A Most Lethal Order
The stories that flame an apocalyptic worldview.
From the exclusion of disabled bodies in public spaces, to exterminating the unwanted, to a yearlong genocide of a discarded population, the stories my heart trailed this summer all point to the distortion I’m writing about in my second book, The Song of the Mystery: The Foundation of Human Belonging. In this substack, I share some of the research and findings that help shed light on why it feels like we’re spiraling toward an apocalyptic scenario and how this most lethal worldview starts with the small stuff. The apocalypse isn’t some distant future scenario; it is rhetoric that amplifies an ancient story — a story that poisons the heart and singes the unfurling potential of human life.
In July of 2024, Donald Trump’s nephew spoke of the former president’s hostile reaction to his nephew’s disabled son. He shared how Trump told his nephew that his severely disabled son ‘should just die’ because, among other reasons, he wasn’t able to recognize his father. What I took away from the interview is that the merit of a child’s life depends on how fully they affirm our existence.
You may wonder, “What does this have to do with the apocalypse?”
A lot. I’ve spent almost the last two years reflecting and studying the question of human belonging, working first intuitively and then moving toward finding the research that fleshes out a baseline framework. What I found is that the dysfunctions we see in our society — the kind of gross distortions we’ve been collectively experiencing since 2016, leading to escalated separation, hate, and violence — don’t just appear suddenly as a spotlight in the news. It’s everywhere. It begins…everywhere. It’s in a story about a boy who is spoken of like he can’t hear or feel. Although Trump didn’t confirm his nephew’s account, we saw the broader Republican response to the presence of a differently abled body on the national stage.
In August 2024, Gus Walz made headlines when he celebrated his father (Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz) at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. His presence was promptly questioned and mocked by many Republicans, particularly those for whom cruelty has become commentary and currency. Right-wing commentator Ann Coulter, for example, tweeted, “Talk about weird,” as Gus broke down in tears as he expressed joy for his father and pride for their familial bond.
The message was clear: what is considered ‘other’ doesn’t belong. But what makes something ‘other,’ and who decides whether it belongs?
Inclusion and belonging in the larger collective are determined by those who hold the most power, and by power, I mean one thing: the ability to exert force. These are the same in-group/out-group dynamics that I would speak to communities about during my time as a preventing violent extremism (PVE) facilitator. Back then, I would sometimes draw parallels between gang culture and extremist ideologies. As I left that sphere to delve deeper into an independent pursuit of belonging, I found the issue far more granular.
Over the next couple of months, that message repeatedly surfaced in headlines through what seemed like seemingly disconnected events—but I knew they weren’t. In September, Vice President (and Democratic presidential nominee) Kamala Harris promoted an anti-immigration bill that included dismantling asylum. The hardline rhetoric that ‘others’ who are literally outside the perimeter of an in-group is not that different from the Trump administration’s far-right rhetoric about immigrants as pollutants.
It’s true, as some say, that our elected leaders are a mirror for our hearts, a reflection of the direction the herd is moving in. I certainly saw this myself over the years on the political right. I saw some of the brightest people devolve into personas no different than the basement-dwelling trolls we point to as the source of our malcontent when it comes to civic dialogue within the online sphere. Because it was the language of the in-group. Because it signaled belonging. One of them is a well-respected attorney for Donald Trump, who has nearly a million Twitter followers. Another was on Ron DeSantis’ election campaign team. There are a lot of names, but none are worth saying. The point here is that a pattern bleeds through all stratospheres of society. The highest echelons of leadership are where it becomes most apparent. The highest echelons are where we point our fingers, but there is a wheel that grinds its curse behind the curtain.
“The hamster wheel of hate spooling reactions that crash and tangle into each other,
also has a song: the song of a cash register ringing. There are leagues of people, groups, and industries profiting from the rapid-fire of careless, thoughtless opinions. It doesn’t matter what you say anymore; it’s how quickly you can pull the trigger off your tongue and how far that bullet can travel. This goes for media, politicians, think tanks, NGOs parading as social causes, and of course pundits and influencers.”
— Shireen Qudosi, Exploring the Badlands of Rogue Conversations
The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election saw the newest crop of hate influencers on the political right skyrocket in visibility and success because they could mirror the behavior and rhetoric of the in-group, which was influenced by the behavior and rhetoric of a new kind of political personality: Donald Trump. Entire industries were built around this — non-profits and media that catered to a new appetite to devour the other. If I shared the names of some organizations and distorted media personalities that became popular over the last several years, I’m sure you’d recognize them. But again, their names aren’t necessary; recognizing the pattern is.
