Why Are We Fighting?
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Why Are We Fighting?
TL;DR
The most profitable lie in America is that Americans disagree (hate) each other.
The people selling you that lie are getting rich from our rage.
The data says most of us agree on many of the big things. And for the next nine months politicians (on both sides) the media and social media will lie to us. Marketing that weâre more divided than ever.
When weâre not.
And the data proves it.
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Fish do not know they are in water.
They were born in water, breath water, and move through water. Every second of its life.
Water is so total, so constant, so completely the environment, that the fish has no concept of water.
That is you. That is me. That is all of us (right now) swimming in an invisible bowl of manufactured rage. That we mistake for reality.
The Anger Industrial Complex: The category driving America.
The most successful, most profitable, most sophisticated behavior-modification category ever built. More powerful than any drug. More precise than any weapon. And almost entirely invisible to the people it manipulates.
Which is, of course.
Is the point.
The Anger Category
Here is how it works.
Anger works. For donations, turnout, and loyalty. You donât need to solve problems if you can convince your voters that the âother sideâ is an existential threat.
To get elected, you donât need results.
You need enemies.
The fundraising email doesnât say âwe made progress.â
It says âTHEY ARE COMING FOR YOU. Give $5 in the next 12 minutes.â
Cable news discovered that two people screaming is more âwatchableâ than two people reasoning. So they stopped booking the reasonable people.
(One of most reasonable candidates in the race for California is San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. A moderate Democrat. With a decent track record. Heâs polling at 4%.)
Then social media arrived and turbocharged the whole system with something politicians and TV executives never had: an algorithm that figures out, with (disgusting) inhuman precision, exactly what makes you specifically angry.
And serves you more of anger, every hour, every scroll, every notification. The algorithm doesnât hate you. It just needs us to hate each other.
This is not an accident. It is not a side effect. Or bug. Itâs the feature of modern politics and media. Anger drives engagement. Engagement drives revenue. Our rage is their inventory. We are the commodity being sold.
And here is the part that should make you stop cold:
It is working.
Roughly two-thirds of Americans now believe the country is more divided than at any point in their lifetimes.
(The data shows this is a lie.)
A New York Times/Siena poll found 64% of voters believe our divisions prevent us from solving basic political problems.
That number was 42% in 2020.
In a few years, the Anger Industrial Complex nearly doubled the share of Americans who believe their own country is broken.
That is not an organic shift in how Americans feel about each other. That is 100% manufactured manipulation. Producing exactly what it was designed to do.
What The Water Hides
Here is what they need you to never find out:
On
guns
taxes
crime
policing
abortion
equal rights
immigration
the economy
gay marriage
foreign policy
the national debt,
and entrepreneurship
We (mostly) agree.
Read that again.
We (mostly) agree.
Not on everything. Not on every word or every clause. But on the core of nearly every major issue, there is a broad American consensus that cuts cleanly across party lines. 65% to 90+%.
They say America is a racist country. A Lie.
The USA is one of the least racist places on the planet.
91% of Americans believe everyone (regardless of race or ethnicity) deserves an equal opportunity to succeed.
97% of Americans say they are comfortable with having neighbors of a different faith.
94% of Americans approve of interracial marriage. (That number was 4% in 1958.) One of the largest transformations in public opinion in Gallup history
68% support gay marriage.
65% of Americans (majorities across every racial group) say diversity makes the country stronger.
Making Americans among the most welcoming of religious diversity in the world.
And that consensus is (almost) never represented in the media you consume, the politicians you hear from, or the social media feed you swim in every day.
Because consensus doesnât sell.
Bad news is legendary for business.
A few data points to make this concrete. Not to overwhelm you with numbers. But to show you the size, and scope of the lie.
Guns: 81% of Americans support universal background checks. That includes 80% of Republicans. Red flag laws have 70% support across party lines. The debate TV presents is gun-grabbers versus Second Amendment absolutists. The actual debate is about implementation details between people who broadly agree on the rules.
Abortion: 85% of Americans support exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
60% believe abortion should be legal through at least 15 weeks. The screaming match on cable represents the edges.
Immigration: 64% support a legal path for undocumented immigrants who meet requirements.
83% support deporting those convicted of violent crimes. Most Americans hold both positions simultaneously. The media offers open borders or mass deportation. The people offer nuance.
