Your Silence Is Your Assent

There’s a phrase I’ve come to loathe more than any other over the past few months. I’ve heard it from friends, family, colleagues—smart, decent people who know better:

“I’m just going to ride it out.”

Ride it out. As if this is just bad weather. As if democracy itself hasn’t been shoved into the trunk of a speeding Tesla and driven off a cliff. As if four more years of a twice-impeached, now re-elected, revenge-fueled narcissist is something you simply hunker down and wait out, like a bad case of shingles.

Let me be blunt: your silence is your accent. It’s the tone with which you announce to the world that you’re more afraid of uncomfortable conversations than authoritarian overreach. That you’re more invested in maintaining brunch plans than protecting civil rights.

And look—I get it.

I’ve usually been the guy who just keeps quiet, too. While some moron is spouting off nonsense about stolen elections or how the “deep state” is secretly running daycare centers, I’ll smile politely (or not) and then find an excuse to step away. Head for the bar. Look for a more interesting conversation. Hell, I’ve even pretended to take a phone call to escape.

Don’t think writing these op-eds is my comfort zone. It isn’t. This isn’t me basking in righteous indignation from a soapbox I built in my garage. This is me finally realizing—too late, maybe—that silence is complicity, and complicity has a body count.

There came a point, not long ago, when I realized that my voice matters. And yours does too.

So use it. Or literally lose it.

Because every time you keep your head down and say nothing at work, at the dinner table, on social media, you are still speaking. You are still choosing. And the people tearing apart the institutions that hold this country together? They’re counting on that. They are counting on your polite disengagement. They are counting on your fear of seeming “too political.” They are counting on your exhaustion.

I’m not asking you to quit your job and join a commune. I’m asking you to stop pretending that neutrality exists anymore. You think you’re staying out of it, but you’re not. You’re just standing still while the ground moves beneath you. History has a long memory and a short tolerance for bystanders.

The Supreme Court isn’t neutral. ICE isn’t neutral. The media isn’t neutral. So why are you? Do you think your children will thank you for keeping your mouth shut while their future was being sold off to the highest bidder?

Here’s the truth: If you’re not using your voice right now, then you’re lending it to the people who are. And they’re using it to scream. To intimidate. To legislate hate.

This isn’t about being a Democrat or a Republican. This is about whether you believe in equal rights or enforced submission. Whether you want a functioning republic or a propaganda machine. Whether you believe the truth is something we pursue together—or something handed down from the podium of a wannabe strongman.

The next four years will define not just policy, but character. And when your kids, or your grandkids, or even your own conscience asks what you did—what you said—during this chapter of American collapse, what will your answer be?

If it’s silence, just remember: that’s what they heard, too.