Liberals, MAGA, Charlie Kirk, Elon Musk, and "They"

The most dangerous word in America right now is “they.”

They stormed the Capitol.

They shot President Trump.

They killed Melissa and Mark Hortman.

They murdered Charlie Kirk.

My pattern recognition didn’t really kick in until the first assassination attempt on President Trump. My friend who is – depending on who you voted for in the last election –  a true American patriot or a brainwashed MAGA cult member, sent me a Signal text that read, “They shot DT!”

Besides the obvious reasons, something else jarred me about the message. It dawned on me that a normal response (at least to someone who was a young child when MLK, JFK, and RFK were assassinated) would have been, “The President was shot!” Or “Someone shot the President!”

When and where did “they” enter the chat, how much work is that single word doing, and what makes it so dangerous?

It jumped out at me while I watched Scott Jennings (who it should be noted is my favorite political analyst) when he said, “I was in this room when they shot the President, and now I’m in this room again after they shot Charlie Kirk.”  His sadness and empathy were profound, as were his comments on the situation.

But exactly who did he mean by they?

When Dems were talking about the mob that stormed the Capitol, and attack on Congresswoman Giffords, or the recent murder of the Hortmans, who did they mean by they?

Of course, we know exactly what they all meant...

“They”…is code for the other side.

They means the people who aren’t really people, who aren’t really our neighbors, our fellow citizens, our brothers and sisters.  They’re they – the enemy.

The demons.  The subhumans. The ones that started it all.  The ones that carried it too far.

There are two huge differences between the era of assassinations in the sixties and what is happening now.

The first is an institution, namely the Presidency of the U.S. Until recently, in times of greatest conflict, the person we elected to hold the Oval Office went to great lengths to lower the temperature, foster unity, and remind us we’re all brothers and sisters. For the last ten years, that hasn’t happened.  In fact, the opposite.

Our Presidents are failing us.

In both the Trump and Biden Administrations, the office of POTUS was operated first as the head of a political party, marshaling outrage against the they, and only secondarily as the President charged with protecting America, the Constitution, and all Americans, regardless of political affiliation. While the institution doesn’t maintain the respect and luster it once did, it still is a powerful determinant of how Americans behave, particularly toward each other. And it’s sadly lacking.

The second difference from the earlier era is the presence of social media.  At some point we must come to grips with the reality that what we label social media is inherently anti-social. Call it what you want: algorithmic bias, behavioral engineering, engagement-driven design. I’ll call it what it truly is: an evil cancer against our society and humanity itself.  Because anything that systematically profits from turning neighbors into enemies deserves nothing less than moral condemnation.

We’re not evolving – we’re being engineered. Social media algorithms are not simply delivering us content in areas we’ve shown interest in.  They’re brainwashing and programming us, one dopamine hit at a time. You’re no longer simply scrolling TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook – you’re being conditioned. And if you spend much time on the political-skewed platforms like X, Truth Social, and Bluesky – you’ve probably already been radicalized into a mindless puppet for the side you favor.

Every like, share, and comment you do, feeds a machine built to amplify outrage, stoke division, and deepen your sense of victimhood. It’s not entertainment.  It’s behavioral modification.

And make no mistake, at its core, it is psychological warfare, weaponized by the enemies of America.

It is psychological warfare disguised as social engagement.  The Psy-Ops teams in Russia, China and other States must be delirious with their glee – and stunned by how easily we are manipulated. (With similar dynamics played out in other democracies around the world.)

The original concept of Facebook and Twitter was innocuous enough and really did provide social interaction we couldn’t get any other way.  But as social media developed and monetization was added in, they became inherently, anti-social and dangerous.

Now they are downright evil...

The entire business model is built on keeping you looking at their site as much as possible, then selling your extended viewership to advertisers. With the advent of AI, this process was turned over to the algorithms and they are very good at what they do. They quickly discovered the best way to keep you returning to their platforms and staying on longer is fear and hate.

Fear and hate against the “they” – the other side. 

The algorithms don’t feed you facts; they feed you enemies. If you lean left, it hands you the most ridiculous caricatures of the right. If you lean right, it pushes the most lunatic fringes of the left.  And every click you make strengthens your confirmation bias that your tribe is the righteous one and the other side is evil.

