We often think of civil war as a violent split—one faction of society breaking away from another. But I’d argue that civil war can take a quieter, more internal form. The current federal government of the United States, under the leadership of Donald J. Trump, has taken actions that resemble a war on its own institutions. Key democratic pillars—such as the Department of Justice, the judiciary, and the rule of law—have been undermined through politicized appointments, public attacks on judges and prosecutors, and refusal to comply with oversight mechanisms. These aren’t isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern that echoes authoritarian shifts seen in places like Hungary under Viktor Orbán, Turkey under Erdoğan, and Israel under Netanyahu’s successful judicial overhaul campaign. These actions threaten to slow innovation, weaken economic growth, limit public services, and degrade overall quality of life for lower class people. This quality was already under pressure due to widesprea...
There are fake people everywhere. When you scroll through social media, most feeds you see are highlights of people's life. Some people can make a beautiful post on their social media while simultaneously saying terrible things to the people closest to them like their close family or friends. This dissonance of realities can be really stark. I have a few close examples of this in my life and I find it difficult to understand. I know that people have a strong desire to be accepted by other people but why not focus on the people physically next to you as opposed to focusing so much on upholding a virtual appearance, where most of those people may not really care about you. I had a student last semester that had a very disrespectful attitude towards me and her fellow classmates but would take pictures posing in class, presumably to post on social media. I would think to myself, what is the point of upholding some virtual appearance when the people around you, due to being disrespectf...