Denial

It is comforting to believe nothing has changed. It is comforting to believe we are still young, still free, still living in the country we were taught to admire. But reality has a way of shattering comforting illusions.

The scale does not lie. You can avoid stepping on it, you can convince yourself the problem doesn’t exist, but the truth remains unchanged. Denial does not alter reality.

The United States was once a place where people could walk with confidence that the law applied equally, that freedom was more than a slogan, and that government power had limits. Those days are gone. We are now living under a dictatorship, whether we choose to admit it or not.

Donald Trump has made that reality unmistakable. He threatens to send federal troops into American cities to suppress unrest that his own actions ignited—after armed agents shot a woman in the face and killed her. Instead of accountability, we get intimidation. Instead of truth, we get lies layered upon lies.

You can go about your day pretending the sun still shines the same way. You can insist this is normal, that freedom still exists because it once did. But deep down, you know better. Truth no longer matters. Power does.

We are being reduced to subjects—peasants meant to serve the wealthy and protect their interests. Rights are conditional. Justice is selective. And obedience is increasingly demanded, not earned.

This is what dictatorship looks like—not all at once, but step by step, while people convince themselves nothing has changed.

The scale is waiting.