America on a Horseshoe

Politics is not a straight line; it never was.

The standard narrative says there's a "left" and a "right" on the political spectrum, where each stretches infinitely in opposite directions. But real-world politics doesn’t work that way. It bends. It curves back toward itself, forming a shape more like a horseshoe. Democracy lives at the bottom of the horseshoe, and totalitarianism lurks where the two ends meet.

Picture the horseshoe standing upright. The higher you climb up either side, the less dissent is tolerated. In other words, as you approach the extremes, you get less freedom. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to peacefully assemble—they all vanish as you climb up the horseshoe toward the ends. Leaders who push us toward the ends of the horseshoe know they cannot tolerate dissent, as it challenges their power. They know that the only way to impose a rigid ideology is by force. So, at the top of the horseshoe, personal freedom is crushed, government becomes absolute, and state-sanctioned violence becomes policy.

By contrast, the bottom of the horseshoe is different. It embraces freedom. It values dissenting ideas and opinions. Sure, it's messy. It's slow. It's full of negotiation, debate, and frustration. It’s where democracy, or rule by the people, lives.

Democracy requires us to live with discomfort. It requires patience, compromise, and a deep tolerance for people with whom we disagree. In the United States, the legislative branch reflects this reality. Legislators haggle, trade favors, argue, and settle for partial victories. It's an ugly, clumsy dance, but it preserves freedom by preventing any single ideology from claiming total control. It embraces an old Rolling Stones song that said you can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.

Tolerance and openness are democracy’s strength, but it’s also a source of frustration for many, compelling them toward a world with more certainty. They see endless negotiation as a weakness. They crave certainty, purity, and finality. They feel the seductive draw of the sides of the horseshoe, where they don’t have to deal with barriers to their ideology.

On the political right, that craving often finds comfort in religious absolutism. Religion offers clear answers and unbending rules. It eliminates the need for debate. After all, if God commands it, who are we to argue?

On the political left, the same craving can harden into secular doctrine, which breeds its own ideology. Many people on the left see democracy as inherently unfair and grow tired of watching helplessly as people are made to suffer under the heel of what they perceive as unregulated greed. Thus, they seek to establish equality, by force, if necessary, by taking the trip up the left side of the horseshoe toward socialism, communism, and beyond. They ascend the left side of the horseshoe, driven by the promise of a “perfect” society. And those who don’t take this journey with them? They get increasingly marginalized the higher the ascent up the horseshoe.

In both cases, certainty is seductive. It feels righteous. But it always ends the same way, with a boot on the neck.

If a society manages to reach the tip of the horseshoe, something else inevitably takes over. At this elevation, totalitarianism thrives, where absolute power is granted to one individual or a small group of individuals. Totalitarianism may take several forms, such as oligarchy, fascism, monarchy, communism, kleptocracy, and others. No matter the form, the results are the same. Freedom for citizens is extinguished, power is concentrated, and corruption is unleashed.

The problem is that the leaders who rise to the top, no matter how noble they once seemed, abandon their ideals in favor of the timeless trifecta of money, power, and sex. Corruption inevitably takes root and cascades through the system until even basic governance collapses. Additionally, workers, farmers, builders, and all others who make society run, realize the machine serves only the rulers. When that realization comes, collapse is inevitable. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes violently.

This is not speculation. It is history. Societies have risen and fallen throughout history, and their stories are eerily similar.

Today, America has climbed high up the right side of the horseshoe. In this case, religious certitude has fused with political ambition, driving the ascent with a sense of godly righteousness. In this current scenario, the executive branch openly defies the judicial branch. Judges with dissenting opinions are not only harassed, but we’re starting to see them being arrested. Meanwhile, the legislative branch, which has already ceded much power to the executive, ducks and hides in the shadows, compromised by either complicity or fear. And the American people, who are accustomed to big problems being solved in a simple one-hour drama TV series, only watch, waiting for a hero to fix it.

The reality is harsh: no hero is coming. If America is to be saved, we must save it ourselves.

Today, we face a choice: to protest, organize, and speak out while it is still possible, or to remain silent and be ruled. There is no middle ground at the top of the horseshoe. The longer we wait, the more brutal the descent will become. And there will be a descent. Make no mistake about it.

We’re witnesses to an ancient story of humanity playing out once again, where a society slips into tyranny, led there by those who claimed to be its saviors, only to fall. The question is, how far will we fall?

If we fail, it will not be because tyranny was inevitable. It will be because we lacked the courage to stop it.

History is watching. This is our time. This is our fight.