I saw this TV show years ago, I can’t even remember what it’s called. It only lasted one season, and I think that was by design—the story had wrapped up quite neatly. The only thing I recall about it was the star, James Badge Dale, and the fact that it completely realigned my philosophy about the country, and it may have killed my sense of hope.

The plot of the show is simple: an intelligence contractor uncovers a conspiracy, including members of our government and several corporations. As he unravels the plot, lives are destroyed, betrayed, or ended, and he nearly loses everything, but he keeps going, because the truth is what’s important. In the finale, the conspiracy unfolds exactly as it’s supposed to, and the world is forever changed. The hero confronts his boss, who was in on it, and tells him he has the proof. He’ll tell the world. And his boss asks him if he thinks anyone would care. If the hero somehow convinced media outlets to run the story, what would change?

This resonated deeply within me because I witnessed the NSA get caught spying on American citizens under the tutelage of the Bush Administration, and no one cared. Sure there were those of us who do tend to care about this kind of thing, but to the general public, it was a non-issue. The Constitution was aggressively, flagrantly violated, and it was no big deal. No one lost their job over it. I don’t even recall the program being shut down.

This was one thing I witnessed. The American public, at large, didn’t care as our rights were struck down, those in power abused it unapologetically. This came to a head during the Trump Administration when the president and those working for him didn’t give a fuck. They behaved badly, they behaved incompetently, and the American public didn’t care. Most voters, when asked about Trump’s first impeachment, couldn’t figure out what the big deal was (the big deal was, he broke the law by offering a foreign country military aid if they helped him win an election). Yes, we elected Joe Biden, but 70 million people voted for Donald Trump, and not all of them were Qanon.

Right now we have people like Jeff Bezos actively and fundamentally screwing over his workers and the whole country in general, and simply consolidating all the money, and it’s well documented, and it’s no big deal. We still have children in cages at the border, and America is all, meh. What’s it going to take for people to get mad? What’s it going to take for something to change?

I may not remember the name of the show, but I can close my eyes and vividly picture the final scene, on top of the building where the main character worked, as the hero and his boss looked into the sunset, and his boss said those devastating words to him. I remember my stomach going cold and realizing, God help us, he’s right.