Accomplices.

I can’t say if it was this afternoon or if this wrinkle of indignation has been with me for much longer, but something split in me as I walked through the city, hearing fragments of conversation flung to the wind. Young people were talking about the future, about success as though it were a polished product packaged in ready-made phrases — and suddenly, the world felt like a field enclosed by identical faces, each wearing the same hollow expression of triumph, an ambition that rings out, hollow as an echo in an empty room.

I stepped into a café, hoping to hide from that exhausted landscape outside, but it was worse in there. A group discussed “opportunities” as if everything was a financial operation, blank contracts filled with empty words. The conversation had weight, but it was cold, a sort of veiled malice, hanging in the air like an acrid smell that curls up in your gut. They were talking about people like gamblers talking about odds, staking lives without blinking as if it were natural to measure a person’s worth by their utility — after all, everyone’s currency in this marketplace of polished facades. And I, an idiot, still searching for meaning in these details, in the scraps of realism slipping past me. But why?

Those words hung in the air like rubble, loaded with a familiar despondency, the same cynical authoritarianism now taking hold of the country. There’s no room for honest discussion, no open ears; words harden like walls, like barriers raised in the name of a “defense” that only guards intolerance. With its unyielding order, this far-right government was embedded in every word, every empty laugh, in those self-satisfied looks at their petty triumph. They’re convinced that brute force can solve anything, that imposed cruelty is a necessary remedy, and that the world needs nothing more than firm hands and silenced mouths.

Someone nearby remarked, half-laughing, that it was good Trump had won again. And the laughter that followed was dry, the laugh of someone who’s picked up the message. To them, he’s more than a leader; he’s the raw power that quiets their hunger for control, an idol molded out of prejudice, of truths wrung out into the slogans of cheap morality. And the worst part? Deep down, what they want isn’t just an idol to admire but a kind of brutality they don’t dare enact with their own hands. They want a performer to do their dirty work — someone to embody the violence they’ll never admit to themselves. But that’s what they crave.

And you know what’s intolerable? Seeing these people who, deep down, know exactly what’s at stake but smile anyway. They laugh because they believe they’re protected, convinced that authoritarianism never touches them, and they’re so quick to champion. They’re willing to do anything to win this power game — trade-offs of values, freedoms handed over like trophies, the people themselves cast aside as they tighten control, sharpening their ideologies like scalpels meant to cut only what suits them.

And what about us, watching from the sidelines? What are we, if not accomplices to this farce? We’ve let bitterness crowd out our criticism because we look away as new walls are raised, as the powerful strengthen their grip and seal the silence of those who see. I was rooted to the spot, afraid to question; for a second, I felt the coward’s urge to laugh with them, yield, and accept their twisted morality like someone picking the side that promises survival. There’s an almost unspeakable temptation in it all: to close your eyes and hope that this authoritarian control sweeps everything away like some machine clearing the field and sparing no weaklings. And maybe that’s the dirtiest part of all: knowing I could give in too, that I’m made of this same mixture of resignation and greed. That their indifference is mine, too.

I walked out, knowing this urge to flee wasn’t mine alone. It belongs to all who avoid facing the future we’re building, like people who would rather not confront their own faces in a mirror already cracked. And there’s a question that burns: how long will we walk with our heads lowered, pretending none of this affects us? Or better yet, is none of this ours? How long will we be passive spectators while others laugh, rule, and bind our freedoms as if they’re nothing more than disposable objects?

And you, reading this now, feeling that faint discomfort, like a cold shiver, are you really going just to read on, turn the page, and smile in the same café as always? How much longer will you pretend you’re not a part of this, that it wasn’t you who planted this poison in your own backyard?