The Machine Keeps Turning

This isn’t a celebration post. It’s a grieving one. For everyone who’s lost in silence while the spotlight only shines on power.

Not every death means the same thing. Some are tragedies. Some are signs of a deeper sickness in the system. Some are the inevitable result of a machine that thrives on cruelty. And while we’re all supposed to treat them as equal—mourn them the same, respond the same—the truth is: context matters. Power matters. And who gets heard in death says a lot about who was protected in life. Headlines flood in, timelines explode, and the whole internet turns into a shouting match: Was it justified? Was it political? Who’s to blame? Who “deserves” to die?

Meanwhile, someone else dies. And someone else. And someone else.

A school shooting happens the same day—maybe it makes the national news for a day or two. A black man is found dead under “suspicious” circumstances—local news might pick it up, maybe someone tries to make a hashtag, but it doesn’t stick. Various threats target HBCUs, synagogues, mosques, community centers—briefly mentioned, then gone. A mentally ill man is killed by police on camera—no protests this time, no momentum. The grief is real. The trauma is lasting. But the spotlight moves on, and the victims are left to suffer in near silence.

But this one guy, this one death? Everyone's got a take. Not because his death was more tragic or more unjust—but because his name was already loud. He built a platform punching down, spreading hate, amplifying fascist rhetoric, and now everyone wants the last word.

And look—I get it. When someone who spent their whole career demonizing marginalized people dies, it brings up a lot. Rage. Relief. Even joy. Especially if you or your community were in his crosshairs.

Lately, even quoting the man’s own words allegedly gets people fired. Not praising his death. Not calling for violence. Just refusing to grieve in the right tone. If you don’t cry on cue—if your face doesn’t match the script—they’ll say you’re dangerous. Disrespectful. Fireable. Like anything other than quiet mourning is a threat.

I don’t believe anyone deserves to die. That doesn’t mean I’ll grieve every death the same—but I can’t celebrate it either. For me, it’s not about who died. It’s about how quickly the machine demands our sympathy for power, while the people harmed by that power are left unheard.

But this post isn’t a sequel to that. It’s a zoom out.

Because what scares me isn’t just the violence itself—it’s how quickly we’re told to mourn the architect of harm while the victims are buried in silence. How often we’re expected to stay quiet, respectful, or neutral when our people are targeted—but the moment the violence touches someone with a platform, it becomes a national reckoning.

Because while we’re yelling about whether this was political, or justified, or deserved—more people keep dying. Quietly. Off camera. Outside the spotlight. And we don’t even pause.

Political violence is getting worse. It’s not just mass shootings. It’s bomb threats. It’s militias. It’s lawmakers hinting at executions. It’s police brutality. It’s transphobic laws. It’s stochastic terrorism. It’s the whole machine.

And when we act like the death of someone who built a platform spreading hate and promoting authoritarian rhetoric is the collapse of civilization—but ignore every Black, brown, queer, trans, disabled person killed before and after—it says everything about who we see as human.

So no, I’m not writing this to cancel out what I said before. I’m writing this because what I said before was never just about one man.

People are dying. People are getting sick. People are being killed. Constantly. Every kind of person. In so many places. But the violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in a context. With histories. With systems. With power.

And every time we treat the death of someone who built a platform spreading hate and promoting authoritarian rhetoric as more meaningful than the lives he endangered—we help that system stay in place.

The real danger isn’t just one person with a gun. It’s that we’ve built a world where the people most responsible for rising hate get the biggest platforms, the deepest sympathy, the most airtime—even in death.

There’s no justice in that. Just more violence, waiting to happen.

And I don’t have an answer. I’m just tired of pretending this is normal.

To see what this post is a response to, click here

[Update note:] Since first writing this, I’ve added links—not for clicks, but for context. Each one leads to a real person, a real death, a real act of violence, a moment to suffering that barely registered before the spotlight moved on. These moments weren’t forgotten by those who loved them—they never will be. But the rest of us were never really asked to remember. I added the links not to prove anything, but to hold the weight of what’s missing.

Note: I reject violence in all its forms. Nothing I write here is a call to arms, or a celebration of harm. These posts are warnings, not endorsements—an attempt to trace the patterns of power and propaganda so we might break the cycle, not fuel it. My writing is rooted in grief, in clarity, and in a stubborn refusal to give in to nihilism, cruelty, anger, or resentment. My love is for all people in this world—even those who would wish me harm.

We are all just cogs in the machine.

This post is part of an ongoing series tracing the collapse of empathy, the erosion of truth, and the machinery of silence we’re all asked to serve. For the full arc—and why it matters now more than ever—start here with the full series overview.