The exhausted didn’t leave all at once. There was no single day the majority walked out of the public square. No manifesto, no march, no mass protest. Just a slow drift. A turning away. One person at a time, they stopped playing the game.
They stopped debating talking heads, arguing in the comments, and raising their hands at town halls where cameras outnumbered citizens. They stopped watching the panels and the pressers, stopped signing the petitions, and stopped believing that any of it had much to do with them anymore. They didn’t burn it down. They ghosted it. And then they stopped voting, too.
Because the square got too loud and too dumb. Because every issue turned into a performance. Every crisis, a loop. Every conversation, a trap. Trump announces tariffs with one breath and signs executive orders countermanding them with the next. Wars with climbing body counts barely earn a scroll. The markets panic and settle in a Groundhog Day of volatility and failed object permanence. Journalists pretend it’s all breaking news when it’s just the same game of three-card monte, played on different street corners. The square has become a circus, and the ringleaders are indistinguishable from the clowns.
We mistake the exhausted majority’s silence for consent, laziness, or privilege. But silence can also be a refusal – to lend credibility to a system that long ago stopped listening, to perform a pantomime of participation, or to be cast in a play where the script was written by lobbyists and oligarchs.
What does it mean to be informed in 2025? When every screen is shouting, every feed is curated for conflict, and every update is optimized to hijack attention, not deepen understanding? When the lead story is about war crimes one moment and a celebrity slap the next, with no distinction in volume, tone, or context?
They aren’t confused. They’re exhausted.
And exhaustion is rational. It’s what happens when you keep being told to care with all your heart while knowing it won’t change a damn thing. When the town square became a casino. When the ballot box became a tech support form. When the national conversation became a brand strategy.
Is it any wonder they tuned out?
Because this isn’t democracy. It’s reality television with real-world consequences. It’s algorithmic churn disguised as discourse. It’s culture war cosplay with billion-dollar backers and no exit ramp.
The exhausted majority knows the game being played: left vs. right, elite vs. populist, up vs. down. The story changes, but the structure doesn’t. It’s engineered for division, manufactured to keep power exactly where it is, and designed to wear us down.
And the rest of us? We keep asking why no one shows up to the meetings, rallies, or comments section. We keep trying to make the square louder, but louder won’t bring them back.
They’ll come back when speech isn’t content, disagreement isn’t a liability, leadership isn’t just influence in a suit, and platforms are built for presence, not performance.
Until then, they’ll be at the edge of the grid.
You won’t always see them.
But they’re watching.
And they’re waiting.
Not for permission. For possibility.
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