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
Thank you for the thought provoking article. I am so tired of politics in the USA. Politics are so divisive. I am joining the independent party. Keep writing your great articles!
Vishen I loved your thought leadership here that is very much my own observations. Sharing a post I wrote recently in the same spirit:
Post-Thanksgiving Reflection: A Moment of Shared Devotion with Jon Voight
Why post a picture with Jon Voight — Oscar winner, Hollywood icon, and current Trump-appointed ambassador to Hollywood — as my first post after Thanksgiving?
Because this moment reminded me of something deeper than politics, positions, or public personas.
A few weeks ago, I noticed him dining alone at a quiet café. Not the Hollywood sighting that usually turns heads. What caught my attention was the book he was reading: Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda — my teacher, and the spiritual foundation of my own life path.
Our eyes met — something passed between us.
I gently lifted my arm to show him my gold bangle, a sacred symbol of my adherence to Yogananda’s Swami order. To my astonishment, he smiled and rolled up his sleeve to reveal his own matching gold bangle.
That was the moment. Not political. Not professional. Purely human — and deeply spiritual.
We spoke. Not about fame or ideology, but about truth, the soul’s journey, and the pursuit of light in the world. A conversation I’ll never forget.
So in this post-Thanksgiving space, I offer this reminder:
Let us not allow surface-level differences — even sharp ones — to blind us to the soul beneath. Connection is still possible. Recognition is still possible. Light is still possible.
And yes — we also agreed that keeping more film and TV production in the U.S. is worth fighting for. 😉
What a welcome message. Interacting with someone having the expectation they are a friend and not an adversary makes all the difference. I do hope this approach manifests as a new direction for our society. We’ve been mired in ugliness so long.
But. There are 2 things to challenge. I’ve spoken with economists and worked in finance for so many years. It is not as cut and dry as you (& random internet info) say about markets and deficits. There are cycles in everything, each government might be forced to spend on things they must (financial supports during COVID, for instance) but it is not untrue that liberals/democrats are spenders, what they spend floats markets and benefits people, but the bill for it (and any unintended consequences requiring a course change) lands in the future. This is what many of the stats you’ll find on the internet fail to get right.
❤️
Thank You, Vishen, for saying this. I’m Canadian, not American, but everything you say resonates. The division in Canada grows more and more every day. You don’t even have to try to look hard to see or read things that create the division even further and that doesn’t just include the citizens of this country. We have ‘free’ healthcare that is most definitely better than American healthcare but there are problems with this system because of how it’s been handled. It doesn’t matter what borders or boundaries we all have, you are right, at the core we all are humans wanting the same things. Discernment is a skill that some haven’t learned and these days it’s getting tougher to discern what we are listening to and reading. To crumble these manipulations by those that profit would be the most incredible success of the entire history of humanity. We all need to speak up like you have. If we worked together instead of focusing on division, agreed to disagree on certain things, this world would change in a way humanity has never seen.
I am almost 70 now and have lived through many interesting times, the 60’s, 70’s, the new millenium and I have always been my own person. I was homeless in the 70’s, as a teenager hitchhiking across the US and into parts of Canada, all before I was 17 years old. ( I gave my Dad every gray hair he had ) I loved meeting new people and seeing new places. I have had many types of jobs, becoming a tattoo artist at age 30 and now have tattooed for almost 40 years, all over this great country. I have been patriotic since a small child in school, the Pledge of Allegience and The Star Spangled Banner are 2 of my favorite things. I have one son who is in the MIlitary for over 20 years and another son who owns his own business. I believe in Free Thinking because in the 60’s and 70’s we were still encouraged to be that way. I know that our country is having birthing pains into a newer and greater place than ever before and I see people coming together more than ever, I guess being the world’s greatest Optimist helps alot for me. A new day is dawning and people like me are here to help others navigate the new world that’s coming.
There is just so much outrage! How could this be allowed to happen? How could so many be deceived? How did this evil come into our house? Look at all the harm that is being done to so many people! What are we going to do about it? How do we put an end to this? I don’t know the answer but it must come soon. Things cannot remain the way they are in this country right now.
Thank you for your post Vishen and for shining a light to help us find our way out of this darkness. We must stand together and for one another.
