Four days after I posted this on X, my publishing contract was canceled. Was it due to this post specifically? I might never know. But I suspect it was.
You have to understand, this wasn’t an isolated hot take. It was the conclusion of weeks of research and years of growing concern. This is the story of what happens when you document a dangerous pattern, watch it unfold in real-time, refuse to look away when your own tribe exhibits it, and pay the price for consistency.
The timeline below exists to correct accusations that I was capitalizing on a tragedy or trying to score political points. Nothing could be further from the truth. I documented the pattern I called out weeks before the crisis, not in response to it.
These are the receipts. And this is what it cost.
Part I: The Bingo Card (August 30th)
Two weeks before Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I posted an article titled “The Banality of Evil”:
My Ferment Genocide Bingo card is full now.
✅ They’re stealing our jobs
✅ They’re eating our pets
✅ They’re raping our daughters
Unfortunately, the prize is the same thing that happened to Jews, Tutsis, Armenians, Native Americans, Japanese Americans, Rohingya, Tamils, Chinese Indonesians, multiple ethnic groups in Darfur, and countless other ethnic and religious minorities.
The hardest part is you can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into. When it’s become emotional and tribal, facts and historical parallels just bounce off.
I wasn’t being hyperbolic. I was documenting a pattern.
The rhetoric I was tracking wasn’t fringe conspiracy theory content from dark corners of the internet. It was becoming mainstream. Normalized. Acceptable political discourse.
The three checkboxes weren’t abstract concerns. They were specific, repeating accusations against specific groups, and each one has historical precedent. Each one appears in the lead-up to mass violence against minority groups. Together, they form the early stages of what genocide scholars call “stochastic terrorism”—creating conditions where violence against a dehumanized group becomes statistically likely even without direct coordination.
I posted the bingo card because the initial pattern was complete. All three squares filled. The historical parallels undeniable. I wasn’t claiming genocide in America was already happening, or even inevitable, but that the warning signs are already loud and clear, and we need to take notice.
[Banality is] simply the incapacity to think. To imagine what the other person is experiencing. That is the banality of evil.
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt’s observation about the banality of evil wasn’t academic for me. I was watching people I knew—conservatives I’d worked alongside, voted with, shared values with—embrace language that portrayed entire groups as existential threats. And they believed they were being righteous.
“You can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into.”
That line would prove prophetic thirteen days later.
The post got virtually no engagement. Only three people out of 83 views even bothered to hit the like button.
No crisis. No viral moment. Just documentation.
Shouting into the wind, you might say.
I had no idea how relevant this would become.
Part II: The Algorithm (September 3rd)
A few days later, I wrote another article analyzing how social media platforms amplify exactly the kind of rhetoric I’d been documenting.
The piece examined a viral thread claiming “leftists and radical Muslims have formed a secret alliance to Destroy Western Civilization.” Millions of views. Tens of thousands of engagements. Apocalyptic language. Clear enemies. Civilizational stakes.
I offered a simpler explanation: fringe progressives misapplying “protect minorities from discrimination” principles to people who actually deserve criticism. Occam’s Razor. Basic parsimony.
My response? Crickets. Handful of views. Zero meaningful engagement.
The pattern was clear: Algorithms reward apocalyptic framing. Nuanced explanations get buried.
I analyzed the Dundee knife incident—where a 12-year-old Scottish girl was turned into “Sophie Braveheart” defending her sister from migrant rapists, shared by Elon Musk to 225 million followers, framed as evidence of “inevitable civil war.”
The actual police investigation? No evidence of assault claims. A Bulgarian couple—legal immigrants with an 8-month-old—may have been the actual victims of harassment.
The inflammatory lie got algorithmic rocket fuel. The police statement got buried in local news.
I wrote: “When your entire political identity depends on civilizational crisis, boring police reports saying ‘we investigated and found nothing’ become the enemy. The fear is the point. The outrage is the product.”
The piece documented how conspiracy theories are engagement crack cocaine. They make people feel validated, urgent, tribal, angry, important. Meanwhile, nuanced explanations make people think “huh, I guess that makes sense” and scroll on.
I concluded: “If there’s any alliance worth worrying about, it’s between social media algorithms and extremist thinking. Not because tech companies want extremism, but because they want engagement, and extremism happens to be highly engaging.”
123 views. Three shares. Seven likes. One encouraging comment. No algorithmic rocket fuel.
I thought I was documenting an abstract problem with information ecosystems.
I didn’t realize I was documenting the exact mechanism that would destroy my writing career just seven days later.
Part III: The Crisis (September 10th)
Then Tyler James Robinson killed Charlie Kirk.
Political assassination. Conservative movement reeling. Grief, fear, anger—all justified. All understandable. All human.
I mourned too.
But the rhetoric that emerged immediately was exactly what I’d documented on August 30th. Exactly what I’d warned about on September 3rd.
