Innocent Bystander?
It feels like we’re watching history’s worst reruns, only this time with worse production values and a bigger marketing budget. We scroll through authoritarianism like it’s a reality show, double-tapping as freedoms erode. Fascists don’t need to be smart anymore, just viral. Their manifestos come with engagement metrics and sponsored content. What scares me more than the politics is the apathy, the collective shrug as foundations crumble beneath us.
It’s not the villain we should fear most. It’s the comfortable bystander. The one who recognizes the warning signs but still changes the channel. The one who feels the outrage but contains it within a hashtag. The one who knows better but does nothing. And sometimes, that bystander is me. I watch, I worry, I post, I move on. I tell myself awareness is enough, that being informed is the same as being engaged. But history doesn’t remember the well-informed spectators. It only remembers those who stood up when standing meant something. The question hanging over us isn’t whether we recognized the moment we were in, but what we did when we saw it unfolding.