Steven LaChance Blog

There is a negativity in the air right now that cannot be ignored. At moments like this, I find myself asking whether we are watching something genuinely dangerous unfold under familiar language. Christianity? Patriotism? Authority? I do not say that lightly, and I am not saying it from a distance.

I am asking these questions of myself as much as anyone else.

We are seeing people terrorized and killed by agents of the state in the streets of the United States. That is not metaphor or exaggeration. It is documented reality. We have watched students sprayed with chemical agents at school. We have watched our government threaten sovereign nations. These are not imagined fears or internet hysteria. These are actions carried out in plain sight.

We are in serious trouble.

The threat feels real to me because it is real. When a United States president openly threatens my home with attack, that is not make believe. It is fact. Yes, much of the language is rhetorical. It is meant to frighten people into submission. That is what we are seeing with Greenland. But rhetoric does not exist in a vacuum. It conditions behavior. It lowers thresholds. It normalizes the idea that force is an acceptable solution.

So stop and really look at it.

Do we support a government that would threaten or attack other nations for access to minerals and oil? When Greenland is threatened, it is about minerals. When Venezuela was attacked, we now know it was about oil. When Mexico is threatened, it is about lithium. These are not theories. The excuses change. The motive does not. Power is exercised through fear, and resources are the prize.

That is why the threat cannot be dismissed.

The world now has reason to view the United States as a destabilizing force rather than a stabilizing one. That should frighten us. Not because it offends national pride, but because history is very clear about what happens when a nation begins to see itself as entitled to take what it wants under the language of righteousness or security.

I have been warning for more than a decade that we were moving toward a moment like this. That warning does not belong to one political party. It includes the years when there were opportunities to intervene, to restore restraint and accountability, and those opportunities were not taken. Merrick Garland’s inaction will be judged harshly by history. Avoiding conflict did not preserve stability. It postponed accountability until the damage became structural.

If this makes people uncomfortable, it should. Comfort is a luxury of stable times, and these are not stable times.

Which brings me to the harder question.

What do you oppose?

Not performatively. Not when it is easy. But honestly.

Opposition can be an act of conscience, but history shows us it can also become dangerous when it loses its moral anchor. So where is the line for you? At what point are you willing to stand in opposition knowing that doing so may cost you comfort, reputation, safety, or certainty?

I am not talking about slogans or social media posts. I am talking about real choices, made quietly, when no one is applauding.

This is not a moment for vague language. In some parts of this country, people are already living inside what others still insist is hypothetical. The idea that government power can be turned against its own citizens is no longer a lesson from history books. It is happening now.

Yes, voting matters. It always does. But it would be naive to pretend there will not be attempts to undermine elections. History is very clear on this point. Leaders who fear losing power rarely surrender it easily. Acknowledging that is not paranoia. It is realism.

And this is where things become truly dangerous.

The greatest risk is not only authoritarianism. It is what happens when fear pushes people to abandon restraint, ethics, and clarity in the name of resistance. That path has its own casualties. We have seen it before, and it never ends where people think it will.

So the question is not just what you oppose, but how you oppose it?

What lines will you refuse to cross even when provoked? What values will you protect even when doing so puts you at personal risk? What will you not become, no matter how justified it feels in the moment?

I do not ask these questions casually.

I trust history. I let it lead me with knowledge of possibility. I am not naive. I have backup plans for backup plans, not because I want collapse, but because history rewards those who understand risk rather than dismiss it. Preparedness is not panic.

That does not mean abandoning ethics. It does not mean surrendering restraint. It means refusing denial.

The real challenge of this moment is not fear. It is clarity. The ability to see what is happening without becoming consumed by it. The ability to oppose injustice without surrendering moral grounding. The ability to recognize danger while still insisting on humanity.

History will remember this period. It will remember who spoke carefully and who shouted. Who acted with restraint and who hid behind slogans. Who protected human life and who justified cruelty.

I am asking myself where my lines are? What I will oppose? What I will sacrifice? And what I will never surrender under any circumstance?

These are not dramatic questions. They are necessary ones.

That is the work now.

Not hysteria.

Not denial.

Awareness, responsibility, and the discipline to remain human in a time that rewards neither.