Jason K Heffner

Every few years they give you a new enemy. In the nineties it was welfare queens and crack addicts and super-predators. In the 2000s it was Islamic terrorism and you were told to be afraid of your neighbor on the airplane and to accept surveillance as safety. In the 2010s it was immigrants, caravans, invasions at the border. In the 2020s it was the other political party, upgraded to existential threat, fascists, communists, destroyers of democracy, depending on which channel you watched. Notice what is never the enemy. The hedge fund manager who bought your neighborhood and raised your rent 40 percent is never the enemy. The pharmaceutical executive who priced insulin at a level that makes rationing a survival strategy for American diabetics is never the enemy. The defense contractor CEO who has budgeted for cost overruns as a profit mechanism and built political protection into every congressional district where a factory or base exists is never the enemy. The private equity firm that bought the hospital, extracted its capital, laid off the nurses, and left the community without emergency services is never the enemy. They are never on the screen. They are never the face you're shown when you're told to be angry. They are never the subject of the prime time segment. They are the people who own the screen. The enemy is always someone who looks like the person next to you. Always someone who can be found in your neighborhood, your workplace, your family dinner. Never someone who can be found on the Forbes list, the Davos guest list, the Epstein flight manifest. This is not accidental. This is the product. This is what the media is for.