Bravo! Yay, finally! Waking up and realising what manipulated, distracted system we live in and that we are just being used as a resource. While we are distracted and fighting one another, the powers that be are laughing and profiting. Time we stood up, took back sovereignty and self determination. We are all human beings, same coloured blood, we need to look after one another, and unite and stand up to this oppression, by not consenting to this crap any longer.
Well done Vishen, best article I’ve read from you by far.
Much love and hope from the South Pacific.
Terima kasih Vishen. As an American who grew up overseas, we were always taught to respect the cultures we lived in. I always thought the US was the “shining light on the hill” for the world and I am so saddened by what is happening these days. Your message was heartfelt and one we all need to hear. Thank you for the reminder that love is the ultimate weapon.
Love it. Thank you for sharing. You are always an inspiration to me. When in doubt, or disagreement or teaching my child, l pick my fav grounding scripture.
When Jesus is asked, what is the Greatest commandment. He answers in Mark 12:28-34 The Greatest commandment is Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Additionally, He says that the second Greatest commandment is to Love your neighbor, as you love yourself. Always learning
Mystics have never been phased by governments or outer worlds. Wail for freedom as cultures have for THOUSANDS OF YEARS, but the Divine is wondering when you are going to wake up from the dream.
Freedom is internal
Equality is internal
Peace is internal
Abundance is internal
Joy is internal
Gratitude is internal…. all aspects of the Divine set free.
Pain, suffering, frustration, confusion are internal as well…ego projections on to the world. Easily removed like a sliver in your thumb. When there are no slivers left to remove you only see the Good, the Beautiful, and the Holy. Then you will be experiencing Peace & Freedom on earth.
If you think this sounds dramatic, I work in California jails and prisons. I EXPECT to see the Good in the men I work with, the Christ, and time and time they prove me correct. These men are prophets, mystics, Sufi’s. They are soon-to-be some of the best coaches in the world. If they can live in prison and experience miracles and peace, I would think those not contained behind bars with the freedom to travel the world can do the same.
joannemenon.com
Wow!! Your short essay did a wonderful job of bringing voice and sense to the frustration I have with “WHY are we so divided?”
Your outsider’s perspective was liberating. I had not realized the extent to which I was being played by corporate money and anti-American interest. I particularly loved how you used objective data to burst the bubble of long held beliefs.
All of us need to get outside our bubbles and make the effort to find the humanity in our fellow Americans. We also need to push back against being used as “The Product” of social media. Take back our lives and stop being triggered by alogrythms.
Thank you Vishen,
Your words, your message always remind me of the importance of been there for each other and to avoid been angry at people that are caught in the negative propaganda. I am more than ever so surprise at event or at messages coming from the USA, that even if I’m canadian I feel the outrage or the injustice as if I live there. Continue to make Your heart intelligence reach more and more people. You make me believe in humanity!
Vishen _ I am glad you were able to experience true America, I was extremely upset at some of your latest posting/commentaries about our elected President….I am also an immigrant and I might not agree with some of the previous or present Presidents politics….however, I believe we need to be respectful – it is the American people that voted for them. Remember that you and I were never allow to vote in our country of birth. Fear exists in all humans. Your role as a public speaker is to continue to offer the knowledge to become a better human being. Remember respect starts with each of us regardless of our political beliefs.
Thank you Maria for your truthfulness. I’m in the same camp you are.
I had been following Vishen for a while and somehow he dropped off my feed. I didn’t notice until one day he re-appeared out of the blue. It was an interesting message and one that felt familiar, reminding me the reason I slowly tapered off from watching before.
I was feeling the divide in some of the messages. I chose not to judge and was attempting to dig deeper, asking myself 🤔 where am I too, creating divition in my life and outwardly.
Then literally not even 2 days later after seeing the feed, I met Vishen in person and shook his hand. I was caught off guard, surprised that I found him actually a really nice guy. Having had the opportunity to meet him face to face, eye to eye gave me the advantage of deciding if it was worth knowing more of his conditioning & the brand overall. I felt the msg’ing of unity was a bit fractured before this post & slightly tilted with the previous messing I had been hearing in what sounded like bashing the president.
