Every few months, the streets fill with people waving signs, chanting slogans, and claiming moral superiority over whatever issue happens to trend that week. Immigration, healthcare, climate, education, the topics change, but one thing rarely does: most of the loudest voices belong to people unaffected by the issue they’re fighting about.
Virtue Without Cost
It’s easy to demand open borders when you live in a gated community. It’s easy to shout “healthcare for all” when your employer covers your plan. It’s easy to rage about taxes when you don’t actually pay enough to feel the increase. In every case, conviction seems to evaporate when principle meets personal cost.
Real belief shows up when you’re willing to sacrifice comfort for conviction. Most protests today are emotional exhibitions, a form of social performance that says “look at how compassionate I am” without requiring any real consequence.
The Age of Performance Activism
Sociologists call it moral identity signaling, I call it performance activism. Many of the people screaming loudest about issues don’t live where those issues exist. They parachute into someone else’s struggle for a day, take selfies, post hashtags, and go home feeling morally accomplished.
But change doesn’t come from hashtags. It comes from hands-on effort, sacrifice, and personal accountability.
Useful Idiots, Round Two
Lenin coined the term “useful idiots” for those who unknowingly pushed agendas they didn’t understand. Modern movements recycle the same formula, they just use better marketing. Protesters rally around slogans they don’t research, politicians they don’t question, and policies they don’t comprehend.
Most don’t realize they’re being used as emotional fuel for someone else’s machine.
When Reality Hits Home
People love ideals until they come with a bill.
- They want open borders until crime or overcrowding touches their city.
- They want universal healthcare until their premiums rise.
- They want free college until the tax invoice lands in their mailbox.
- They want defund the police until they need one.
Principle without accountability is just noise.
Why You Can’t Debate the Indoctrinated Mind
The inability to reason calmly with these same groups isn’t a mystery, it’s a product of psychology, conditioning, and pride. You can’t have an honest conversation with people who treat disagreement as heresy.
Emotion Over Reason
We live in an age where emotion has replaced logic.
Social media rewards outrage and punishes reason. The more emotional your reaction, the more engagement you get, and the more validation you feel. But the more emotional a person becomes, the less capable they are of rational thought. When their amygdala fires, logic shuts down.
You’re not dealing with thinkers, you’re dealing with reactors.
Identity Over Ideology
People used to have beliefs. Now, they are their beliefs.
That’s the fatal shift. When ideology becomes identity, truth no longer matters, survival does. To challenge their viewpoint is to threaten their very sense of self. You can show evidence, facts, or scripture, but none of it matters because they’ve replaced truth with self-affirmation.
They don’t defend the argument; they defend the ego.
Echo Chambers of Validation
Algorithms have replaced dialogue.
Most people only see content that reinforces what they already believe. Their digital worlds are safe spaces where dissent doesn’t exist. So when truth finally confronts them, it’s rejected instantly as hate, misinformation, or conspiracy.
It’s not ignorance, it’s insulation.
The Moral Superiority Complex
Modern activism runs on moral pride.
Many of these individuals believe they occupy the moral high ground, that their compassion, their inclusivity, or their outrage makes them inherently better than others. Once someone sees themselves as morally superior, conversation becomes impossible. They no longer need to listen; they only need to correct.
That’s why they don’t debate, they cancel. They don’t discuss, they decree.
Fear of Isolation
Even when a few begin to question what they’ve been taught, fear silences them. Losing friends, social standing, or career opportunities has become too high a price for independent thought. So they nod, they conform, and they keep the illusion alive.
They don’t believe anymore, but they can’t afford to say so.
Manufactured Division
None of this happened by accident. Division is profitable. The more people hate each other, the easier they are to control. Outrage keeps the media paid, the politicians funded, and the algorithms spinning.
The crowd doesn’t realize they’re pawns in a psychological chess game, manipulated to feel enlightened while actually being enslaved.
Biblical Truth About the Deaf Ear
The Bible predicted this perfectly:
“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”
— 2 Timothy 4:3
Truth has become offensive, and lies have become therapeutic. People don’t seek wisdom, they seek comfort. And that comfort is killing their ability to reason.
The Courage of Consistency
True conviction isn’t proven in protest crowds, it’s proven in quiet consistency. In how you vote, live, and treat others when no one’s watching. The people who truly care about a cause don’t need a megaphone; they need a mission.
It’s not enough to speak loudly. Speak truthfully.
And if you really believe in what you preach, live it, even when it costs you something.
“By their fruit you will recognize them.”
— Matthew 7:16
Troy P Zehnder 