I need to tell you about something that’s been breaking my heart.
Last summer, I took my kids, Hayden and Eve, on a two-week road trip across the heart of America. From South Dakota to Wyoming to Montana.
We fired guns at a range outside Cody. We camped in Yellowstone under stars so bright it felt like the sky was showing off. We sat at the famous Cody Rodeo while families around us waved American flags with a pride that made my chest tight with emotion.
The people we met were extraordinary.
At a local diner, the waitress gave us the warmest service and the best pie I’ve had in years. At the hotels we stayed in, we were treated with overwhelming kindness and sincerity.
I am not an American citizen. I was born in Malaysia. I run Mindvalley, an American company. But I’ve spent nearly three decades traveling across your country—from my college years in Michigan to speaking events in Florida; from tech conferences in San Francisco to quiet conversations in Ohio diners.
And here is what I know to be true:
The American people are not the problem.
The warmth I felt in Wyoming, I have felt in every corner of this nation. In so-called “red” America and so-called “blue” America. Among people who voted for Trump and people who voted for Biden. Among ranchers and professors, veterans and artists, churchgoers and skeptics.
Goodness is everywhere.
So why does it feel like you are at war with each other?
The rodeo speech that changed something in me
At the Cody Rodeo, the announcer stepped into the ring and gave a speech called “Why We Stand.”
He spoke of soldiers who never came home from Vietnam. From Iraq. From the beaches of Normandy. He spoke of sacrifice, of freedom, of a flag that represents something men and women were willing to die for.
The crowd went silent. Hats came off. Hands covered hearts.
And I thought: This is real. This love of country is real. This reverence is real.
These people are not hateful. These people are not ignorant. These people are not my enemies.
Then a second thought hit me hard:
Who the hell convinced Americans that they are enemies of each other?
I was manipulated too
I need to confess something.
For years, I consumed media that painted a certain picture of Trump supporters. I read the tweets. I watched the clips. I saw the worst moments replayed on loop until they seemed like the whole story.
I absorbed a caricature.
Then I went to Wyoming. And I met human beings.
They didn’t match the cartoon I’d been sold. Not even close. These were people worried about the same things everyone worries about:
Can I afford to get sick?
Will my children have a better life than I?
Why does it feel like the whole system is rigged against regular folks?
These aren’t Republican questions or Democratic questions. These are human questions. These are kitchen-table questions.
I realized I had allowed myself to see my fellow human beings as enemies—because it’s easier to hate a cartoon than to sit with complexity.
If I were manipulated, I suspect I’m not the only one.
The inclusion paradox
There is a hard question I had to ask myself—a question raised by philosopher Ken Wilber, whose course “Integral Life” is part of the Mindvalley curriculum.
He describes a strange paradox in our modern culture. We have a “leading edge” of society that prides itself on love, diversity, and inclusion. We fight for the environment. We fight for minorities. We fight for the oppressed.
But there is one group we often feel comfortable excluding.
Wilber calls this a “performative contradiction.” How can we claim to be the movement of diversity if we look down on half the country as “deplorables”?
We cannot claim to stand for “inclusion” if we hold contempt for diversity of thought.
If our tolerance stops the moment someone wears a red hat, it isn’t tolerance. It is just another form of tribalism wearing a nicer outfit.
We have to be better than that. True inclusivity means holding space even for those we vehemently disagree with, understanding that their pain is just as real as ours.
The machine that profits from your division
Here’s what I’ve come to believe.
There are forces that profit when Americans hate each other.
The equation is simple:
When you’re angry, you click. When you click, someone makes money.
When you’re afraid, you watch. When you watch, someone sells ads.
And when you are divided, you don’t notice that your wages haven’t kept pace with inflation while CEO pay has soared. You don’t notice that healthcare bankrupts half a million families a year. You don’t notice that the same corporations often fund both parties, ensuring they win no matter who is in the White House.
The platform owners know exactly what they’re doing.
A study from MIT found that falsehoods and outrage-driven content spread six times faster than the truth.
Internal Facebook files leaked in 2021 revealed that their algorithm privileged anger to such a degree that even Meta’s own engineers warned it was “ripping society apart.”
