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The Quiet Zone is Killing Democracy
An Essay for 2025
There is a space in the human experience where voices still. It’s not peace. It’s not rest. It’s not contemplation. It’s fear. It’s paralysis. It’s a silence not of choice, but of oppression. In 2025, we call it The Quiet Zone.
In The Quiet Zone, people whisper instead of speak. They observe, but they do not intervene. They nod instead of challenge. They blend instead of stand. Lethargy is confused for neutrality. Cowardice cloaks itself in compliance. For there is a bully in the room. And this bully doesn’t just raise his voice — he raises stakes. He issues edicts, commands submission, and feasts on the fear of those who know what it means to be targeted, ridiculed, or erased.
The ruthless strategy of this bully — who happens also to lead — is simple: Shut up.
I don’t hear your voice.
Your life, your circumstance, your lived experience? They don’t matter — only mine does.
Worse yet, your experiences — the trauma, the survival, the truth — are the very things he detests. He wants them gone. He wants you gone. And he’s building a nation where he doesn’t have to hear about the people he’s committed to erasing.
