The System Works. Just Not for You.

The government’s collapsing, workers are being discarded, and some of America is still pretending this is normal.

Oct 29, 2025

Opinion by Friendo Media Editorial Staff

The State of our Union is rough. This week alone, Amazon and UPS eliminated tens of thousands of jobs. The federal government entered its second-longest shutdown in history. Millions are on the verge of losing SNAP benefits that keep their families fed. And in Washington, construction continues on a $~~200~~ ~~$250~~ $300 million ballroom renovation inside the White House. Wild times, folks.

Breadlines for the public. Champagne for the powerful. That is the real headline.

The System Is Functioning Exactly as Designed

For years, pundits have said the system is broken. That is the wrong diagnosis. The system is functioning perfectly, just not for the majority of people living inside it.

The economy runs on obedience, not innovation. The working class must show up, follow the rules, and perform. The ruling class simply ensures that rules never touch them.

That is the quiet contract of American capitalism: you act ethically so they can act freely.

Amazon cut roughly 14,000 corporate jobs this month as part of its “AI transition.” UPS has shed nearly 48,000 positions in nine months while its executives collect bonuses tied to “efficiency.” Wall Street cheers. Share prices rise. The people who built the wealth are dismissed, then told to be grateful for the “opportunity to re-skill.”

The layoffs are not an accident. They are a strategy.

The Shutdown Is Not a Crisis, It Is a Policy

The U.S. government has now been partially shut down for four weeks, making it the second-longest closure in modern history. SNAP benefits are days from vanishing. Democratic states are suing simply to keep feeding their residents.

Defense spending continues without interruption. Contractors keep getting paid. ICE raids continue unabated. The machine pauses only where human need begins. Funny how that works.

That is the hidden logic of American austerity. It starves the poor, rewards the rich, and convinces the middle that all this suffering is “fiscal discipline.” The cruelty is the plan, not the side effect.

Conservative America Broke the Deal and Got Nothing

Conservative America (this is now a misnomer, as there is nothing conservative about these fascist fucks in 2025) once had a deal with the system: play by the rules, remain respectable, and distance yourself from “those people.” In return, you would receive stability and social status.

That bargain is gone. The country you thought you owned now belongs to billionaires who do not know your name. And worse, you think they do.

You voted to “drain the swamp,” and after year 10 of the biggest grift in American history, they demolished the east wing of the white house and built plans for a gilded marble ballroom instead. You voted for “the forgotten man,” and they forgot you first, and pretty quickly. You traded solidarity for white supremacy and lost both. You’ve got nothing to swim in, except your propaganda..

Now the social contract is ash. You held the torch, while the madman destroyed compassion and kindness as American values. You were told your sacrifice was noble, that your loyalty would be rewarded. Instead, you are watching your jobs disappear, your farms go into foreclosure, your benefits dry up, your children’s futures dissolve, while the people you empowered toast themselves in your honor, and on your dime.

You broke the social contract for nothing.

The Hunger Behind the War Drums

As domestic collapse deepens, the talk of foreign conflict grows louder. The United States is posturing for confrontation in Latin America, bombing boats out of the ocean, and expanding military budgets and surveillance for potential “threats”.

Declining empires always try to export their despair. Every dollar spent on destruction abroad is a dollar withheld from survival at home. Every missile strike means a SNAP meal denied. Every Pentagon contract means another family without food.

This whole bloody thing is profiteering, dressed as masculine strength.

The shutdown drains around fifteen billion dollars each week, yet the same leaders claim there is “no money” for food assistance. There is always money for war, luxury, and spectacle, never for the people who make the country run.

The Moral Order Has Been Reversed

The genius of this system is how it demands decency from everyone except those in charge.

Workers must show discipline, honesty, and good conduct. Executives must only ensure profit.

If you steal food, you are a criminal.
If you steal wages, you are a CEO.
If you lie on welfare forms, you are a parasite.
If you lie on SEC filings, you are a Forbes 30 Under 30 visionary.

Every moral code has been rewritten to glorify greed and condemn solidarity. Exploitation is now called innovation. Ruthlessness is marketed as leadership. The people who play fair lose, and the people who cheat are invited to destroy the world over their own petty and paranoid supremacist convictions.

This is a system revealing its true face. Once and for all. Clear as sky.

Shame Is Appropriate Here

Let us stop pretending this is respectable politics. If you voted for this chaos, this cruelty, this false populism that only serves oligarchs, you should feel deeply ashamed.

Not because you were fooled once, or twice, but because you keep defending the lie.
You are watching your neighbors starve and your wages vanish, yet you console yourself that at least “the liberals are angry.”

This is wholesale surrender. You are not fighting the elites. You are protecting them.

And when your benefits end and your savings disappear, they will not visit your GoFundMe page. They will be on their yachts, laughing about your loyalty.

The Reckoning

Beneath all the wreckage, something new is being born. Cooperatives. Mutual aid networks. Worker-owned newsrooms. Unions learning a new language of old struggles. Communities rediscovering what “solidarity” actually means.

The next America will not be saved by billionaires or campaign slogans. It will be rebuilt by people who understand that survival is collective, not individual. The system continues to work only because ordinary people still hold it up.

That is the secret the ruling class fears most. If we ever stop serving their game and start building our own, the entire old order collapses overnight.