Ken Wilber calls this the “Culture of Post-Truth.”
It creates a state of “aperspectival madness”—where we lose our shared reality and retreat into warring tribes. When algorithms prioritize outrage over facts, truth vanishes. And when there is no truth, there is only power.
The division is not an accident. It is a business model.
And all of us—left and right, rural and urban, MAGA and progressive—we are the product being sold.
Then comes the second wave: The Bots.
A 2024 USC study analyzed online traffic during political flashpoints. What they found was chilling.
Nearly half of the most viral, toxic conversations weren’t coming from humans.
They were generated by bots. In some cases, bot activity spiked from 20% to 43% of the total conversation.
These weren’t Americans. These were automated scripts originating from Russia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Macedonia.
Think about that.
When you see a comment that makes your blood boil, when you rage at “the other side”—half the time, you aren’t fighting a fellow citizen. You are fighting a line of code from a server farm halfway across the world.
It is a foreign algorithm wearing the mask of your neighbor.
The bots are designed to make you hate each other. The actual Americans I’ve met just want the same things.
Something doesn’t add up
I’m not an economist. I’m not a policy expert.
But I’m someone who has built a life on questioning assumptions—what I call “brules,” the bullshit rules society programs into us without evidence.
In a “Post-Truth” world, b-rules thrive. They fill the void where facts used to be. So I decided to look at the actual data. And the reality I found didn’t match the stories I’d been told.
Here are four ideas worth reexamining.
1. On the economy
I always heard that one party was better for business, better for the stock market, better for jobs. It seemed obvious. Everyone repeated it.
Then I looked at the record.
Since 1933, the stock market has performed more than twice as well under Democratic presidents (NYU / Stock Market Historical Review).
Job creation has nearly doubled.
And 10 of the last 11 recessions began under Republican administrations.
I’m not sharing this to score political points. I’m saying: the story I was told was a “brule”. It didn’t match reality.
2. On immigration
I was told immigrants were driving crime and draining resources.
But study after study shows the opposite.
Texas—a state at the center of the immigration debate—found that native-born Americans commit violent crimes at nearly twice the rate of undocumented immigrants (Texas Dept. of Public Safety, 2024).
And in 2022 alone, undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in taxes (ITEP, 2024).
They pay billions. They work in agriculture, construction, elder care, and childcare—industries that would collapse without them. Many can’t even claim refunds on the taxes they pay.
So if they’re not causing crime… and they’re not draining your taxes…
Why have we been taught to fear them?
Who benefits when we are afraid of the most vulnerable among us?
3. On healthcare: the freedom to fail
530,000.
That is the number of American families that go bankrupt every year due to medical bills.
In Canada: zero.
In Germany: zero.
In the U.K., France, Japan, Australia: virtually zero.
This isn’t because Americans are sicker. It’s because of policy choices made by people who benefit from the status quo.
But here is the brule we’ve been taught: safety nets make people lazy.
The data shows the exact opposite.
Countries with robust social safety nets—like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark—are hotbeds for entrepreneurship. Sweden produces more unicorn tech companies per capita than any region except Silicon Valley.
Why?
Because entrepreneurship requires risk. And risk requires security.
In America, “freedom” often means the freedom to fall through the cracks.
In social democracies, the government provides a trampoline.
When you don’t have to worry about losing your healthcare because you left your corporate job, you are free to be brave.
4. On the American dream: a personal warning
I was always told America has the highest upward mobility in the world—that this is the only place where anyone, from any background, can make it to the top.
It is a beautiful story. But I decided to look at the rankings.
The Global Social Mobility Index ranks countries on how easy it is for a person to start at zero and climb to the top.
The United States ranks 27th.
The top of the list? Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden.
The “American Dream” is now statistically more likely to happen in Scandinavia than in America.
So why do we resist the very policies that would fix this?
I believe it is because Americans have been manipulated into confusing “Social Democracy” with “Communism.”
And I need to make a distinction here that is deeply personal to me.
I am an entrepreneur. I love entrepreneurs. And I hate Communism with a fire that comes from my own blood.
