The Rot Was Always There

Trump is not the origin story. He is the logical conclusion. A product of a nation that prefers pageantry to justice.

You cannot be shocked about the state of things in a country that was founded on the genocide of its native people. The US empire is literally built on bones and blood.

I read a social media post written by a shocked American. He reported that ICE and undercover NYPD cuffed a neighbour for asking questions. They kicked his dog. They dragged a screaming family into an unmarked van at 5:30 in the afternoon in Harlem. And guess what? This isn’t a dystopian glitch. This is the system doing exactly what it was built to do.

What some people are experiencing as a rupture, many of us have known as reality. This moment—caught in a social media post, narrated in stunned disbelief—is horrifying, yes. But it is not new. The surveillance, the disappearances, the intimidation, the cruelty. These are not bugs. They are features.

There is a deep grief in witnessing what you already knew become undeniable to others. Especially when their shock comes laced with the privilege of distance. For so long, they could look away. Now they can't. Or they can, but they know they are looking away. That changes things. Or it should.

Trump is not the origin story. He is the logical conclusion. A product of a nation that prefers pageantry to justice. A nation that teaches history as mythology and frames cruelty as order. His rise did not expose the underbelly of America. It simply pulled back the curtain on its design.

We tell ourselves stories about good cops, bad apples, isolated incidents. But what happens when the violence is not isolated? When it is consistent, sanctioned, and systemic? When a family can be disappeared in front of their neighbours without warrant, identification, or accountability—in daylight—and nothing stops it?

What happens is what has always happened. People learn to cope. To survive. To numb themselves to the machinery. And others, newly awake, begin to ask: "How did it come to this?"

It came to this because it was always this. From the foundation built on genocide and slavery, through Jim Crow, COINTELPRO, mass incarceration, deportation raids, and the endless war on the poor. It is a straight line.

And still, the mythology holds. That America is redeemable. That voting blue will fix it. That this, surely, is an exception.

But history tells a different story. One of resistance and erasure. Of people who have always fought back, often without headlines, often without help. Mutual aid networks. Community defence. Underground railroads. Sanctuary spaces. These are the real responses to empire.

There is no neutral ground in moments like this. You are either paying attention, or you are part of the problem. You either believe the people being dragged into vans, or you explain it away to protect your comfort.

And so we must choose. Again and again.

Not just to care—but to act. To listen to those who’ve been living this for far longer than the current political cycle. To centre their voices. To follow their lead. To unlearn the idea that safety ever came from the state.

We build something else. Together. Which means you have to get off your arse and start organising because your privilege no longer protects you.

Because the rot was always there, even when you seemed to be protected from it. But so was the resistance.