There comes a point when you are infected with such strong mind viruses and the associated programming, you become a puppet of the algorithm, and are no longer capable of rational thought. The best analogy might be that of a functioning alcoholic. You still go to work, pick up your dry cleaning, and meet the requirements of your day-to-day life. But you’re terribly handicapped, and the story won’t have a happy ending.

My best guess is that we have at least 75 million Americans with this puppet level of mind virus infection regarding culture war issues.  And at least one billion souls worldwide.

When they log on to a social media platform, they’re no longer thinking, they’re subconsciously coming to get triggered. At this state, they’re incapable of empathy, simply addicted to the rush of moral superiority they feel by demonizing the other side.

We’ve lost all focus on solving problems and replaced it with a lose-lose game of scoring points.  And if you think you’re immune because you’re on the “right side,” then you’re exactly as gullible and easily manipulated as the Chinese and Russian Psy-Ops teams believe you are.

Btw, don’t think high intelligence protects you from this.  In many cases, the higher IQ you have, the more intellectually lazy you become.  Scott Adams wrote a brilliant book about how mental habits can trap you into creating distorted realities, then actually fell into the trap himself. You see a similar dynamic with other brilliant minds on these platforms.  Their posts evolve from thoughtful curiosity to shrill condemnation stuck on replay.

There’s no better demonstration of this than Elon Musk.  He bought Twitter, rebranded it into X, and along the way morphed from a visionary leader exhorting us to cure paralysis, save the Earth, and become a multiplanetary species – into a powerful agitator, ramping up hate and polarization to dangerous levels. A cursory look at his feed this week brings you posts such as, “The Left is the party of murder,” “They will kill us or we fight back,” and retweeting posts suggesting that transgender people are bioweapons and death cults.

I’ve never broken bread with Elon, so I can’t say whether he’s simply spinning up the feebleminded to boost his platform’s profits, or he’s been parasitized by the memes he’s so successfully spreading. I can say these are not the posts of a rational person looking for solutions, seeking peace, or a stronger nation. I will defend to the death Elon’s (and everyone else’s) right to speak his opinion in America.  But let’s not masquerade his comments as anything other than what they are: hate, rage-bait, and polarization.

When Trump labels the left as radicals and lunatics, and AOC characterizes the right as racists and white supremacists, they both are using the same psychological tools of manipulation. They elevate the conflict to a moral battle.  We’re no longer talking about politics; we’ve moved the debate to identity. Our side is right, the other side is evil.

I have a confession to make…

I’m very, very old. In fact, I’m so old that when I grew up, girls dreamed of growing up to be a homemaker, nurse, or teacher – and boys like me dreamed of becoming a fireman, veterinarian, or astronaut.  There was one career we never considered, because it didn’t exist back then…

Conflict Entrepreneur.

Ben Shapiro, Hasan Piker, and Candace Owens are conflict entrepreneurs.  Don Lemon, Tucker Carlson, and the ladies of “The View” are conflict entrepreneurs.  As was Charlie Kirk.

As Upton Sinclair wisely foretold us, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Conflict entrepreneurs all eat from the same trough: your tribal rage. Their entire business model is to keep you angry, offended, and triggered. Every podcast, blog, and social media post is designed to provoke your anger and fear. Because when you’re angry, you click, and when you’re scared, you share. Once you’re locked into that rage loop, you become a loyal customer of their ideology... and their sponsors.

Even scarier, institutions we might have thought of as journalism – think CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and thousands of other outlets – are rapidly descending into large scale conflict entrepreneur enterprises. (Some more rapidly than others!)

I never met Charlie Kirk personally, so I’m not qualified to judge the man. But I also speak out publicly, been labeled controversial and dangerous, received credible death threats for more than a decade, and have actually been shot at point blank range and left for dead. Oh, and I’m gay and dated a transgender person.  So I feel qualified to speak out here. Here’s what I think I do know…

That Charlie wasn’t the heavenly saint preaching only tolerance and love, the right would have you believe. Nor was he the hate-spewing Nazi the people on the left want you to believe.  Charlie was a loving husband, devoted father, and deeply spiritual man, and he was a conflict entrepreneur. He was such a good conflict entrepreneur that it got him murdered.  And whether you’re liberal or conservative, that should scare the shit out of you. And break your heart.

