It seems like every week, international observers, even US citizens, ask the same question:

“Why aren’t Americans fighting back?”

The corruption is obvious.

The inequality is blatant.

The cost of living is crushing.

In other countries, conditions like this spark mass protests, strikes, and civil unrest.

In the United States, the dominant narrative is simpler—and crueler:

Americans just aren’t mad enough.

That explanation is wrong.

Americans are furious.

But the anger has been systematically redirected, internalized, and neutralized—not through force alone, but through the body.

The U.S. Doesn’t Suppress Anger. It Re-routes It.

In places where civil unrest erupts, anger is usually externalized:

• “The government failed us.”

• “The system is corrupt.”

• “We deserve better.”
  

In the U.S., anger is trained to turn inward:

• “What’s wrong with me?”

• “Why can’t I get it together?”

• “Why am I tired, broke, unhealthy, overwhelmed?”
  

This is not accidental.

When people are taught that:

• Their bodies are the problem

• Their finances are a personal failure

• Their exhaustion is a lack of discipline
  

Anger collapses into self-blame.

Self-blame is one of the most effective crowd-control tools there is.

It absorbs rage before it can become collective.

Disembodiment Creates Freeze, Not Fight

Civil unrest requires bodies that can:

• Feel danger and respond

• Stay present under stress

• Trust their own perceptions

• Sustain physical and emotional stamina

But American culture trains people to:

• Ignore hunger

• Override exhaustion

• Distrust intuition

• Live disconnected from their bodies
  

The result isn’t apathy.

It’s freeze.

Freeze looks like:

• Doom-scrolling

• Dark humor

• “I know it’s bad, but what can I do?”

• Numbness mistaken for indifference
  

This is not a lack of care.

It’s a trauma response produced by chronic stress.

Exhaustion Is the United States’ Primary Control Strategy

Americans are not failing to revolt because they lack courage.

They are:

• Working multiple jobs

• Commuting for hours

• One missed paycheck away from disaster

• Tied to employers for healthcare

• Too depleted to miss a shift
  

People aren’t thinking:

“Let’s shut the city down.”

They’re thinking:

“I can’t afford to lose my job.”

That’s not weakness.

A population kept in survival mode cannot sustain mass resistance.

The Body Becomes the Containment Site

In the U.S., political rage is rerouted into:

• Diet culture

• Hustle culture

• Wellness obsession

• Self-optimization

• “Fix yourself” narratives
  

People are taught to believe:

“If I just get healthier, thinner, richer, calmer, better—everything will be okay.”

So instead of challenging power, people challenge their bodies.

Fatness, fatigue, anxiety, and burnout become personal projects rather than political evidence.

The body absorbs what the state refuses to address.

Shame Is Cheaper Than Force

Shame does what overt repression doesn’t have to.

Ashamed people:

• Police themselves

• Avoid public space

• Distrust their perceptions

• Seek approval instead of solidarity
  

A person busy shrinking themselves—physically or emotionally—is not organizing.

This is why body shame matters politically.

It keeps people small in every sense.

Americans Aren’t Passive. We’re Fragmented.

Civil unrest requires shared reality.

In the U.S.:

• Media ecosystems are fractured

• Culture wars replace class analysis

• Neighbors are framed as enemies

• Identity is weaponized against solidarity
  

Instead of:

“This system is corrupt.”

We’re pushed toward:

“Your neighbor is the problem.”

Fragmentation keeps anger uncoordinated.

What the System Actually Fears

The system does not fear rage alone.

It fears embodied people.

People who are:

• Rested enough to think clearly

• Regulated enough to feel without collapsing

• Unashamed enough to trust themselves

• Connected enough to recognize shared conditions
  

Embodied people:

• Ask better questions

• Say no without apologizing

• Organize without burning out

• Refuse to be ruled through self-hatred
  

That is why embodiment is discouraged.

That is why rest is treated as laziness.

That is why exhaustion is normalized.

That is why bodies are turned into battlegrounds.

Reframing the Question

The real question is not:

“Why aren’t Americans mad enough?”

It’s:

“Why is American anger so effectively neutralized before it becomes collective?”

And the answer is:

• Through exhaustion

• Through shame

• Through disembodiment

• Through isolation

• Through survival pressure
  

Not numbness.

Containment.

Speak, Goddess Truth

Americans are not uniquely passive.

They are uniquely managed.

And the first crack in that management is not louder outrage—it is coming back into the body.

Because when people stop blaming themselves for structural harm,

anger stops leaking inward

and starts pointing where it belongs.

Not as chaos.

But as coordinated refusal.