The Thoughtcrime Register

It was never going to take long.

The gunfire was still echoing, the grief still raw, and already the script was waiting. Not from the fringes this time, not from anonymous accounts stitching lies together in the dark corners of the internet, but from the podium of the White House itself. A statement polished to a blade: blame named, enemy chosen, cause declared.

“Unhinged crusade.” That’s the phrase they use. Not grief, not inquiry, not even hesitation—just crusade. As if criticism of cages and deportations is violence in itself. As if words spoken years ago, scattered across debates and rallies and protests, can be welded into a single command that pulled a trigger in Dallas.

This is the genius of the cycle. The motives of the shooter? Irrelevant. The contradictions? Inconveniences. He is no longer a man. He is raw material. A body that becomes a symbol, a symbol that becomes a banner, and a banner that becomes law.

If you’ve been following, you’ve seen this before. After the gunfire came the spin. After the clock struck thirteen, the machine kept turning. After the turning came the poisoning of minds. Then the generals gathered, not to strategize, but to be counted. And now comes the crusade—codified, sanctified, dressed in the language of national defense.

Each step, the same rhythm. Each time, the circle tightening.

History has rhymes if you listen for them. A fire in a parliament, a bullet in a Sarajevo street, a march staged to look like a miracle—all became excuses to crush dissent, erase opposition, and build new temples to power. The facts mattered less than the usefulness. The usefulness was always the point.

Now the words themselves are sharpened into weapons. “Gestapo.” “Slave patrols.” “Secret police.” Torn from mouths that spoke them years ago, hammered into a single chant of guilt. A thousand voices of outrage, collapsed into one verdict: treason.

And with that verdict, the path is cleared. Every protest becomes subversion. Every critic becomes suspect. Every hesitation is proof of sympathy with the enemy.

Do you see the pattern? It doesn’t matter what happened. It matters only how it is told. And the telling belongs to those who already hold the microphone.

The generals sit in their hall, silent under the watchful eye of their secretary. The White House points to Dallas and declares that even words are bullets now. And the rest of us are left to ask: what will be criminalized next? Grief in the wrong tone? Refusal to mourn on cue? A question asked too loudly?

They will say this is stability. That discipline is order, and order is safety. They will tell you the enemy has been named, that loyalty requires silence, that obedience is patriotism.

But listen carefully. Behind the headlines, the gears are grinding. Behind the declarations, the smoke rises. And beneath the noise, the same lesson repeats:

The enemy is always someone else.

The crusade is always righteous.

And the machine is always hungry.

And you know how the pattern unfolds. First, the lists. Next, the demands for arrests of “the other,” loud and righteous. Then the quieter, colder arrests of “the enemy within.”. The warning comes: do not trust your neighbors. The secret enemy is said to be hidden within the party itself, working to sabotage.

The circle always tightens that way—outward fire, then inward purge.

History has shown us this sequence before, and the echoes are unmistakable now.

They tell us this is order. They tell us this is safety.

But when the gears in the machine grind forward on fear, the clock does not simply keep time—it strikes thirteen, again and again, until we forget what time was ever meant to mean.

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.

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.