“This is our October 7th.”
“Liberals are out for our blood.”
“Your children are not safe going to school alongside theirs.”
“You are not safe in your workplace.”
“There can never be peace with these people.”
Every square on my genocide bingo card and then some. Every algorithmic pattern from my September 3rd article. In real-time. During peak emotional crisis.
I watched the pattern unfold exactly as documented. Grief weaponized into apocalyptic framing. Specific tragedy transformed into existential civilizational threat. Calls for unity twisted into justification for viewing half the country as enemies. Calls to arms. “Lock and load.” The language of war.
The algorithm rewarded it. The engagement was massive. The fear spread.
I had a choice.
Give them a grief exception. Suspend the analysis because trauma is real and people process tragedy differently. Let tribal solidarity override pattern recognition. Stay silent while the squares got filled in.
Or apply the framework consistently.
I chose consistency.
Part IV: The Application (September 12th)
Two days after the assassination, I posted the rhetoric distinction you read at the start of this piece.
It wasn’t new analysis, and I’m not the first person to identify it. It was applying the August 30th framework to the current crisis. Distinguishing between moral judgments about beliefs (“you’re racist,” “you’re fascist”) and language that dehumanizes based on identity (“they’re animals,” “they’re poisoning our blood”).
The historical claim was specific: one type of rhetoric is harsh political discourse. The other is the type of language that enables atrocities.
The post got 63,000+ impressions.
But the engagement told the real story:
- 157 replies (overwhelmingly negative)
- 14 quote tweets (incredibly hostile)
- 33 likes
The math was stark: 99.7% of people who saw it just kept scrolling. But the 0.3% who engaged? They were furious.
This is how social media amplifies division. The tiny fraction who were angry looked like a mob. The vast majority who didn’t care enough to engage were invisible. But publishers don’t see silent scrollers. They see reply storms. They hear from angry customers.
The vitriol and hate and predictable ad hominems came fast and furious.
What they heard: “You’re worse than them. Your grief doesn’t matter. You’re morally reprehensible.”
What I’d written: A technical distinction about rhetoric types, backed by scholarship on mass violence, applied to current patterns.
But I’d made the distinction during the exact moment my audience was using that rhetoric to weaponize trauma. I’d named the pattern while they were exhibiting it. I wasn’t being tone deaf—I was intentionally pushing back against the rapid acceleration of extremist rhetoric I was witnessing escalate hour by hour, day by day.
48 hours wasn’t enough time for some. Perhaps no amount of time would have been. But every day I waited, every hour, the radicalization accelerated. The rhetoric I’d documented was being deployed in real-time to justify exactly the apocalyptic framing I’d warned about.
Two days later, on September 14th, a mutual posted: “There can never be peace with these people. You can no longer live among them. Your children are not safe going to school alongside theirs. You are not safe in your workplace. If they don’t kill you themselves they will submit you to radical networks for them to handle you.”
I responded:
I also posted a plea for de-escalation the same day:
I was recognizing in real-time that the September 3rd predictions about apocalyptic framing were coming true. I was watching the August 30th bingo squares get filled in, live, exactly as documented.
I refused to let grief erase weeks of pattern analysis. I called out the radicalization mechanism while it was actively at work.
And that was unforgivable.
Part V: The Scholarship (September 13th)
The day after the September 12th post went viral, I published a comprehensive article on my blog providing the scholarly framework behind the rhetoric distinction.
I wasn’t responding to criticism. I was doing what I couldn’t do in an X post: showing the receipts, addressing the nuance.
The article cited genocide scholars like Gregory Stanton and his “Ten Stages of Genocide” framework. I quoted research on how dehumanizing rhetoric creates psychological distance that enables violence. I walked through historical examples—Rwanda, Nazi Germany, the Rohingya crisis—showing how the language patterns repeat.
I addressed the “both sides” critique directly:
“The left absolutely engages in harmful rhetoric. Terms like ‘racist,’ ‘fascist,’ and ‘Nazi’ are often weaponized unfairly… But there’s a categorical difference between harsh moral condemnation and rhetoric that portrays groups as subhuman threats.”
I made explicit what should have been obvious from the September 12th post:
“I’m not saying conservatives are Nazis or fascists (they’re not), nor am I claiming we’re on the brink of genocide (we’re not). What I am saying is that the specific rhetorical patterns emerging in mainstream conservative discourse mirror the documented warning signs that scholars of mass violence have identified across multiple historical contexts.”
Exactly one year before the assassination, on September 10th, 2024, during a presidential debate watched by tens of millions of people, Donald Trump falsely claimed that Haitian refugees in Springfield, Ohio—legal immigrants we invited to our country—were “eating the dogs, eating the cats, eating the pets.”
This wasn’t hyperbole about policy disagreements. This was modern blood libel.
