American Panic

There are Americans online in panic—angry, anxious, calling for help, calling for direction—after just one year of Trump-era intensity, as if the nightmare began yesterday. This talk is a hard reset: not comfort, not partisan therapy—perspective. You are not watching a “broken system.” You’re watching the system operate normally. The violence America has exported for generations is simply becoming harder to ignore at home. ICE, deportations, and camps aren’t deviations—this is what America does; the difference is aesthetics, not substance. And the real problem isn’t that you lack a charismatic savior. You don’t need a leader—you need a complete ideological reorientation. Until you abandon the comforting myths and rebuild your moral architecture, your resistance collapses the moment it becomes inconvenient. In this talk, Shahid Bolsen covers: Why “it’s worse now” is often denial, not analysis Why conventional fixes (electoral, protest-as-ritual) don’t touch power What you can do: refuse to be an instrument, build alternatives, prepare for what’s already unfolding