The following is a guest post. To submit guest posts, anonymous or otherwise, contact the editor at packetslost at falling-anvil dot com or via Signal at thepacketrat dot 26.

We argue over policies, personalities, and party lines, but no one wants to say out loud that the system itself is the problem—not just the corruption, not just the gridlock, but the foundation. The truth is, the system isn’t broken at all; it’s functioning exactly as intended, keeping power in the hands of the few while the rest fight over scraps.

Every cycle, we’re told this is the most important election of our lifetime, like democracy is some EV low on charge, one bad choice away from stalling on the shoulder of autocracy. The generational promise of better outcomes came with fine print: *not you. We’re not voting for leaders; we’re voting against nightmares. Charisma always beats competence.

And me? I’m fucking exhausted. We’ve been lied to, drained, manipulated. We work harder for less, drowning in debt, in fear, in disillusionment. It feels like I’m being forced to pick a side in a war I never signed up for, between parties that spend more time fundraising off their failures than actually fixing anything.

Remember when journalism was the much-heralded “fourth estate”? What happened to that? Outrage fuels engagement, engagement fuels profit, and truth is collateral damage. Every scandal, every crisis, every lie—no consequences, no accountability. Just another cycle of noise, another distraction. The signal is lost in the shuffle, decisions made in the shadows.

This isn’t the White House I remember working in. Political campaigns weren’t always this full of vitriol. Or maybe the ideology of my own faulty narrator shielded me. And maybe I still don’t want to admit how bad it’s gotten. Because once I do, I can’t unsee it. And once I see it, I have to decide what I’m going to do about it.