Assassinating people over political differences is NEVER the answer. Celebrating the assassination of another human being is an action that can only harden your heart and destroy your soul.

We’re raising generations hardwired for reactivity, incapable of empathy, and addicted to the rush of moral superiority. Addicted to the rush of likes, followers, and views. If you want to know where we’re at in America right now, it’s best demonstrated in this post here.  Thankfully the poster had enough remorse to take it down after some reflection, but what does it say about our society when someone’s default response in a situation like this is, “This is not a drill! Charlie’s been shot. Jesus will protect you, follow me on TikTok.”

This is no longer about policy or politics. It’s WWE Raw for people who unknowingly volunteered for a lobotomy. 

How do you know if you are infected to this point?

If you’re grinding your molars while reading this because you think I’m ignorant to the fact that the other side from you conducts more hate speech, threats, and violence – you’re at puppet level infection.

If you think your side is only doing questionable behavior because the other side did it first, and you’re simply being defensive – you’re at puppet level infection.

It’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the bottle.

Must admit, my thinking has evolved on this, and I now believe the far left and the far right are co-conspirators in hate, ignorance, and intolerance. It’s yin and yang, with every action producing an equal and opposite reaction.

We can’t remove the agency from the people spewing hate, fear, and violence. They are responsible for their decisions.  But we won’t find a real solution without a deep, penetrating study of social media and how it is destroying us.

Last month I was attending a convention and one of the speakers pulled up a slide of my old pal, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones and his legendary quote:

“Five years from today, you will be the same person that you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet.”

Allow me to share a new quote from Randy “Tremendous” Gage updated for today’s reality:

“Five years from today, your personality, behaviors, health, happiness and prosperity (or lack of it) will be the result of the social media scrolling you do between now and then on your dumbphone.”

I’ll wager you know at least 15 or 20 people who have experienced a strange or even radical personality change over the last five years. It’s a likelihood just shy of a certainty that the changes you've seen have been in the negative direction.

Symptoms include being more argumentative, strident, judgmental, narcissistic, jaded, distrustful, cynical, depressed, fearful, and prone to conspiracy theories.  Sometimes, symptoms like these are a medical issue that should be checked.  But I'll posit that most of these cases are the direct result of manipulation by computer algorithms.

I believe social media is the plague of our generation. TikTok should be banned in the United States today. (Wait…it’s already been banned.  We just need the government to follow the law it already passed.) No child under 12 years old should own a phone, and no child under 16 years old should be allowed on a social media platform. You would be smart to avoid them entirely as well.

If I weren’t an author, there’s not a chance in hell I would be on any of them. If you do find them helpful for business, I recommend my approach: be a content producer, but not a consumer. And the single best piece of prosperity advice I can give you is to unplug from your phone at least a couple hours before bedtime, and charge it in a room you’re not sleeping in.

Make no mistake: you’re not in control unless you take control. That means recognizing the mind viruses you’re being programmed with 24/7, questioning your assumptions, and stepping outside the echo chamber. Remember there isn’t really an “other side,” that’s just a meme created by the conflict entrepreneurs.  There are no subhumans or demons on this planet, only your brothers and sisters.

Until you recognize the human traits we all share, and commit to non-violent, constructive discourse, you're not fighting for truth and justice – you’re just another puppet on a string, dancing for the algorithms that work for the conflict entrepreneurs.

How do we, as a society, begin rewiring ourselves for empathy, caring, and prosperity?

The only antidote to dehumanization is rehumanization. That means refusing the bait of “they.” There really are evil enemies we should protect ourselves against, but they’re probably not following you on Instagram. Most of the people you’ll meet and interact with are flesh-and-blood humans with dreams and fears, insecurities and egos, bills to pay and kids to raise. (Or bots created by bad actors, that should be ignored anyway.) We must return to looking the cashier, Uber driver, and our neighbors across the political aisle in the eye and remembering they’re a frail human, trying to figure it out like we all are.

The revolution we need won’t start in Washington, DC or Silicon Valley, on X or Bluesky – but in how we decide to treat the people we disagree with.  Especially those we disagree with.

They didn’t kill MLK, JFK, and RFK. They didn’t kill Charlie Kirk.  They didn’t kill Melissa and Mark Hortman.  They didn’t try to kill Gabby Giffords and Donald Trump.

We did.

Peace,

- RG

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