The Haitian community in Springfield immediately faced harassment. Bomb threats. Fear. Real consequences from a lie told on the biggest political stage in America.
I explained why the Trump debate example mattered:
“When Trump claims Haitian immigrants are ‘eating the dogs,’ he’s not making a policy argument—he’s invoking blood libel, the same dehumanizing propaganda that has historically preceded violence against minority groups.”
I’ve never claimed the Left is more virtuous; only that dehumanizing right-wing extremist rhetoric is historically more dangerous because it paves a more direct path to atrocity—and it’s becoming normalized.
Not fringe. Not contained to dark corners of the internet. Normalized.
That’s the pattern I documented on August 30th.
That’s the apocalyptic framing I warned about on September 3rd.
That’s what I refused to ignore on September 12th.
The article was careful. Sourced. Nuanced. Everything the September 12th post should have included but couldn’t fit in a single tweet thread.
And three days later, I lost my publisher due to “audience misalignment.”
The numbers:
- September 12th X post: 63,000 impressions, 157 replies, 14 quote tweets
- September 13th article: 140 views, 4 likes
99.8% less reach for the careful, scholarly version.
The people furious at the September 12th post never read the September 13th article explaining it, even though I linked to it in a reply to the original post. The algorithm didn’t surface it. The scholarship didn’t spread. The nuance was invisible.
This is exactly what I’d documented on September 3rd: algorithms reward inflammatory framing, detailed analysis gets buried. I just didn’t realize I was about to provide the perfect case study using my own content.
The record shows I provided the framework immediately—not in response to backlash, but the very next day while the crisis was active. I backed up the claim with genocide scholarship, historical examples, and careful distinctions.
Almost no one saw it.
But I did the work anyway.
Because the point was never virality. It was documentation. Creating a record of what I saw, when I saw it, and why it mattered—whether the algorithm rewarded it or not.
Part VI: The Cost (September 16th)
Four days after the September 12th post, WarGate Books sent me an email informing me they were cancelling Dark Dominion. The five-book series I’d been working on for years. Two complete manuscripts already delivered, ready to publish.
The email said they had audience data and feedback demonstrating their readers were unlikely to purchase my books given the positions I’d taken publicly. They suggested it would be in my best interest to seek another publisher more aligned with my views. They offered to revert the rights to Dark Dominion back to me—even help facilitate introductions to new publishers.
It was professional. It was clear.
And it was final.
I understood the business logic. I didn’t argue. We began working out the contractual details.
And I began researching other publishers. I kept low-key promoting Dark Dominion—ship lore, psionics primers, character development. I posted about my new writing projects. I maintained public momentum while processing the professional destruction privately.
That’s what I learned in the military: process the hit, complete the mission. Compartmentalize. Don’t let the blow kill the momentum.
Strategic resilience. Not denial. Just discipline.
Part VII: From the Crater (September 25th)
Nine days after losing my contract, I wrote “Screaming into the Wind.”
I’m watching my professional life as an author crater. Watching my audience walk away. Documenting a pattern I can’t stop.
But maybe that’s what we do when we can’t fix something: we refuse to let it happen without witness… We keep speaking up when we can and hope that somewhere, somehow, it creates just enough friction to matter.
People might think that article was a reflection on the risks of speaking up. A cautionary tale about what might happen if you break from tribal loyalty.
It wasn’t.
It was testimony from inside the consequences. Written from the crater, while still figuring out how to climb out. Not “here’s what could happen” but “here’s what just happened to me.”
The professional life I was watching crater? Already cratered. The audience walking away? Already gone. The question about whether it was enough to live with myself? I was answering it in real-time, without knowing the ending.
I wrote it from inside the professional destruction. Not a prediction. Not a warning. Documentation of what it actually costs to refuse participation in radicalization when your tribe demands it.
Part VIII: The Unforgivable Part
It wasn’t inflammatory rhetoric—I was measured and cited sources.
It wasn’t capitalizing on tragedy for political points—I mourned Charlie Kirk too and called out the people celebrating his death.
It wasn’t false equivalence—I made a specific distinction backed by scholarship.
It certainly wasn’t attacking the entire Right as highly problematic or morally reprehensible—I’ve always been very clear who my targets are. Bad actors. Extremists. Legitimate authoritarians and bigots.
What I did was refuse to treat normalized extremism as normal in a time of crisis when the tribe demanded laser-focused hate toward “the other.”
The unforgivable part was maintaining consistency when my tribe wanted me to suspend it and fall in line.
Because refusing to take up the war cry is tribal betrayal.
When a presidential candidate tells tens of millions of viewers that legal Haitian refugees are eating pets, and that community faces bomb threats as a result, calling that “modern blood libel” isn’t hyperbole. It’s accurate historical classification.