The Estonian side of my family owned a farm on the Baltic island of Hiiumaa for hundreds of years. But when the Communists took control of Estonia in the 1940s, that legacy was shattered.
They sent a massive portion of the Estonian population to the gulags. My children’s great-grandparents were marched into a forest, lined up, and shot in the head. They were buried in unmarked graves.
Their sin? They were farmers who happened to own their own land.
This is a scar on my family’s history. That land was stolen, and it was only returned to us in the early 1990s when Estonia finally threw off the shackles of Communism and property ownership was legal again.
So you can imagine how I feel when I hear Americans screaming the word “Communism” at things that are clearly not Communism.
I know what Communism is. I know the smell of the graves it digs.
And I need you to know: A safety net is not Communism.
We need to understand the difference between three very different things:
- Communism: The government owns everything. They shoot you for owning a farm. (Think Soviet Estonia).
- Socialism: The government owns the means of production.
- Social Democracy: The government provides a floor so that capitalism can thrive. (Think modern Europe).
The tragedy is that by fearing the ghost of Communism, Americans have rejected the very systems that would make their capitalism stronger.
You can’t take big risks if the system is designed to crush you for stumbling.
When I look at my family’s history, I know that Communism destroys the human spirit. But I also know that unbridled capitalism, without a safety net, breaks the human body.
Real freedom requires a floor you can’t fall through.
The scripture I can’t stop thinking about
After Wyoming, I took Hayden to Ellis Island.
We stood at the base of the Statue of Liberty and read the famous inscription: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
I thought about my own family—immigrants who came to Malaysia with nothing. I thought about the families at the rodeo, many of whose ancestors arrived the same way, chasing the same dream.
Then I remembered these words from Jesus:
“I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25:35)
“Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40)
I’m not a theologian. But those verses haunted me on that island.
I started wondering: What would it mean to take them seriously—not as a political slogan, but as a genuine challenge to how we treat the desperate?
Christ didn’t say: Fear the foreigner. Blame the stranger. Build walls and turn the desperate into demons.
So how did so many good people of faith end up cheering for rhetoric that seems to contradict the teacher they follow?
I don’t ask this to judge. I ask because the contradiction breaks my heart.
The real enemies are not each other
If I could share one insight from an outsider looking in with love, it would be this:
The veteran in Wyoming and the activist in Oakland are not enemies. They are prisoners in the same cell, fighting over crumbs while the warden laughs.
The immigrant picking strawberries didn’t move your factory overseas.
The college student protesting injustice didn’t write the tax code that lets billionaires pay lower rates than nurses.
The single mother on food stamps didn’t create a healthcare system that charges $800 for insulin that costs $8 to make.
Your frustration is real.
But the target you’ve been given is wrong.
And while you are fighting your neighbor, the systems that squeeze you keep squeezing.
What I’m asking
I’m not asking you to change your vote.
I’m not asking you to abandon your values.
I’m not asking you to agree with me.
I’m asking something simpler:
Be suspicious of anyone who tells you to hate.
Be suspicious of the media that makes you angry every single day—because anger is profitable, and you are the product.
Be suspicious of leaders who need enemies more than they need solutions.
And ask yourself, honestly:
Is my life actually better under the policies I support?
Are my bills lower?
Is my healthcare more affordable?
Are my wages keeping up?
Do my children have more opportunity than I did?
If the answer is no, then maybe, just maybe, you’ve been convinced to fight the wrong battles.
I dream of an America that finally lives up to its own giant story.
That dream doesn’t belong to the left or the right.
It belongs to anyone willing to fight for it.
Not fight each other.
Fight for each other.
PS: If this article stirred something in you—agreement, discomfort, clarity, anything—leave a comment below. Honest dialogue is how we start healing what’s been broken. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
334 Responses
Yes, love grows, hate destroys. We need to be smart and not believe everything we read. Let us be tolerant, learn to love and respect one another as ‘all is one, one is all’. Let us generate as much positive energy as possible to neutralize the negative. Spread the love. Thank you. Love you. Bless you all.
Beautiful story from the heart, Vishen!
There are many stories told in the world.
