Everybody keeps talking about how our society has become increasingly polarized in recent times. Everyone mentions cancel culture, institutional capture, the breakdown of merit-based systems. There are countless concerns creating endless talking points around our cultural decay, and people point fingers at everything: social media echo chambers, woke corporations, activist teachers, biased media, academic indoctrination—all symptoms of a coordinated ideological takeover.
But one factor that has most contributed to this dramatic shift in how Americans engage with reality is absolutely, without doubt, how much unquestioning compliance people are willing to offer to progressive narratives without putting any critical thought into it.
And a big part of why people offer this mindless compliance stems from an overemphasis on being “inclusive” and “anti-racist,” on avoiding any position that might be labeled as bigoted, even when the progressive position is objectively insane or destructive. The thinking goes: if you don’t bow to every progressive cause, you’re a Nazi, and you’ll be obliterated socially and professionally.
This has led to ideological terrorism in American institutions—whether in schools, corporations, or government agencies where people become enforcement arms for the so-called “woke mind” virus, a vicious dogma that thrives on fear, bullying dissenters into silence or ruin.
There’s such an emphasis on “centering marginalized voices” and “doing the work” to combat your inherent bigotry. To the infected, it sounds noble, but nobody stops to count the cost when we torch objective reality and biological facts just because some activist claims to feel “unsafe” if we admit men can’t become women or that racial gaps in outcomes might stem from something other than white supremacy.
Calling it “progressive” should mean advancing, but this woke virus drags us backward, chaining us to a medieval mindset where questioning the holy doctrine gets you burned at the stake. Progress and regression can’t coexist in the same breath.
It’s hard for many normies to grasp because they think, “I just want to be a good person and treat everyone fairly. How is that wrong?”
But there’s such a coordinated response when anyone questions the narrative that they’re instantly branded far-right extremists, even for stating basic biological facts.
By definition, what we’re seeing is cult-like behavior—dysfunctional social control through emotional manipulation and punishment of dissent. Socially, it’s the systematic destruction of anyone who dares defy the woke mind virus by labeling them moral monsters.
I watched my country morph into a warped shadow of itself, and it should be obvious to anyone with a shred of pattern recognition that there’s a chasm between those infected by this ideological plague and those who still think for themselves, pushing back with reason against the madness.
Whether they’re true believers or just terrified conformists, the woke virus’s suppression of dissent and clear thinking is undeniable.
Those infected by this ideology don’t just argue when you expose their contradictions. They go feral. Across our institutions, they don’t just dismiss your evidence—they try to erase your existence, targeting your job, your reputation, your family.
This isn’t to say conservatives are saints. Some on the right are genuinely bigoted idiots mirroring their socialist counterparts flawlessly.
But I can spot the difference. I know a conservative commentator peddling cheap outrage for clicks versus one genuinely alarmed by the woke virus’s chokehold on American values.
Maybe it’s my roots in traditional American values, my front-row seat to everything I used to enjoy or hold dear getting gutted. I’ve always seen through ideological capture, whether I backed the group before or not. I don’t dodge honest criticism if it’s grounded in good faith.
Intellectual honesty keeps a society breathing.
I get this because I remember when America had a shared reality, back in the 1990s and early 2000s. Sure, we had our fights, but we agreed on basic truths: biology was real, merit mattered, free speech was sacred.
Since then, the woke mind virus has reprogrammed us, turning plain facts into hate crimes. We’ve bent so far to coddle delusion that we can’t tell compassion from enabling destruction anymore.
It didn’t stop at politics. Every institution caught the disease. Movies, books, companies, anything that didn’t kneel to the woke script got attacked or erased. Merit and quality took a backseat to quotas and messaging.
Trace it back, and you see the “long march through the institutions” cultural Marxists plotted. Each radical outdid the last, replacing American values with a toxic brew straight from the Frankfurt School.
For years, if you questioned this overhaul or wondered if it was rotting us, you were branded a reactionary. The woke virus didn’t debate—it destroyed, punishing skepticism with social crucifixion.
The enforcers had no tie to the American spirit. They saw our history as a crime, something to dismantle and rebuild in their image.
Lately, the pace has gone manic. Everyone in power—corporate, academic, government—tiptoes around anything that might seem less than fully woke, groveling over their “privilege,” amplifying voices that despise what America was, all to dodge the virus’s wrath.
We’re stuck proving we’re not bigots just to keep the lights on. It’s a one-sided abuse, normal Americans versus the woke commissars who’ve hijacked our systems.
That’s how tyrannies work.
On paper, their demands sound fair: treat people right, fight real injustice. I write because I want to preserve what made America great while fixing actual flaws. I still believe in a meritocracy blind to color.
But I won’t swallow lies to dodge slurs from people who’d hate me regardless.
When schools teach kids their skin makes them guilty, or that biology’s a myth, or that America was born in chains, not freedom, the online chorus demands we back these teachers or we’re “playing into right-wing narratives.”
That’s how you gut a civilization.
Look at Critical Race Theory in schools. They said opposing it meant we didn’t care about racial justice, that it fueled white supremacy.
Where’s that twisted logic from? You’ve handed your kids’ minds to grievance peddlers. Woke dogma’s now in every textbook. Why teach history when propaganda’s easier?