Those distortions across what until recently seemed like separate political parties and ideologies are now blatantly converging, revealing the underlying disease that gives rise to the grander apocalyptic scenarios we feel entrapped by.
For instance, a recently published book UNHUMANS (with a publisher aptly named “War Room Books”), written by far-right personalities with cult following, was endorsed by Republican Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance. It is shared across multiple news sites that Vance and the book support violent dictators. The language of dehumanization is not new; it’s been expanding its territory for centuries. I noticed it when Hillary Clinton, during her 2016 presidential race, referred to some Americans as “deplorables.”
Again, the message is clear: the in-group with the most social and political clout determines who deserves to be seen as human. The in-group/out-group dynamic has shifted beyond the language of political, national, and religious identity. It’s now about who is human and who is not. What is other, weird, or refuses to reaffirm dominant group values is seen as beyond the fray and unworthy of the protection and dignity of human belonging.
We’re locked into a mechanical frame of mind where the value of life is based on its utility to the group versus where the value of life is as a holistic frame of being. It is no surprise that groups of people are diminishing the right for an Autistic or disabled child to take up space, that broad swathes of people are being unalived, and that those in dire need of asylum are invisible, that only those who can produce for the group are worthy of belonging. It is all connected.
“Callousness toward Palestinians doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Our culture normalizes disposing of people when they inconvenience us with their humanity. Self-interest, comfort, status, and individualism are valued above justice, equality, and integrity.”
Equally essential to observe is that the nation-state is becoming the arbiter of freedom, not the sovereign individual. Sovereignty as a foundational creative reality, one in which we get to decide what we belong to, is at risk of becoming an extinct practice. Instead, we’re moving toward a model of human belonging in which an external group or entity decides we belong to it… like a kind of possession.
“While American history has its challenges, America is not a collection of its wounds.
I’m inclined to say that possibly no one person or idea is. Life is more complex than that, but that complexity tends to get shaved down to one monolithic vision or another. Our history, beliefs, challenges, ideas, and desires resemble the flow and complexity of song more closely than pillars of beliefs.”
— Shireen Qudosi, “What to do with a problem like America?”
An individual who cannot see the value of human life is a group that cannot see the value of human life. That cataract of the human heart becomes a state and, next, a nation that cannot see the individual. It can only see the monolith of group identity. It only has eyes for its megastructure, turning America (for example) from a beacon on a hill (like a lighthouse) into a (Babylonian) tower at the foot of which is an executioner’s block. Upon its gallows stands the prosecutor president who promises to turn an embodied idea, the American people, into a lethal force. The executive office is now the executioner’s office, with willing henchmen as an extension of the curse happy to violently dispose of any life that does not comply.
“The state is disturbingly comfortable in killing,” writes Prem Thakker, a journalist with Zeteo, adding that “a system with such low regard for life warrants total interruption.”
He’s speaking about Missouri’s willful execution of an innocent man in September of 2024. Marcellus Williams was sentenced to death in 2001 for a murder conviction to which he maintained his innocence. Prem writes:
“Doubts of his [Marcellus’] guilt sprung from everywhere amid concerns of biased jury selection and a lack of DNA evidence connecting him to the crime. His lawyers, the NAACP, even the prosecution and members of the victim’s family, among others, all requested clemency for Williams. Republican Gov. Mike Parson and the Missouri State Supreme Court shunned these efforts; Parson even actively shut down an inquiry board re-examining whether Williams was innocent. In the final minutes before Williams was set to be executed Tuesday, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against staying the execution…the ideological throughline was not about protecting the sacredness of life (in any interpretation), but asserting mortal control.”
Despite online petitions and the trail of people pouring into the Missouri governor’s office in person until the 11th hour, the state refused to recognize anyone it labeled as the out-group.
We’re less and less led by individuals authentically interested in servant leadership; we’re led by sinistership. This observation has haunted me since it became undeniable that Israel is waging a genocide against the Palestinian people — one that America is fully supporting to the detriment of its own existence and one that is undeniably expanding its territorial reach. And everywhere I look, as I share in this substack, the macro outer reality reflects the micro reality like a nesting doll of diseases. Yes, it's pervasive, but how did we get here?
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