For example, America has the largest peacekeeping army in the world. Yet there is something special going on. Of the 248 armed conflicts in the world between World War II and the turn of the century, 201 were started by the United States. Do you know anyone who wants war? I don’t. War is sold because the enemy is dangerous or wants to do bad things. That must be fought for security. This is how wars are sold by the American government, which is itself the most dangerous in the world, given the number of wars it has started. Does the average American citizen benefit from all these wars? I don’t think so. It costs many billions in tax money. Money, raw materials, and power end up in the hands of the happy few.
Many stories are not true. But if you repeat them often enough, they sell well. Keep your head and your heart clear. Choose peace, togetherness, and love. That will make the world a better place.
This was really eye-opening Vishen. Even though I am not familiar about the situation in America, I started thinking about my country, and sadly the same thing has been happening here as well. And then the people who fuel these conflicts might also be operating on fear & greed. Love & compassion might be the only solution.
WOW! So profound! Thank you!
Laurie Oliver, Georgia, USA
There is only one way to free oneself from the shackles of nationalistic pride ,,, disassociate from the factions. That means rising above the projected narratives of those who choose not to … Godsparks All! ✌️❤️🙏
Thanks Vishen for putting down in words what all of us have been feeling for a long time . The sadness and inhumanity towards all of us really . How we as humans can be conscious and more pro active in our thoughts and actions going forward . We have immense power as a collective and need constant reminders and encouragement. So Thank you for your reminder and eloquence.
Great to see that you are slowly awakening to the madness around you.
I wonder if you have heard of libertarian and anarcho-capitalist ideologies?
Yas! This!! Appreciate your words and I agree. I am so glad you can continue to have positive experiences in America, that’s good to hear! And thank you for this critical and insightful thinking. We need more of it in the world, but especially in the US right now! Your words give me to hope for a country I have been disappointed in for a very long time now.
Thank you for sharing your enlightened words of truth and spreading the love. You as one and we as all are helping to make the positive changes needed for a better world.♥️🙏 Believe and it will be.
Well said. Amen. From Sweden with love to everyone <3
So very true.
How to spread the word ?
How can we stop it?
Vishen, I see many comments, but no answers from you. I am based in Sweden. How come you chose to make mindvalley an American company, instead of a Swedish company if we have a country where it is so easy and safe to be an entrepreneur? We pay huge taxes for the security net. If I fail at my biz, there are no “free money” supporting me. You are not allowed to be a failing entrepreneur to use the security net. The system is built for the 9-5 worker. It is built for people paying taxes. Many of the refugees that came are not integrated into the system, which made the system collapse when so many people arrived. And the taxes take approx 50% of the income of an entrepreneur. So, the same way Europeans believe America is the country of dreams, the same way you believe Scandinavian countries to be that. For instance google – Sweden Criminality, Sweden has the highest death by gun rates in Europe, why?
Driven by migration and poverty
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/30/how-gang-violence-took-hold-of-sweden-in-five-charts
Also here in Sweden we have very harsh division where people hate each other based on political views, vaccer anti vaccer etc. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, all the other countries seem always better. Until you realise it seems greener because of all the shit beneath it. And isn’t it so in all countries, that the elite earns money of division, hate, fear and anger, its not only USA. For a while you could lose your job in Sweden if you openly told you vote for the wrong political party or didn’t vaccinate. Ofc, it’s illegal to fire someone for that, but here’s the interesting thing, they will just use some other excuse while doing it. Sweden seems to be the lowest corrupt country in the world, but if you start tracing where all the taxes go and how they are used and who the richest people are, you start to notice it’s extremly corrupt, but very refined so it looks polished outward. So it is good marketing, and polished google results.
There is a picture on the internet, the King is standing on a balcony looking down over his people, and they are standing below ready to attack with pitchforks and torches. And the Kings advicer tells him “oh you don’t have to fight them. You just need to convince the pitchfork people that the torch people want to take their pitchforks”
I think that you have the money and the influence to do something about it, more than writing a blog
Thank you. Very needed words. ❤️
Getting rid of my TV about 20 years ago, was one of the best things I did for me. The lies and manipulation out of it were nauseating to me when I happened to watch some “news” at friends or family’s places. Once you see it, you can’t go back. We are being psy-oped left, right and centre, including with the bot farms, CGI, straight up made believe by actors/green screen/central casting and A.I. & algorithms on social media too.
