We don’t have to lift a finger.
Remember when DOGE was all anyone could talk about? The arguments burned hot for a few weeks, everyone picked their side, and then… silence. Not because anything got resolved. But because we all got comfortable in our corners. The algorithm stopped serving us new information and started reinforcing the verdict we’d already reached.
Every time you tap a headline, linger on a post, or rage-click a comment section, the algorithm takes notes. It’s the most obedient yes-man ever built. It doesn’t argue, doesn’t push back, doesn’t suggest you might be wrong. It just quietly and efficiently fills your feed with more of what you already believe. And it does it so smoothly that you don’t even notice. You just wake up one day absolutely certain that everyone agrees with you… Except those idiots on the other side who clearly don’t read.
But they do read. They’re just reading from a completely different library.
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Here’s where I step on toes on both sides of the aisle, so buckle up.
If your feed has been showing you stories about displaced federal workers, veterans denied services, and agencies crumbling from the inside, you probably think anyone who supports the cuts is heartless or delusional. Your phone has handed you story after story confirming that position. You’ve seen the faces. You’ve read the quotes. You feel informed.
If your feed has been showing you stories about bloated agencies, ghost employees collecting checks, and billions in waste that nobody seemed to care about until someone tried to stop it, you probably think anyone opposed to the cuts is just protecting the swamp. Your phone has handed you story after story confirming that position. You’ve seen the numbers. You’ve read the reports. You feel informed.
Both of you are half right. Which means both of you are half wrong.
But nobody’s phone is telling them that part.
I spent two years working deep cover inside a street gang. You know what kept me alive? My training? Cover story? No, it was the ability to hold two truths at the same time. That the guy across the table from me was dangerous and that he was a human being shaped by things I’d never experienced. That the world I came from had rules and that those rules looked very different from his side of the table.
Lose sight of his context for one moment, and I’d have been dead. Not figuratively. Literally.
Most people aren’t navigating life-and-death stakes at the dinner table, but the principle scales. When you stop seeing the other person’s context, you stop seeing the full picture. And when you stop seeing the full picture, you start making confident decisions based on half the information.
That’s not being informed. That’s being curated.
Steven Wright once said, “Last night somebody broke into my apartment and replaced everything with exact duplicates. When I pointed it out to my roommate, he said, ‘Do I know you?'”
That’s the algorithm. Exact duplicates. And after a while, anyone who sees something different looks like a stranger.
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So, here’s the reset.
Go find a story that makes you uncomfortable. Not angry… your phone’s already great at that. Find one that makes you pause. One that complicates what you thought you knew. Read it all the way through. Don’t screenshot it for a dunk. Don’t share it with a sarcastic caption. That’s just walking into the bar… again. Just sit with it.
Because the algorithm only knows what you click. It doesn’t know what you think. And if you never challenge what it feeds you, you’re not thinking at all. You’re just agreeing with a machine that was designed to keep you scrolling.
Marcus built his echo chamber out of yes-men. We built ours out of Wi-Fi and a thumb.
At least Marcus had to buy the beer.
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Tegan Broadwater spent 13 years with the Fort Worth Police Department, including two years assigned to the FBI working deep undercover inside a violent Crip organization. That operation, detailed in his book Life in the Fishbowl, resulted in 51 convictions. He has since founded Tactical Systems Network, an armed security & protection firm primarily staffed by veterans, is a creative writer and musician, and hosts The Tegan Broadwater Podcast. All book profits benefit children of incarcerated parents. Learn more at TeganBroadwater.com
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