Strings attached
The war you didn’t know you were drafted into
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” — John Adams, a dead man who saw the future and tried to warn us.
Act I: Blood on the stage, likes in the feed
A man dies. The bullet tears through skin, through bone, through a jugular, a violent punctuation mark on a speech that will never finish. There’s blood on the floor, panic in the room, sirens in the distance.
And before the paramedics even arrive, before the family is notified, before the last heartbeat flickers and dies…
There are hashtags.
There are memes.
There are posts drafted in gleeful rage and somber performative grief.
There are TikToks with slow-motion edits of the moment the world learned a man had been shot.
Some people are crying.
Some people are celebrating.
Most people are scrolling.
And somewhere, in a boardroom or a penthouse high above the chaos, someone richer than you’ll ever be is swirling a $10,000 glass of wine, smiling.
Because this — this exact spectacle of blood, rage and chaos — is exactly how they want it.
You think this is a tragedy or a victory. They know it’s just really good for business.
Act II: The Hunger Games of public opinion
We’ve been divided into two tribes: Red and Blue. Two teams. Two enemies. Two carefully curated storylines.
But it’s all theater.
The magician cuts the assistant in half while robbing your house behind the curtain.
The playbook is simple:
Give the people an enemy.
A face they can spit on. A name they can curse.Amplify the hate.
Feed it through algorithms. Reward it with dopamine.Encourage their blind loyalty.
Give them leaders to worship, martyrs to mourn and scapegoats to burn.Watch the chaos grow.
Sit back, count the money, sip the wine.
Because while you’re screaming at your neighbor about yard signs and pronouns, the people at the top are quietly writing legislation that screws you both. While you’re canceling a stranger on the internet, they’re canceling the futures of you and everyone you care about.
Act III: The cult of division
Let’s talk about the false prophets — the ones with platforms.
The politicians.
The pundits.
The influencers.
The creators who figured out that fear and hate go viral faster than truth ever will.
They don’t want unity because unity doesn’t get clicks. It doesn’t fill campaign coffers or sell merch.
Teaching us hatred is so damn profitable. So they shove soundbites dripping with venom down our thirsty throats. They smile for the camera while lighting the match that sets our relationships on fire.
And we worship them. We put their faces on t-shirts. We quote them like scripture. We defend them like family, even when they wouldn’t cross the street to piss on us if we were on fire.
Every time you elevate one of these chaos merchants, every time you share their rage-bait clips, every time you let them shape how you see your neighbor — you are volunteering to be a soldier in their war.
You are their product. And you’re paying them to sell you.
Act IV: If you only mourn your own, you’re a pawn
Let me make this simple. Let me make this hurt.
If you only mourn a death when the corpse wears your team colors, you’re part of the problem. If you celebrate a death because the corpse was on the “wrong side,” you’re part of the problem. If you mock someone’s grief, if you meme someone’s pain, if you think empathy is for your team only — you’re a pawn.
Oh, they do love you for it, though.
They don’t care what your ideology is. They care that you have one. They care that you defend it with a fervor so blinding you can no longer see the strings tied around your wrists.
Because when you’re busy mourning your dead and mocking their dead, you’ll never realize you’re all dying together.
Act V: The death of nuance
The most horrifying part of this whole system isn’t even the bloodshed. It’s the erasure of individuality.
You can’t stand for anything anymore without being shoved into a pre-labeled box.
You believe healthcare should be affordable? Oh, you must be one of them.
You think small businesses deserve freedom from overreach? Congrats, you’re one of the others.
You care about climate change but also fiscal conservatism? ERROR: DOES NOT COMPUTE.
There’s no room for contradiction. No room for nuance. No space to be a human being with messy, complicated, deeply personal beliefs.
The second you speak, you are filed away into a tribe you may not have even chosen.
You don’t vote for candidates anymore — you vote for colors. And those colors dictate not just how others see you, but how you’re allowed to see yourself.
We are not people to them. We are chess pieces.
And pawns are made to be sacrificed.
Act VI: The economics of hatred
Hate is profitable. Division is scalable. Conflict is currency.
