Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Since January 20, when our felon-in-chief dragged his baggage and ego into the White House, the nation has been living in a carnival of chaos. It is not just bad policy, not just laughable leadership—it’s a deliberate strategy. The appointments, the headlines, the scandals, the daily Twitter-esque explosions of nonsense—none of it is random. It’s a game of confusion, a game of control through chaos, a game designed to exhaust the public until we can’t tell up from down or right from wrong. And the longer this goes on, the more dangerous it becomes.

Look at the cabinet picks. It’s as if résumés no longer matter, experience is irrelevant, and conflict of interest is the only job qualification that counts. Want to regulate banks? Appoint someone whose career was built on exploiting loopholes. Want someone to oversee public education? Choose a person who doesn’t believe in public schools. Want environmental stewardship? Find a fossil fuel executive who treats climate science like a personal insult. It’s a circus, but not the fun kind with popcorn and clowns—it’s the kind where the animals are abused, the ringmaster is drunk, and the tent is on fire.

And yet, the media, the supposed guardians of democracy, stumble through the coverage as if this were just another administration making routine decisions. There is a bizarre obsession with “balance,” as if giving equal weight to competence and corruption somehow equals fairness. They will run story after story about the president’s “political instincts,” but barely mention the steady erosion of norms, rights, and institutions. When he lies, it’s framed as “misleading.” When he incites, it’s “spirited rhetoric.” When he tears at the foundations of democracy, the headline reads “unconventional leadership style.” The press, terrified of being labeled “biased,” has become complicit by refusing to name the damage in plain terms.

But this is the playbook: overwhelm the senses. If you flood the zone with scandal, with absurdity, with controversy after controversy, people become numb. They stop reacting, stop caring, stop keeping track. Chaos becomes normal. Yesterday’s outrage is buried under today’s firestorm, which is itself forgotten by tomorrow. It’s psychological warfare dressed up as governance. The more confused and divided the public, the easier it becomes to consolidate power.

This strategy thrives on division. Every policy, every statement, every move is designed to pit one group against another: urban versus rural, immigrant versus native-born, “real Americans” versus anyone who doesn’t fit the mold. It’s not about solving problems; it’s about creating enemies. The president doesn’t lead—he provokes. He doesn’t govern—he agitates. He knows that if people are busy screaming at each other, they won’t notice the quiet theft of rights, resources, and democratic safeguards happening in the background.

Authoritarian rule never arrives with a blaring trumpet. It creeps in while people are distracted. While we argue about one scandal, rules are rewritten in back rooms. While the headlines fixate on one outrageous quote, entire agencies are gutted. While people laugh at the latest absurd cabinet pick, the machinery of democracy is hollowed out. Control doesn’t always come through tanks in the streets; sometimes it comes through endless distraction, fatigue, and a carefully orchestrated sense of hopelessness.

And that’s where we are now. Tired. Confused. Overloaded. A country staggering under the weight of too many lies, too many scandals, too many crises piled one on top of another. People begin to tune out because constant outrage is unsustainable. That’s the danger. That’s when authoritarianism wins—not through strength, but through the people’s exhaustion.

January 20 was not just the start of a new administration. It was the start of an experiment in chaos as political strategy. We’ve been living it every day since: the unqualified appointments, the media’s timid framing, the daily whirlpool of division. And unless we recognize the strategy for what it is, unless we call it by its name—control through chaos—we will keep stumbling forward into a darker, more authoritarian future.