The Trump Administration Expects Us Not to Trust Our Own Lying Eyes
This is not normal.
What we are witnessing is a system that says one thing and does another. The brazenness is not an accident; it is the point. In this upside-down reality, those in power steal openly while accusing others of theft, and they expect us to doubt our own eyes.
“Law and order” now means warrantless raids on working people while roughly 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists receive blanket pardons. “Small government” translates into the highest tariffs since 1930, alongside federal mandates dictating what schools can teach about race and gender. “Anti-corruption” becomes a fixation on Hunter Biden’s laptop, while Jared Kushner walks away with a $2 billion payment from the Saudi crown prince, who reportedly overruled his own investment committee to approve the deal.
The pardon attorney’s unofficial motto is now “No MAGA left behind,” as lobbyists reportedly charge up to $1 million to secure pardons, wealthy criminals who defrauded investors regain their freedom, and nurses and poets are killed in the streets and labeled terrorists before their bodies are even cold.
The Constitution increasingly functions as a shield for the powerful and a weapon against the vulnerable, offering presidential immunity and pardons for allies while stripping ordinary people of basic protections. The Fourth Amendment’s safeguard against unreasonable searches has been suspended for anyone ICE encounters, while due process is dismissed as a “slippery slope,” as Newark’s mayor warned, one we slide down whenever it serves political theater.
Choosing to No Longer Live Within the Lie
At Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently cited Václav Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless, in which Havel describes a greengrocer who places a sign in his shop window reading, “Workers of the world, unite!” The grocer does not believe it, nor does anyone else, but he displays it anyway to avoid trouble, signal obedience, and get through the day.
Havel called this condition “living within a lie,” explaining that the system survives not because it is true or just, but because people continue to perform belief, convincing themselves that compliance is neutrality and that silence is safety. The system begins to crack when someone stops performing.
The moral of the story is that we need to stop performing.
What this means for me is that I will no longer carry my passport as everyday identification, because carrying proof of citizenship everywhere is un-American, and treating it as normal is a quiet act of submission.
I will use my voice to name what I see. Warrantless raids are unconstitutional. Family enrichment through public office is corruption. Shooting citizens while pardoning insurrectionists is not law and order; it is a breakdown of the rule of law, in which force is rewarded and accountability denied.
Lastly, I know Clearview facial recognition will likely flag me, and that Palantir may be used to extract information from posts and, eventually, from my phone when I travel. Still, despite my fear, I will support the activists and organizations on the front lines: the people blowing the whistle to warn their neighbors, the lawyers filing suit, and the journalists documenting abuses. I will also overcome my fear, participate in peaceful protests, and speak my truth.
Renée Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti removed their signs. They lived in truth. They are not alone. There is Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, Nenko Stanev Gantchev, Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir, Brayan Rayon-Garzon, Maksym Chernyak, Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, and Genry Ruiz Guillen, along with hundreds more whose names we may never know, whose lives ended quietly, without headlines, without accountability, and without the dignity of being recognized as fully human.
They paid with their lives. Our duty, if we are serious about democracy, the rule of law, and moral responsibility, is to stop pretending that any of this is normal. We will not be cowed or gaslit into doubting what we see with our own eyes.