It takes a lot of discernment, critical thinking, an open mind, emotional literacy & management, intuition & spiritual development to see through the lies & manipulations and still being able to show up for everyday life.
“The eyes can see only, what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”
I’m at the stage where I just go with: we’ve been programmed and lied to about almost everything in our lives, health, history, science and the level of technology & advanced knowledge, that’s been hidden from us for decades. All politics is literally just theatre.
I live in hope, because I’ve been witnessing the world-wide awakening to the lies and increased seeking within us with the exponentially growing spiritual knowledge & learning or remembering.
If the theory is true, that we are collectively co-creating our shared reality, then I believe, we’ve been high-jacked from birth and have had the wool pulled over eyes for decades, centuries or longer.
But once we start to see again, we could use our imagination & actions to collectively co-create a beautiful and thriving world to live in.
Dear Vishen and Mindvalley office,
Thank you for your comments about the world we find ourselves in.
Last week, we visited our relatives in Victoria with my two youngest daughters.
The argument from my eldest brother that I am in the minority, and that he is in the majority who brules, via democracy?
I actually have no time to argue with human beings.
The state of our social justice economies is rooted not as much in capitalism as it is in racial intolerance.
Jesus said in Mathew 16 :20 it’s not what we consume that hurts our wellbeing, and all about what we speak from the heart towards one another , that defiles the wellbeing of our humanity.
I am witnessing this everyday now, in a social interaction with most people.
Greetings from my own siblings, that were once tolerable are now unbearable and I find the language abuse very awkward to keep peace with my soul.
Knowing that in America there is a wave of language abuse that wants to blanket all humanity in its one gender greetings?
I am disturbed by this greetings and now it’s used everywhere in Australia also.
Universal health care required our languages respect for each cultural arts heritage differences.
Spiritual economy required forgiveness and conscious giving to equalise the values between wealth and impoverished by wealth focus on equality respect.
Personally I know very little about the facts that you talked about in America,
only can see that American language is an overwhelming impact on the respect of first nations traditional owners families languages in Australia.
Immigration and helping give life to people from other countries is important, however it’s turning out to be at the expense of traditional owners of Australia today is yalaguli, and if we are going to bring large amounts of people from other countries it’s also at everyone expense because the government talking about build more houses and never talk about maintaining the properties they have? Especially when they like our family, locked away in public housing with no options and no maintenance respect?
Hatred isn’t necessary, humanity wellbeing needs love and giving to power the virtues and values of sustainable development and equality goals for enduring changes from fossil fuels agendas to renewables resources generated societies.
Thinking and speaking to the treatments of one another as in the words of Jesus Christ.
I mean, how could we hope for natural future generations while we call every woman under a guy’s language terms?
This is the greatest con job to women and men in the blunders of the social world.
Talking from our very hearts of the one gender confusion reigns with the language damages to women refereed to as men?
Growing up in Australia,vi never heard that women were guys in Australia, now this abusive language is here, I feel unwelcome in Australia for being ourselves with respect to not being talked to with such demoralising terms to the spirit of a women and this undermining languages abuse triggers my memory of the languages used in adversarial systems of Commonwealth control.
Always in arguments and opposition which is heretic behaviour for the citizens who pay the cost of so much wasted life and quality of life.
If we are a tiny bit accepting of each other’s differences, needs love for accepting and committing to become the best versions of ourselves in society.
In the noisy confusions of life keep peace with your soul by speaking kindness every day towards others.
Deliberate kindness brings equality respect,
This action of speaking love from your own heart is the energy generation of our social ways.
Improving our best quality practices by improving our thoughts and prayers and words and deeds aligned with forgiving the whole time.
Yes we can rise above this choice of expression from our hearts content, to a social world that takes a moment to reflect on the respect of the contributions of both men and women and that greeting both genders of ladies and gentlemen is the respectful term of endearment that we need fed into the world by America.
Learn how to care about the very nature of relationships with men and women and their children of natural love by God almighty God Bulurru hear our prayers.
