Louisiana barely-working, hard-hit young adult discusses prospects for the future and the GOP destructive nilism and self hatred.

I’m 23. I voted for change because I believed in something better. I believed in the promise of a New America where the middle class gets a real shot, where hard work means something again, where greatness isn’t just nostalgia but an actual plan for people like me.

I’m watching that promise turn into something I don’t recognize. And I need to understand why nobody’s asking the obvious question: Why is the president trying to break everything?

The Grocery Store Reality Check

I go to the grocery store and see the prices. Then I drive past the farms and the answer is right there. We’re deporting the farm workers. So either the food rots in the fields or the prices go up even more. This isn’t complicated math. This is intentional.

I wanted to believe the “America First” thing meant making things better for Americans. But when you remove the people who pick the food and the prices spike, who does that help? Not me. Not my family. Not them for sure. And not anyone in my town. Huh?

The construction site down the road has a “Now Hiring” sign that’s been up for months. Good wages, benefits, the whole thing. But the only people being hired are the ones who can afford to wait out the immigration raids and the chaos.

Meanwhile, I pass the data center going up outside town. Massive. Hundreds of acres. They’re taking our water—water we need for crops, for homes, for life—apparently, to cool the servers that train the AI replacing my job prospects.

Who gets the water in a heat wave? The tech company or the people who’ve lived here for generations?

Who gets the electricity when the grid is maxed out? The data center or the hospital?

These aren’t hypothetical questions anymore. Memphis is dealing with it right now. So are towns in Virginia, Ohio, Texas. Data centers show up, promise jobs, drain resources, pollute poor neighborhoods, and when the bubble bursts, we’re left with the mess.

The Promise vs. The Reality

I want to believe in opportunity. In growth. In the idea that things could be better than what my parents had.

That’s what I was sold: a future where hard work matters again, where the playing field gets leveled, where regular people get a fair shot.

Instead, I’m watching systematic destruction.

The Trump agenda isn’t building anything. It’s dismantling because it doesn’t know how to build or make partners to truly build things. He’s one giant Ponzi.

Consumer protections gone. Environmental safeguards eliminated. Water protections rolled back. The institutions that kept the powerful in check are being gutted.

Yet nobody in power is really asking why.

We’ve Never Had This Before

Here’s what keeps me up at night: We’ve never had a president actively work to break the economy. We’ve had bad presidents, corrupt presidents, incompetent presidents. Sure. But we’ve never had one who is determined to destroy the systems that keep regular people afloat.

Mass deportations that spike food prices and crash industries? That’s not an accident. That’s policy.

Rolling back environmental protections so companies can poison communities without consequence? That’s not deregulation. That’s abandonment.

Giving data centers unlimited access to water and power while towns run dry? That’s not innovation. That’s extraction.

This isn’t conservatism. This isn’t even capitalism. This is something else entirely.

The Enemy Within

Now we’re being told the enemy is within. The military is getting briefed that Americans who disagree are the threat. That domestic opposition is the danger.

But look at the actual violence. Look at the shooters. Look at who’s actually pulling triggers.

Thomas Sanford drove his truck into a Mormon church and shot people at a Sunday service. Iraq War veteran. Trump signs in his yard. “Make Liberals Cry Again” shirts in his photos.

Nigel Edge shot up a waterfront bar in North Carolina. Purple Heart recipient. Marine veteran. Killed three people.

Tyler Robinson assassinated Charlie Kirk, but even that story doesn’t add up. The whole thing has the trademarks of something deeper. The investigation’s being handled in ways that raise more questions than answers.

These aren’t leftist radicals. These are people who believed the same promises I did and something went wrong.

The Data Question Nobody’s Asking

Peter Thiel’s companies—Palantir and the rest—what exactly are they doing with our data? Our data. The information we generate just by living our lives.

We own that data. It’s ours. But these companies harvest it, sell it, use it to build surveillance systems that get sold to governments and corporations. And we get nothing.

There’s a growing movement for data ownership—the idea that we should control and benefit from our own information. But instead, we’re moving toward a surveillance state where every click, every purchase, every movement gets tracked and monetized by people who already have everything.

