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
Vishen, thank you for putting into words what lies in my heart.
I walk amongst people every day who prefer to spread hate rather than love. As long as we continue to choose blinders, we will grow further apart as a nation. I only hope we are not too late to turn the tide, because it is terrifying to be a citizen of this nation right now with no options and nowhere else to go.
As the great-grandchild of Mexican immigrants and the descendant of the Indigenous caretakers of this land, it saddens me to see that no one has learned from the lessons of history. We continue to repeat the same mistakes to our own detriment. We refuse to see each other as human beings who all want the same for our children and grandchildren. It is time that we look beyond the negative, hateful messages we are being fed and choose to hold on to our humanity.
May you and yours remain blessed with eyes wide open!
Thanks for sharing. It is sad to see all this happening in USA. I am Ukrainian living in Denmark for over 20 years. My family had survived tough years of Communism in USSR. And it makes me especially appreciate the safety net of Denmark. I can confirm that Communism is not the same as social safety ( Danes call it social welness). People here have equal rights to get free education and medical care.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. Hope it will make people think and reflect more.
May the universe bless anyone who dare to reason, apply criterion and click ‘unfollow’.
Man feels more comfortable in being led, so the leaders take advantage and lead indeed.
The USA is a Country built by survivors, by an “heir and spare”, people that came here to save their souls from a bad social position or poverty or feeling somehow unappreciated. And when you are a survivor, you don’t think of the other; the other doesn’t count by default, since YOU were the victim, that survived the other. You passed from victimhood to empowerment, but you kept the adrenaline of the fear, and no good foundation ever came from fear.
New generations of children need to reset that inherited feeling, acquire the value of compassion and community and let go of the adrenaline of fear .
The Countries you mentioned, I can add Italy and Spain, where societies are attentive to the common good, are rooted on a community of centuries and centuries, where the warmth of home can be felt in the air and around the kitchen table. I was born and raised in Rome, where the “abundant” burden of centuries grounds you, secures you. I fully share your thoughts and considerations, my son was born here we still live in New York.
I give this subject my thoughts every single day, trying to understand how that safety net could possibly be created and expanded in this Country as well.
The political setting and that manipulation that you describe can be somehow healed, maybe never completely stopped, by valuable education; schools founded on philosophy, good reasoning and critical thinking, in order to have young new generations capable of questioning and discerning. I myself spend a lot of time, recently, gathering tools and designing an app for children literacy, cultural rooting and even translating the Lao Tzu’s “Tao Te Ching” book into an easy read for children (I will keep you posted)… something, anything that can help build that solid floor that Real freedom requires not to fall through (quoting you)
Every little step may help, your article is very welcome and needed
As an Australian born in Netherlands, it breaks my heart to see America leading the way into totalitarian destruction of what we have cherished so much since the 60th, a movement towards the humanitarian common good both in body, mind and spirit for all. How easily we are manipulated and give that power away. What we need is ‘breaking together’, read Jem Bendell.
What a wonderful view to life! Your words are needed. I am a veteran, went to Vedic colleges & lived many places. And traveled even more. I believe many globally will make a change in heart from your words. I come from 4 generations of Senators & they use to say that no matter Red or Blue, behind those Congress doors, the division is an illusion. They were told the People needed the division. I traveled the world, like you did in the USA & I agree that good people are everywhere. I literally drove 11 countries in 14 days & what I know for sure, it enriched my life to learn of different cultures will always be a joy! My degree in World Religion, no matter the path, always ended at the core was LOVE! If youn know anything about astrocartography (which I love), your trip accelerated growing & learning from each location for you & your family. Bless you for sharing the experiences with us. We are all growing & learning through You!
The challenge is to figure out who the ‘they’ are that are profiting from our ignorance and compliance. In a nutshell many countries are layered with different power bases and governments are not at the top. In many ‘Western’ countries there are globalist corporations that profit from taking resources from developing countries, manufacture commodoties in other countries and sold for maximum profit back to so-called developed countries. Paying very little taxes in tax havens outside of all of those countries. These coporations are powerful enough to influence government policy … and few people benefit in any of those countries including USA.
Then there are government departments with unelected officials that distribute public funds to the same or other corporations … often to select overseas government officials, and overseas NGOs to grease the wheels of globalist corporations. Often linked to expanding colonial interests e.g. NATO and funded by the financial institutions that want to perpetuate all of the above whilst funnelling vast fortunes to themselves (i.e., private banking cartels with the impression of being publicly regulated many of which are housed in the financial centres of Eurpoe, USA etc).
Yes … forever wars, cheap immigrant labour, corporate cartels, government lobbyists, financial institutions with a licence to print money (aka credit creation) … none of whom care about political parties because they control them … what’s the way out? Education that allows us to ‘see’ what is happening and why, incremental change via policies that address root causes, personal awareness and the choices we make in our lives … no it isn’t primarily a democrat vs republican issue and yes ‘they’ want us to fight amongst ourselves thinking that one party has the answer. But there is a way forward.
Thank you, Vishen! This is so well written and thought out. I am an American who loves her country and is ashamed of many of her elected officials. I never dreamed I would see the end of democracy in my lifetime. I no longer watch ‘the news,’ and I question everything I read on the internet. I try to keep my heart and my mind open. You are a fine human, and I will continue to support MindValley!
Blessings to you and your family!