When “poisoning our blood” and “they’re animals” becomes standard campaign rhetoric, comparing it to historical atrocity-enabling language isn’t alarmist. It’s pattern recognition.
When “your children aren’t safe going to school alongside theirs” becomes an acceptable response to an isolated political assassination, calling it manufactured radicalization isn’t both-sidesing. It’s naming the mechanism.
And when comparing literally half of American voters to Hamas is used as a rallying cry and reasonable, intelligent people you’ve known for years are nodding along, calling it out as incredibly toxic and offensive bullshit is absolutely necessary pushback.
I documented the pattern on August 30th. I explained the algorithmic mechanism on September 3rd. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated on September 10th and people started exhibiting exactly the patterns I’d documented, I didn’t give them a grief exception—they were using the death of one man to justify dehumanizing half the country as existential threats. And someone had to push back.
I applied my framework consistently. I recognized the September 14th apocalyptic rhetoric as fulfilling the September 3rd predictions. I saw the bingo squares from August 30th being filled in real-time.
The Waiting
I’m writing this twenty-two days after WarGate Books cancelled my contract for Dark Dominion.
I’m still working through the rights reversion process in good faith. Once it’s finalized, I’ll Charlie Mike. Query agents and publishers. Find it a new home. Keep writing more books.
I’m not documenting all of this out of spite—my publisher made a business decision based on their audience data, simple as—but for clarity as this situation resolves. This is just a record of what happened and when. And why.
I’m posting this before I’ve found a new publisher because the point of this piece was never about having a happy ending to share first. It was about whether I could maintain intellectual consistency under tribal pressure. Whether I could document a dangerous pattern even when my own side was exhibiting it. Whether integrity mattered more than professional security.
The answer is yes. Even while waiting. Even while uncertain. Even while exposed.
The genocide bingo card is still full. The apocalyptic framing is still spreading. The President is now fighting to circumvent the Constitution and illegally invade American cities with federal troops. My series is still in limbo.
And every word I posted on September 12th remains true.
Would I Do It Again?
If I could go back in time, here’s what I’d tell myself on September 12th before hitting the “post” button:
This is going to make some people very angry.
You’ll write a long piece explaining the nuance of your framework the next day, but barely anyone will see it. Three days later you’ll lose your publisher. Later you’ll write one of your best essays from inside the professional crater. You’ll spend weeks in contractual limbo not knowing when you’ll get your rights back or if you’ll ever find a new publisher.
But you won’t regret it.
Because the alternative is watching the pattern you documented succeed because you suspended analysis when it mattered most. Trading truth for tribal belonging. Staying silent while your family members are targeted by the exact rhetoric you’d identified as dangerous.
And no, there’s no third path. No “strategic communication.” There’s no way to be true to your values and maintain your platform or your tribe. Not anymore. It was never about the timing anyway. Things have gone too far, the gulf is too wide, and there’s no “right time” or “right way” to say what needs to be said. There’s a cancer devouring the Right, and someone needs to call it out, even if it means excommunication.
The world needs reformers.
Be one.
The Pattern Continues
The genocide bingo card I posted on August 30th is still full.
The algorithmic amplification I documented on September 3rd is still rewarding divisive us-versus-them apocalyptic framing over nuanced analysis.
The dehumanizing rhetoric I’ve been calling out for years is spreading faster week by week, becoming more normalized day by day. Blood and soil. Displacement theory. Virulent transphobia. All becoming everyday language radicalizing people into viewing their neighbors as existential threats.
My wife, a daughter of Indonesian immigrants with strong Muslim roots, my gay son—existential threats.
And hate crimes against protected classes continue to rise, doubling over the span of mere years.
The pattern that cost me is still unfolding. The squares on the bingo card keep getting filled. “Animals.” “Poisoning our blood.” “Eating our pets.” “Your children aren’t safe.” “They’re raping our daughters.”
I’m still documenting it. Still doing what I can. Reaching the people I can reach.
Because someone has to maintain the analysis when tribal pressure demands we all look away at the same time. Someone has to name the pattern while it’s happening, not after the bodies are counted. Someone has to be a witness.
And someone has to choose consistency over belonging, truth over security, integrity over effectiveness.
Even when it costs.
I’m not looking for pity. That’s not what this is about. I’m no martyr. I’m just a guy pissing into the wind. I made my choices, and I’d make them again. I have no regrets.
And I know I’m not alone. There are more of us than you think. The algorithms bury us, the tribe casts us out. But we’re still standing. Working on reform no matter the personal or professional cost. Being witnesses any way we can, on whatever platform we have.
For you it might be a podcast or a blog, YouTube maybe.
For me it’s my books. Literature is one of the most powerful vehicles for speaking truth and driving reform in human history.
And I’ll keep writing them. I’ll publish them myself if I have to.
Nobody can take that away from me.
Charlie Mike.
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