You ever notice the fights we’re having aren’t even about the stuff that’s killing us.

Rent’s up. Groceries are up. Nobody can buy a house before forty. And somehow the national conversation is always about some other guy in some other group who supposedly hates you for existing.

That’s not an accident, man. That’s the play. Keep everybody swinging sideways so nobody looks up.

Because the second you and your neighbor realize you’re mad about the same things, that’s a problem for somebody. Doesn’t matter what team you’re on, red or blue, this hashtag or that one, you’re both getting squeezed the exact same way by the exact same hands.

So they hand you a flag instead. Something to hold onto. Something that feels like meaning. And you go to war over it while the actual decisions get made in a room you were never invited to.