it’s personal.
We tell ourselves we’ll act when it reaches our doorstep.
And by the time it does, it’s already too late.
The other day, a woman was killed in the street after dropping her kid off at school. She wasn’t protesting. She wasn’t confronting anyone. She was just trying to get home.
If that still feels like someone else’s story, something distant, something you can file away and move past, that’s the moment I don’t understand.
Not because it means you’re evil.
But because it means you’re trusting a system that has already shown you exactly how it works.
That’s the betrayal I’m angry about.
Not that bad people exist.
But that so many good people keep waiting for permission to care.