The economy: 94% of Americans (not a typo) believe every citizen deserves a fair opportunity to start and grow their own business. Republicans, Democrats, Independents. 94%. There is no cable segment on this because there is no fight to manufacture.
Policing: âDefund the Policeâ peaked at 31% support and 58% opposition. Including most Democrats.
It was a social media contagion that both sides of the Anger Industrial Complex treated as a mass movement. Because the rage it generated was worth more than the truth.
The pattern is the same every fucking time.
Take an issue where Americans broadly agree. Find the 15% on each extreme who donât. Put them on television. The Internet. Instruct the algorithm.
Collect revenue.
Repeat.
This is not journalism.
This is not politics.
Itâs an (evil) business model. And our (fake) anger is the product being monitized.
Whatâs Coming In 2026
We are nine months from midterm elections.
Between now and November 2026, everything weâve discussed will intensify. By an order of magnitude.
The stupid will get more stupid.
The angry will be made more angry.
Every campaign will A/B test the exact message most likely to make you crazy.
They think weâre fools.
Sheep.
Every platform will optimize content that keeps us enraged. By October, our feeds will look like the country is forty-eight hours from civil war.
It will not be. Itâs BS.
Fuck them for doing this to us.
Your neighbor (the one with the yard sign you disagree with) almost certainly agrees with you about
Equal rights.
Taxes should be fair.
Small businesses matter.
Shared values are a good thing.
Social Security shouldnât be gutted.
Waste and fraud need to be stopped.
The national debt is a genuine crisis.
Free market capitalism (with controls) is good.
We must care for the sick and the downtrodden.
Violent criminals should face real consequences.
Everyone deserves a fair shot at the American dream.
America should be strong in the world without being reckless in it.
Every American deserves a fair shot at building something of their own.
The anger category is designed to make sure you never know this. Or have conversations about it.
Because the moment you have it, you stop being angry.
And in their view, a customer (citizen) who stops being angry is a bad customer.
250th Birthday
In July 2026, the United States of America turns 250.
A lot of assholes are going to try and sell us that American sucks. And Americans are divided.
Weâre not.
Itâs ok to disagree. To strive for a better union. To debate. Dialogue. To dig into the real problems and opportunities America has. I donât agree with many people I love the most on every topic. And I bet you donât either.
So what?
American is a legendary two hundred and fifty year an experiment. Self government. A new category of country. For and by the people.
A nation assembled from dialogue, argument, and compromise. With strong checks and balances. From the radical proposition that free people could govern themselves. Across difference, distance, and every fracture that should have finished us.
We survived a civil war. Two world wars. The fight for equality for all. A Great Depression. Assassinations. Watergate. 9/11. Financial crashes. Attacks from within.
America did not break.
Because America is legendary.
(Not perfect.)
Not because Americans agreed on everything. But because beneath the argument, there has always been a stubborn, persistent, exasperating American consensus about what this place is supposed to be.
That consensus is still here.
It is the majority.
It is just underwater.
One Fish, Two Fish, Time For All Fish To See The Water
Fish cannot see the water.
And you are not a fish.
You are a human being with the capacity to recognize a system that is manipulating you.
And to choose, consciously, to opt out.
Thinking about thinking, is the most important kind of thinking.
The next time a politician sends you an email designed to make you angry. Delete that shit. When cable news stages a screaming match between two donkeys. Turn it off. When your feed surfaces something engineered to make you despise your neighbor, or America, stop. And ask the only question that matters:
Who profits from this?
The answer is never you.
The answer is never us.
Do the most radical, American thing you can do in 2026.
Agree with someone youâre supposed to hate. See the water in the water. Letâs stop the insane fighting. Letâs debate the issues. Letâs come together.
Think.
Vote.
And have a great time on July 4th.
Because we do live in a legendary country.
A new category of country. That we can all proud of.
Letâs celebrate.
250 years of legendary.
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Every claim in this newsletter is grounded in verified data. Sources include Pew Research Center, Gallup, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, AP-NORC, PRRI, the Reagan National Defense Survey, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, NPR/PBS/Marist, Navigator Research, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and the SBA Office of Advocacy, among others. Verified by multiple AIs from Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity.
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Thereâs a book by Ryan Holiday called âTrust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulatorâ that talks about how media changed with the internet.
The media earns revenue from clicks & views and therefore changed their headlines to anger-inducing ones to get people riled up enough to click/share/view.