Each time and Australia person refers to me under the term of their guy’s?
I honestly become traumatised to the small child who was abused by the school teacher in primary years of education by English language abuse from the school teacher.
This is a long term distress that is not what I want to hear at my age now or any age.
If a quality conversation was about to sweep the world as this perverse abuse language confusing genders endearment terms, then we could all adjust our equalising output input channel, I understand my parents sent me to the Catholic ladies college for a reasonable quality input of the holy spirit in our education following my Mum finding out at this stage that we are forced to swallow this language abuse again in life?
Is not my tolerance level.
Is a huge nightmare fact that I often question why we wasted our lives under the gender bias of language abuse in confusion.
Recognise and understand that domestic violent behaviour comes from the words spoken from our hearts and is exactly how I experienced domestic coercive unconscionable forced intellectual property control.
So naturally of course it matters every single word we say to each other and every single thought we share in the world.
While I am acknowledging my weaknesses , sensitive to language of others, this is real unfair to me, and surely makes me feel very unwelcome in the world.
This flow on effect is the impacting reason why I am unable to commit to learning anymore because I couldn’t tolerate the gender assumptions over and beyond woman ♀️
However as God almighty God Bulurru tells me this language abuse and hatred are the adversarial thoughts condition for so many decades to maintain unconscionable intellectual property control of women’s human rights to be naturally in the world.
Archangels of God almighty
God Bulurru hear our prayers for equality respect in language used towards every natural woman ♀️ in the world.
Peace love and blessings prayers for you all at Mindvalley office and your dear families in the Yule Tide season of Merry Christmas 🎄 and happy New year 🎊
Peace on earth
Thanks be to God
Thank you for sharing, I am Mexican. I have already lived here in the United States for several years, I see everything that undocumented immigrants happen, I was really difficult to make your way.
Vishen, may it come true! At last, someone of your caliber, with intelligence and courage, has come forward to state the obvious. I pray your words will penetrate the hatred, fear, bigotry, and anxiety we, as Americans, face every moment.
We are in dire need of leaders who love our country and work to build it toward the democratic dream of our forefathers.
There is no place for egomaniacal behavior that denigrates the accomplishments of others. Claiming achievements not of their own making. Seeking accolades but never “giving back” to our beloved country.
I have always been proud to be an American. However, I am truly embarrassed for the USA today.
Right. Very good thoughts. Doing well. As Mindvalley programs are helping to understand this. It did to me anyway…
USA… does not belong to its people anymore.
As it was written in the article… It doesn’t matter which party is in the WH. The records and the past statistics are irrelevant. Most of the USA identity (and humanity) was stolen. We all know by whom.
End of story.
About time you came to you senses after the last few blog posts👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
As a Native American I came to almost exactly the same conclusion about Trump supporters and I thank you for being brave enough to share your thoughts in a time where media has taught us to reject anything different than what they tell you to think about any given topic. I turned them off and now I am at peace having my own opinions. I think it must be said that MOST people also are not afraid of immigrants they just want them to be vetted for safety reasons and to come in legally so we can be sure they know that this is their country now which means they should not be conflicted with allegiance to the country they left. If they come in illegally its not fair to the immigrants who wait years and go through all the paperwork.Also one political group used tax payer money to bring them in illegally and provide food shelter and medical through NGOs paid by taxpayer money (something they don’t give our homeless) for future votes and obligation. I myself welcome legal immigrants who love our country and want a better life and want to be adopted by her💙
Hello this was well spoken. I don’t even open many of my emails but I’ve seen you in videos and have heard your speeches, they definitely resonate with me. Im familiar with Jose Silva’s teachings. I feel you are one of the few that are actually putting out the truth of things. Hopefully maybe I can check out more of what this mind valley stuff is about. It would be great to possibly connect sometime in this existence. Thank you for being honest and bold, we need more more people like you here.
Great post, Vishen!
“We are the product”
“Hate sells”
Also great research tips.
A simple question to ask in any situation: what am I being sold?
Then the hard part is to ask yourself, do I want to buy this? Does this align with who I am?
Your best best post on this issue so far! Well done!
Come on America. We can do better.