Now I’m not saying everything Mr. Trump does is classy or done with grace and perhaps that’s part of the narrative needed right now if effort to reveal the circuis that is our current US government.
And I 💯 agree with you, that doesn’t give us the right or make us wiser if we stoop to same level of disrespect and hate spewing commentary as well.
I love this recent newsletter and I’m happy to have read it from start to finish, seeing Vishen’s shift in perspective. It shows me conscious leadership, profound wisdom and that he’s listening 🎧👂 to his audience. He’s also human and we all have our own wounds to salve, I pray that one day he (if chooses to) can meet face to face belly to belly with our Trump card and get an even deeper healing perhaps for us all.
Way to to Vishen 👏🎉🪇 Thank you!!!!! (We see you) And grateful taking one for the team.
This is such a lovely post. Thank you for it. It’s interesting, I keep asking myself: “Why is it that some of my friends who are Republicans and I know are smart, generous, kind people so rabidly anti-democrats?” I suppose they must think the same of me. (about being anti-Republican.) I agree that we are probably fighting the wrong people.
Thank you Vishen for you thoughtful and heartfelt share. It is great to see my own thoughts written with so much more clarity.
I feel I have a unique perspective as a Canadian raised in co-operative housing in Vancouver of the 70’s and 60’s to a Dutch mother who always lived her social democractic values. I spent summers on a farm in Oregon and always loved the Americans I knew as people. However, now, after living in Australia for the last 17 years where my main exposure to Americans is through the media I have noticed a disturbing shift as the media lens of fear and rididule clouds my view of all the great people I knew and interacted with. So I feel that what you describe in your post, happening between people within America, is also being fostered and intensified between America and those outside of it.
As much as I love whatyou are doing with MindValley, I do wish for more in-person idea exchanges, workshops, etc, as the continuing shift to on-line content, for me, has exacerbated this sense of ‘the other’.
Thank you Vishen, for these words. They were just what I needed tonight.
Thank you for writing a personal and profound realization.
I have long been observing this dynamic in America where simple disagreement on policy or practicality devolved into screaming at each other and worse. What was it? I wondered. Was it just me growing older, more concerned about such things? Was it the general loss of meaning from waning interest in spiritual practices? Was it simply the existence of social media, where anonymity displaces decency and accountability?
Some of it clicked together while learning from John DeMartini on Mindvalley. He speaks of how detrimental and purpose-stealing the absence of the surety and awareness of values is for individuals and therefore society. Of course, I thought! I felt as inane as Watson from Sherlock Holmes–it’s so obvious when explained so effectively.
And now this article. Connecting the dots between the friction of “we are the product” and “what we really want” is genius. The grand game of being human in this era has gotten both harder and easier. Harder to discern truth or at least a semblance of reality; easier because the external chaos leaves us but one practical choice–to fall back into the quiet to learn who we are as humans and beings all over again.
Well done. Thank you for what you’ve created and share.
I totally agree with you Vishen manipulation 101!!It is very sad. I’ve been off the polarity train for a while now as like you say it’s the same old diversion, blame, divide and oppress model that power has used for such along time… although as of late I feel like there is some positive. if I attempt to love my enemy and see us all as part of the whole then I see that these tactics are getting so obscure that they shine light more and more.To the point people have to see through the illusion and the more of us that see it the more change can happen and we stop feeding the BS machine, the power shifts. We have so much more power than we acknowledge
Gracias Vishen por compartir una reflexión tan comprometida y significativa. Llevo años sin consumir programas de noticias que en su gran mayoría son muy tendenciosos y nocivos. Estoy en Argentina, y a la escala de mi país, puedo ver reflejada tu síntesis y extrapolar a nuestra realidad del día a día hace décadas. Siempre el blanco vs negro, una polarización infinita, no solo nada productiva, sino dañina. El “River Vs Boca” como decimos por acá. Que sólo genera rencores, peleas, barbaridades y justifica cualquier acto de descalificación y descentendimiento, muy irracional y totalmente visceral. El camino es claro para el que lo quiere ver, muchas gracias por tu gran contribución a un mundo más despierto, un mundo mejor.