Since we swapped excellence for “equity,” education’s crumbled. Parents screamed about falling standards; administrators just leaned harder into the virus, calling criticism racism. Americans have been emotionally blackmailed into submission by this woke plague.
I learned about abusive relationships—how they isolate you, make you doubt your eyes, convince you resistance proves you’re the villain.
It’s not a stretch to see that in this ideology. Every time Americans apologize for seeing truth or choke down lies to avoid the “racist” brand, it’s the same dynamic.
If you buy that math oppresses, that men belong in women’s sports, that politicians should pick foreigners over citizens, that hiring by merit is supremacy because “equity demands sacrifice”—why would the woke virus ever slow down?
Why not push crazier demands? Why not insist you cheer delusion? Why bother with arguments when they can just scream “Nazi” until you break?
This toxic surrender to the woke mind virus hands them a blank check to rewrite reality in their image.
You’ve let lies become sacred, and when someone fights back and lands a blow, the woke play victim, not the bullies who’ve seized every major institution.
Think about the 2020 riots. Cities burned, billions lost, dozens dead, small businesses gutted. Yet under the “racial justice” flag, Americans were told to cheer or wear the white supremacist label.
It’s the same script for every woke panic, greenlighting their lunacy. Now, with Charlie Kirk’s blood fresh, tied to the radical left currents fueling Antifa, Trump’s terrorist designation for them draws a line in the dirt.
It’s a vow to hunt the cells that cheered his killer, that razed Portland, that thrive on fear and fire. It’s right—excusing these thugs as “activists” has fed the beast, from 2020’s ashes to this summer’s body count, with international media’s vile smearing of Kirk’s memory as “extremist” only pouring gas on the flames.
People say change needs disruption, that destruction’s just the price of progress, shrugging off the bloodshed and broken glass.
Any clear-eyed soul sees that’s how revolutions feed.
The woke virus retreats when it meets real resistance. What’s stopping accountability? The spineless surrender infecting conservatives. The right’s been too soft, ironically waving a flag of virtue while the left swings brass knuckles—riots, doxxing, murder, with Kirk’s killing tied to the same poison that’s dodged justice forever.
The left fights with no limits—torching streets, ruining lives—while conservatives clutch their morals like a shield in a knife fight. Trump’s Antifa designation is a wake-up: the right needs to sharpen its edge, strike with lawsuits that bankrupt the zealots, policies that choke their funds, and a defiance that doesn’t blink. The woke won’t stop until they’re slammed to the mat. Win this—take back the schools, courts, culture—then we can talk principles again. Until then, playing clean in a filthy war just digs our grave deeper.
We need to bring back the backbone that built America. Not blind violence, but a fierce stand against this deranged virus. It’s a cancer, twisting truth into blasphemy, but it’s not invincible. Trump’s order is a spark, but it’s not enough. We’ve got to storm the gates, wrench our institutions from the claws of fanatics who’d burn them to cinders before yielding an inch.
I see it still: a nation where reason crushes rage, where merit outshines dogma, where no one grovels to lies to save their hide. I’m not talking vengeance. I am talking about saving what’s ours, forging a future where our kids inherit a country of western ideals, not a corpse of rotten medieval ideals. The line’s drawn. Get in the fight, or we’re done.
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"We’ve bent so far to coddle delusion that we can’t tell compassion from enabling destruction anymore." For the longest time I've been saying that the mind parasites and the people they infect depend on the fundamental decency and compassionate nature of humanity for their "progressive" takeover, even as they rage and call us filth.
Lily, congratulations on a well-written article. I agree, "By definition, what we’re seeing is cult-like behavior—dysfunctional social control through emotional manipulation and punishment of dissent. Socially, it’s the systematic destruction of anyone who dares defy the woke mind virus by labeling them moral monsters." But did this just happen over time? Is this the result of different values that naturally occur in a free country?
No, it's the result of a number of layers of control and an effort that's been going on for hundreds of years. At it's core are very wealthy elite "federalists" who what complete control to protect their wealth and power. Such control was well established in England by the aristocracy. When business began creating wealth and power over land, American aristocracy created the revolution so they could gain control. It didn't quite work well so they created the Constitution giving themselves complete control with an elected king who had more power than the king of England at the time.
Since then, it has been a steady effort to gain more and more control. Now, there are the international super elite who own and control most wealth from behind the curtain. They control the next layer down, the elite from academia and the government who are part of the WEF and their agendas. They carry the wishes of the super elite to the people in their universities and governments. Then there are the normal wealthy under them who can't even relate to the rest of us. Then us common folks who are easily manipulated by those above us into rage against each other to keep our attention off of the elite. Most people would think the super elite is a conspiracy theory. Why would they do this over hundreds of years? To preserve their wealth and power. Each generation of super elite and the elite they crown to control thoughts, emotions, and money continue the same course to control humanity for their own benefit.
You've said it before. Step 1 is to stop buying into the two-party left and right scam. I hope we can have a realistic true democracy sometime in the next 100 years as I laid out in my book End Politics Now (https://a.co/d/h9vvN92). I hoped people who read it would feel responsible, then empowered, instead of enraged and helpless.