I just read a report about the Department of Government Efficiency—DOGE, because even the government’s own people are in on the joke—and in just thirty days, they exposed exactly what anyone with half a brain already knew.
Retirement processing for federal workers is still done manually. Not just manually, but in an old mining cave. Like some dystopian relic, stacks of paperwork sit down in a shaft, and whether or not retirees get their pensions depends entirely on whether the goddamn elevator works that day. If it does, they can process 7,000 applications. If not, well, tough shit. Maybe next month. Imagine working forty years for the government only to have your retirement paperwork stuck in a broken elevator like a bad joke.
Then there’s the money. Oh, the money. Turns out we’ve been sending funds overseas for programs that exist only on paper, but those same funds keep magically appearing in campaign donation records, like a neat little laundering cycle no one in charge seems too eager to fix. Meanwhile, Social Security payments are still going out to people who were issued SSNs 200 years ago. Either the U.S. has unlocked the secret to immortality, or we’re cutting checks for long-dead ghosts. Guess which one it is.
Obama once said an unchecked government couldn’t continue like this. Biden repeated it, vowing to bring transparency, to drain the swamp, to hold people accountable. Bernie Sanders made a whole career out of ranting about how bloated and corrupt D.C. was. But here we are, decades later, and all these guys did was talk. Nothing changed, and nobody cared.
And here’s the real kicker: If a Democrat had exposed this, every media outlet would be running 24-hour segments, parading experts across the screen, rolling out town halls, demanding action. But since it’s a Republican administration shining the light on it, the narrative is “fascism! dictatorship! Hitler’s ghost has returned!” The corruption itself doesn’t even make headlines—just the fact that someone dared to talk about it.
That’s the real scandal: no one actually wants to fix it. The government is built on inefficiency, because if they cleaned house, thousands of paper-pushers would be out of a job. The politicians keep the grift going because the system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly as designed. The media feeds the outrage machine, not because they care, but because fear sells. And the people? The people are too exhausted, too distracted, or too divided to do anything but take it.
Which brings me to the bigger problem—us.
We’ve lost the ability to be outraged in a way that actually matters. We pick sides, scream at each other online, but never demand real accountability. The greatest generation wouldn’t have stood for this. Back then, if their neighborhood was overrun with criminals, they handled it. They didn’t ask for permission, they took action. Now? We adjust. We make room for the chaos. We rationalize it. We accept it.
Look around. Stores are removing seating because they don’t want loiterers. Gas stations are locking their bathrooms because they don’t want homeless addicts shooting up inside. Starbucks cut Wi-Fi because they don’t want you hanging around. Major grocery stores won’t even call the cops anymore when junkies set up camp in their parking lots.
Everything is being lowered to accommodate the worst of us, and no one is fighting back.
We’re living in a country where it’s completely normal to walk past a guy dying from fentanyl on the sidewalk. Where stepping over human shit outside a store doesn’t even register as shocking anymore. Where armed security in grocery aisles is just part of the shopping experience. Where cops will pull you over for a traffic ticket but won’t touch the guys openly selling meth in the park.
And we let it happen.
Because we’re too afraid to push back, too scared to be called the bad guy. Just like those parents who don’t want to upset their kids, who let them drink in their homes, let them have sex under their roofs, let them run wild so they can still be the “cool parents.” Just like that woman I went out with, bragging about the condoms she hands out to her teenage sons like party favors. Just like the mom from my high school days who let us screw in her house because she figured we’d do it anyway.
We’ve adjusted our lives instead of fixing the problem.
And I don’t know how much longer we can keep pretending this is sustainable.
Which is why I keep thinking about that scene from Network.
“Open your window, stick your head out, and yell— ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'”
But we won’t. We don’t. Because deep down, we’ve already accepted that this is just the way things are.
