Do you remember when we used to admire, maybe even brag about, American exceptionalism? Where are we now? Who have we become?

We’re being dragged into a recession that could be worse than anything anyone alive has seen, and it’s all because of this absurd, backwards tariff mess that makes zero economic sense. If we don’t reverse it immediately, we’re going to feel the impact for decades.

But honestly, the economics aren’t even the part that makes me the angriest. Yeah, it’s infuriating that people running the show don’t seem to understand the most basic macroeconomic principles, shit that’s literally taught in high school, but what really gets under my skin is that none of this makes sense unless you see it for what it really is: white nationalism. At its core, that’s what’s driving all of it. Racism. Full stop.

The Trump administration didn’t roll out the whole “Make America Great Again” schtick by focusing on fiscal policy. It started with domestic policy: immigration, borders, who gets to belong. We’re disappearing people. Let me say that again: there are federal forces out there literally grabbing people off the street under the cover of immigration control. That’s not a conspiracy theory. There are videos. It’s happening. This smells way too close to a secret police for comfort.

We’re canceling visas for people who are here legally. We’ve got an administration that’s perfectly fine shipping people out on military planes, sending them off to god knows where—some of which are under military or pseudo-military authority. For Christ’s sake, we’re supposed to be hosting the goddamn Olympics, and we’re out here deporting people who’ve lived here, studied here, contributed here. We’ve created a culture that encourages cruelty, that tells the worst parts of humanity it’s okay to act on their hate. We’ve empowered people to tell others they don’t belong, and now we’re finding out that some of the people being told to “go back” are American citizens. Where the fuck are you gonna deport an American citizen to?

I’m just so fucking pissed off at everything this administration stands for. I am beyond done. This doesn’t feel like the republic we once believed in. This feels like the fall. This is the crisis stage. We are watching the collapse of what used to be, and the tariffs? The trade destruction? That’s just the scorched earth strategy. But instead of bombs, they’re using policies.

I used to love reading dystopian science fiction. One of my favorites was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, not because I stumbled across the book by chance, but because I loved Blade Runner. That movie sent me down the rabbit hole. The Silo trilogy: Wool, Shift, Dust… the hunger games, station eleven, and of course the biggest of them all (presumably the blueprint of our current administration) 1984. People thrown into hellish, claustrophobic worlds they didn’t create, suffering the consequences of decisions made by long-dead generations. I loved that tension, that survival instinct, that push to reclaim some sense of purpose in a broken world.

But now?

I don’t read dystopia anymore. I can’t. It doesn’t feel like fiction. It feels like the world we’re living in, and I need peace wherever I can find it.

Elder millennials like me, we joke a lot—about how out of touch boomers are, how they got the world handed to them on a silver platter. It’s funny until it’s not. The truth behind the joke is a gut punch: they didn’t just live well off the land—they extracted, exploited, monetized every last bit of it. And now? Now they’re burning down the very currency they built their wealth on. It’s not enough to take everything. They’re making damn sure there’s nothing left for anyone who comes after.

Even The Lorax feels like a documentary now. Dr. Seuss was out here decades ago telling us exactly what would happen. Cut down every tree, pollute every stream, monetize the air, and then stand there wide-eyed and devastated when the last thing is gone. And instead of planting seeds, instead of owning the damage and helping fix it, the response is to lash out. Blame everyone else. Take more. Hurt more. It’s the most toddler-level approach to conflict I’ve ever seen.

The dystopia isn’t coming. It’s here.

Trump is the old man at the end of There Will Be Blood. He stole from everyone and then shit on them. He drank everyone’s milkshake. And I think what it really means is that Vladimir Putin drank our milkshake.