Every tweet dunking on “the other side?” That’s free marketing for the machine. Every cable news scream-fest? That’s ad revenue. Every meme mocking the dead? That’s another inch of rope tightening around your neck.
And while you bicker sideways, the people at the top move vertically: Up, up, up — higher salaries, higher tax breaks, higher walls to keep you out.
Meanwhile, you’re stuck down here, screaming into the void, mistaking noise for progress. They’ve convinced you to police each other. You’re not just a pawn. You’re a jailer, too.
You keep your neighbor in line. You shame your coworker. You ostracize your family members.
The real villains watch from above, safe and untouchable.
Act VII: Undoing the duopoly
So how do we fight this?
Not with more hate!
We fight by questioning up, relentlessly, unapologetically. We fight by refusing to play their game.
Reject the binary.
Refuse to be shoved into red or blue. Be the glitch in their matrix. Hold beliefs that scare both sides. Make them work to understand you.Starve the machine.
Stop feeding algorithms with outrage clicks. Don’t share their manufactured scandals. Don’t give free labor to the propaganda factories.Question the narrative.
Every headline, every soundbite, every “breaking news” story — ask yourself:
“Who benefits from me believing this?” If the answer is someone richer than you, someone more powerful than you, someone who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire… maybe it’s not the whole truth.Rebuild community.
Talk to your neighbor. Not their politics — them. Share meals, share struggles, share humanity. Remember what it feels like to be on the same side.Target the top, not the sides.
Redirect your anger upward. Fight for policies that dismantle corporate monopolies, political corruption and lack of transparency. Stop swinging sideways at people just as trapped as you.
While you fight your neighbor about pronouns or gas prices, billionaires lobby to keep your insulin at $300.
While you mock strangers on the internet, their kids are learning Mandarin from private tutors while yours dodge bullets in public schools.
While you froth and rage over a dead man’s legacy, the ultra-rich build bunkers, laughing at the spectacle of you tearing each other apart.
As long as it’s Left vs. Right, it will never be Bottom vs. Top. And they know it.
Act VIII: What they fear most
The people at the top are terrified of you. Not you as an individual — you’re easy to crush. But you, united with others? That’s their nightmare.
That’s why they work so hard to keep you divided. That’s why they whisper in your ear, “Your neighbor is the enemy.” That’s why they hand you an easy villain, a simple storyline, a shiny distraction.
Because if you ever stop looking left and right and start looking up, you might realize how few of them there are. And how many of you there are.
You might realize the walls they’ve built aren’t as strong as they seem. You might tear them down.
Act IX: The final curtain
The duopoly isn’t just politics. It’s religion. It’s identity. It’s entertainment. It’s a parasite burrowed so deep into our culture that we mistake it for our own flesh.
Undoing it will be messy. Bloody. Uncomfortable.
It starts with you saying, “I will not be a pawn.”
It starts with you questioning everything — not just the other side’s talking points, but your own.
It starts with refusing to celebrate death like it’s a touchdown.
It starts with mourning every life lost to this machine, whether or not they voted like you.
It starts with saying, “I will not hate my neighbor, so you can keep your power.”
You don’t have to play their game. You don’t have to worship their false idols. You don’t have to hate others to prove your loyalty to people and causes that don’t care about you.
Epilogue: Look up
United we stand, divided we fall: a prophecy.
The people at the top are betting on your blindness. They are counting on your rage. They are banking on your ignorance.
Stop looking left. Stop looking right. Look up.
Because the more we hate each other, the less we see the hands pulling our strings.
Nobody wants to hear, “Hey, maybe both parties are failing you while billionaires rob you blind.” That doesn’t go viral.
Outrage is sexy.
Nuance? Not so much.
Nobody cheers for moderation. Nobody worships common sense.
But they will worship false prophets — politicians, influencers, talking heads — whose entire empires are built on keeping you angry and divided.
It’s easier to chant a slogan than to read a policy.
It’s easier to “own” someone online than to understand them.
It’s easier to pick a side than to stand alone.
Screaming with the mob is easy. Standing in the middle and saying, “Both of you are wrong, and you’re being manipulated,” will get you crucified.
Remember: we’ve been baited into fighting each other because it’s easier to hate a face than fix a problem.