How is that the New America? How is that freedom?

Memphis and Everywhere Else

The Memphis story should be national news every single day until it’s fixed. But it’s not just Memphis. It’s happening in towns across the country.

Tech companies arrive promising jobs and growth. They build massive data centers that consume ungodly amounts of electricity. They run unpermitted gas turbines that poison the air. They drain water supplies dry. And they do all this in communities that can’t fight back—poor neighborhoods, Black and brown communities, rural areas without political power.

This is environmental racism and economic exploitation happening in real time. And it’s being enabled by the same administration that promised to put regular Americans first.

The Destruction Paradigm

Here’s what terrifies me: This all feels strategically aligned. Not random chaos, but purposeful destruction.

Consumer protections eliminated so corporations can exploit us without consequence.

Environmental regulations gutted so companies can extract and pollute freely.

Water rights removed so tech giants can drain aquifers while communities go thirsty.

Military rhetoric turned inward so dissent becomes treason.

This isn’t accidental. This is a paradigm shift toward something fundamentally un-American.

The Joker Philosophy

I keep thinking about the Tyler Robinson case and others like it. There’s this online culture—the edgelord nihilism, the “burn it all down” mentality, the idea that destruction is its own justification.

It’s the Joker philosophy: some people just want to watch the world burn.

But it’s not coming from nowhere. When you tell people the system is broken and needs to be destroyed, when you normalize violence as political expression, when you treat democracy as an obstacle rather than a framework—you create the conditions for this.

The doomsday Christians who see destruction as divine plan. The accelerationists who think collapse will bring renewal. The tech billionaires who bet on chaos because they think they’ll come out on top.

They’re all aligned around the same basic idea: Break it all and see what emerges from the rubble.

What’s The Exit Plan?

I need someone to explain the endgame to me. Just so I know what we’re building toward.

We deport the workers, prices spike, and then what?

We eliminate environmental protections, companies poison communities, and then what?

We drain aquifers for AI training, the water runs out, and then what?

We turn the military inward against citizens, normalize political violence, and then what?

What’s the plan? What’s the future we’re building?

Because from where I’m sitting, there is no plan. There’s just destruction for its own sake. Nihilism dressed up as patriotism. Chaos marketed as strength.

This Isn’t America

I wanted to believe in the New America. I wanted to believe in opportunity and growth and a future where people like me matter.

Instead, I’m watching coordinated destruction.

This isn’t conservative values. This isn’t Christian values. This isn’t American values.

America is supposed to be about freedom—actual freedom, not just freedom for corporations to exploit us. America is supposed to be about opportunity for regular people, not just tax breaks for billionaires. America is supposed to be about building something better, not burning down what we have.

We are builders. We are innovators. We are problem-solvers. We’ve always been the country that faced challenges and figured them out together.

This? This is the opposite of everything we’re supposed to be.

The Question We’re Not Asking

Why is the president actively working to destabilize the economy? Why is the administration eliminating protections that keep us safe? Why are we being told to fear our neighbors while the real threats come from people in power?

Why is nobody in leadership stopping this?

The media treats each disaster as isolated. The politicians pretend it’s normal disagreement. The pundits argue about optics while the foundations crumble.

But this isn’t normal. This isn’t disagreement about policy. This is systematic destruction of everything that made America function for regular people.

What I Need to Know

I’m 23 years old. I’m supposed to be building a life right now. Finding work. Starting a family. Investing in a future.

Instead, I’m watching the future burn.

I’m watching protections stripped away. I’m watching violence normalized. I’m watching democracy threatened.

Because from where I stand, this is the opposite of greatness. This is destruction masquerading as strength. This is chaos marketed as change. This is nihilism dressed up as patriotism.

I want to hope. I want to build something.

That’s what leaders and parties provided vision and hope. No one in power seems to care. What does that tell us.

How would any of this make America great?

Republicans need to revolt against this paradigm. It’s not us. Revolt than suppress this bleak, desperate, self hatred.