Hi Vishen, I read your thoughts on this topic and I resonated so much with it – it made me cry. Thank you for speaking this truth that could stop our division! Greetings from Europe, where we seem to do our best to come close to the US in terms of political and human division!
I totally agree with the initial premise that as American’s we are fed lies daily by our leaders and by the media. I know this has been suggested before but how about taking 1 week off of reading newspapers, watching the news or for that matter watching TV at all. The shows and commercials reflect the values held by the media mogols. We need to learn to live in the present moment. Forget the past and the future, which does not exist. Use Quantum Physics to create your personal reality.
As for other parts of the article, with apologies Vishen but you are generalizing and grouping things together. Surveys lie. I could find surveys to contradict yours and this is what your article is about, investigainge what other people have to say before accepting it. The US first and foremost is a Republic not a Democracy. Democracy was introduced by politicians in the first part of the 20th century. Politicians and the rich have taken America down since that time. (Rockefeller introducing the education system which is still in use, trains students not to think on their own and to prepare them for working in the 9 to 5 workday (the assembly line)). Many greedy politicians since that time, have used their elected office for personal benefit (this also occurs in social democracies) to the detriment of their constituents. Most recently, Politicians no longer represent their constituents but the party line which pays to get them elected.
Prior to proceeding to social democracy (which has its own issues) I would prefer to see term limitations enacted in the US, limiting a politician to no more than a total 12 years in office, their being subjected to the same laws they enact and giving up their government pension and rights once they leave office and not allowing them to become lobbyists until they are out of office for at least 7 years.
Finally, many of MindValley’s programs are based on “New Age” thinking. Based on this thought I would encourage you to go back and read the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence based on New Age thinking. (Late 1900’s when it was re-introduced). How did the American forefathers 250 years ago have an understanding of “Brules”, and Manifestation, when we are only now starting to comprehend Quantum thinking. Unlike todays Politicians the American Forefathers sacrificed everything they had to bring this country into existence. Sort of sounds like group manifestation to me!!
Great article Vishen. Well done. Might I also suggest touching base with Lee Holden about something I spoke to him about at the Spiritual Summit in LA last month.
All the best,
Monty
Vishen, you nailed it, no with bs claims but with actual, verifiable data. Thank you for this post and for your reflections. Everyone commenting must share this and go viral.
Vishen, you nailed it, no with bs claims but with actual, verifiable data. Thank you for this post and for your reflections. Everyone commenting must share this and make it go viral.
Written from the heart! It touched a chord! I am moved beyond words.
How long will we be consumed by false rhetoric and fake bravado?!
It’s so stifling and heart crushing…
This resonates so deeply. Please keep writing these. Gives us all a new perspective and a new hope to reuniting.
Hello Vishen, can you please expand on the birth right and connection to land of indigenous people? Can you check that for me? The American dream was never a dream “for all” or “for freedom” it was built on the blood and bones of a massive genocide that continues to this day. America has something big to deal with genocide and ancestral trauma. Please write about that. Thank you with love.
Yes. I have gone all over the country a couple times handing out art and compliments and never once did the people I’m taught to hate ever show me anything but kindness.
Vishen, we are of like mind. I’ve been having these same conversations with so many people, writing about the same thing. Wonderful article! I love reading my own thoughts and words from another on this planet. And, as the daughter of two amazingly kind parents, one with a seminary degree, we used to talk regularly of how the real message of Christianity should be what Jesus taught; love, compassion, forgiveness. I have been having conversations with those of opposing viewpoints my whole life and coming to new understandings after real heartfelt exchanges. We need more connection, more listening and yearning to understand, instead of just listening to jump in and trying win the argument. I love seeing my clients with my Esoteric Healing work find more self love, self care, and deeper understanding and love of their families and friends who may differ in mindset. Thank you for doing what you do.
Out of all of the messages you have ever sent— a new class, a new teacher-/ a new seminar to support a new awareness— this one has been the most powerful, and profound. When I started traveling abroad many years ago— one of the many things that I learned was that people all over the world-/ outside of this country— know more about the truth of what is happening in America then the majority of people who live here. Maybe that is because they can be objective and are not saturated with the daily propaganda. Bottom line— DIVIDE AND CONQUER IS NOT AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT! The pattern that originated with Plymouth Rock has continued— no mystery here. This land, that was stolen with the blind ethnocentric arrogance that deemed the residents here as inherently inferior— continued with the unbridled wealth of this country being built on the backs of African slaves—( my ancestors). The people that came here to escape the tyranny and oppression of England— became the very tyrants that they claimed they rejected. The calendar marched on to the industrial age— then when the rebellion of the labor movement— the worker was finally given some recompense — not for long. Then the rich decided that they could become even RICHER if they took our industries over seas to get even cheaper labor. Bye bye middle class. Now things were made in Japan— now China— or India— and now our intelligence is being insulted with the idea of tariffs being the panacea solution. What a joke. We are supposed to believe that the very oligarchs that took our industries away in the first place— will bring them back. Really?— while the tariffs strangle the already stretched budget of the average American. One of these centuries we will learn— hopefully.
This is one of the most moving and rational assessments of the current circumstances globally. I see the hate-mongering and misinformation-sewage seeping into Canada as well, and note those who have said the same of their countries in the comments.
Thank you for articulating and sharing this.
Bravo, well said. Thank you for your thoughtful words.