EVIL EMPIRE: AN ORWELLIAN TALE
By Janet Kira Lessin (Lead Author)
With Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Contributing Author)
⭐ THE VOICE THAT BECAME A GRAVITY
He emerged almost casually, as if he had always been there waiting for the nation to turn its head in his direction. The man from the golden towers did not ascend through brilliance or vision; he rose because his voice resonated with the unresolved hunger in Dominia’s collective psyche. He spoke quickly, confidently, sometimes incoherently, but always with a force that made people feel they were witnessing something seismic.
His speeches were less about content than cadence — a rhythmic release valve for grievances the country had quietly nursed for years. He did not ask Dominia to reach higher; he asked it to look downward, to identify the people supposedly holding it back. In this downward gaze, he forged a new unity, one built not on shared purpose but on shared resentment.
Television panels dissected his words, only amplifying them. Newspapers tried to contextualize him, only cementing his centrality. The more outrageous his claims, the more oxygen he consumed. Soon he was no longer a candidate, a celebrity, or a spectacle — he became a gravitational field. Institutions bent toward him. Public discourse orbited him. Even his critics helped consolidate his power by defining themselves against him.
By the time Dominia fully understood what had happened, the nation’s emotional climate had shifted. The Leader didn’t seize authority; he convinced people that he was the inevitable voice of their dissatisfaction, and once they accepted that premise, the old rules fell away.
The empire began not with a decree, but with a chorus of citizens deciding that his anger spoke for them.
⭐ THE COUNTRY BEGAN TO LEAN
Dominia’s transformation was almost imperceptible at first, arriving not through dramatic upheaval but through a gradual realignment of mood and perception. The nation began to lean, adjusting its posture a fraction at a time, until people unconsciously shifted their footing to accommodate the tilt. The change appeared initially in the way conversations hesitated before touching specific topics, in the quiet recalibration of glances exchanged between strangers, and in the subtle discomfort that emerged when voices carried unfamiliar accents. What had once felt like simple diversity began to sound vaguely dissonant.
Rather than addressing frustrations openly, Dominia’s citizens absorbed a steady stream of narratives suggesting that the country had welcomed too freely, grown too generous, or allowed itself to lose some imagined purity. These sentiments drifted through talk shows, sermons, editorial columns, and everyday conversations, gaining adherence not because they were persuasive but because they offered a simple explanation for complex anxieties. People found comfort in the idea that their struggles could be traced to a single “other,” a convenient figure that could hold the weight of collective unease.
This shift was not marked by outbursts of hostility but by a creeping, self-reinforcing suspicion. Neighbors became more reserved. Teachers spoke more cautiously. Journalists sensed their words could be recast as threats. What had once been a nation defined by its confidence in the democratic process and shared values gradually became a society that monitored its own tone, gauged its safety in every sentence, and looked over its shoulder before speaking freely.
The institutions of Dominia still operated, but their authority was quietly dissolving. Courts issued rulings, legislatures passed bills, and public offices continued their routines, yet something fundamental had drained from the system: the belief that these institutions were sturdy anchors rather than fragile remnants of an earlier era. Dominia remained functional on paper, but its emotional infrastructure had shifted so significantly that the nation no longer recognized itself as a place where differing voices could coexist without fear.
Amid this atmospheric transformation, Dominia’s leadership chose its first unmistakable target. The undocumented population, woven deeply into the economy yet largely invisible in public discourse, became the primary focus of the new order. They were essential to the country’s prosperity, yet because their contributions had long gone unacknowledged, it was easy for the nation to pretend they had never mattered at all. In homes, hospitals, farms, and construction sites, quiet disappearances began. They happened through administrative channels rather than dramatic raids: altered forms, invalidated documents, shortened deadlines, and shifting requirements that rendered years of residence suddenly fragile.
Entire families unraveled in silence, and although many Dominian citizens felt uneasy, they also felt relieved that, for the moment, they were not the ones being asked to justify their presence. The shift seemed manageable, distant, and directed toward people who existed on the outer edges of national identity. The public largely accepted these measures as unfortunate but necessary, failing to recognize the precedent they were helping set. Every empire begins by testing the boundaries of who can be removed without protest.
Dominia passed the test.
⭐ THE SPECTACLE OF OBEDIENCE
Quiet disappearances served administrative efficiency, but fear required spectacle. The raids began at dawn, executed with theatrical precision designed not merely to remove individuals but to communicate a message. Helicopters circled above small apartment complexes while armored vehicles blocked entire streets. Agents in tactical gear moved with rehearsed choreography, transforming modest neighborhoods into temporary war zones. Families watched in disbelief as neighbors were handcuffed, lined up, and transported away under the glare of floodlights.
For many citizens, these spectacles produced a conflicted reaction. Some felt vindicated, convinced the nation was finally restoring order. Yet even among those who cheered, a dawning realization crept in: if these actions could be justified today, what might be justified tomorrow?
Loyalists saw the raids as strength.
The rest saw a warning.
The question whispered more urgently across Dominia: Am I next?
⭐ THE HALF THAT NEVER SLEPT — AND THE HALF THAT NEVER WOKE
From the beginning, half the nation understood what was unfolding. They had read Orwell, studied the warnings of totalitarianism, and listened to the stories of survivors who bore tattooed numbers on their arms—living reminders of humanity’s darkest potentials. Their fathers and grandfathers had marched into the Great War with youthful optimism and returned with hollow eyes. These citizens recognized the signs immediately.
They did not vote for the Leader; they resisted from the start. Yet while they were raising families and pursuing ordinary lives, a quieter, more insidious campaign unfolded beneath the surface. Votes were suppressed through redistricting, purges of voter rolls, and subtle but relentless legal manipulation. By the time they noticed, their political power had already eroded.
At first, the erosion was invisible. But as the first year progressed, Dominia saw the truth: the Leader and his inner circle did not adhere to the laws they enforced on others. They operated behind curtains of secrecy, rewriting norms, bending institutions, and performing legality only when convenient.
Most citizens complied quietly out of fear. A smaller but fervent faction embraced the Leader with near-religious devotion, believing him chosen by destiny. Friends and family watched loved ones transform into zealots, parroting slogans with vacant conviction, as if an unseen force had hollowed them out.
Dominia’s fracture was no longer political. It was spiritual, emotional, and deeply personal.
⭐ THE ERA OF FORGETTING
As the war receded further into the past, Dominia experienced a slow erosion of memory. New generations grew up in relative comfort, dismissing the elders’ warnings as exaggerations. Survivors of past atrocities were viewed as fragile relics of another era. Their tattooed arms, once searing testimonies, became curiosities.
The young did not intend disrespect. They simply lacked context. They believed themselves too modern, too rational, too evolved for tyranny to rise again.
In forgetting their past, they forfeited their immunity to it.
A nation that loses its memory loses its guardrails.
⭐ THE ILLUSION OF BELONGING
As global travel and communication flourished, Dominia grew increasingly multicultural. Families blended across continents and cultures, believing they embodied the future. Many felt protected by their proximity to privilege or assimilation.
Yet even they absorbed the myth of “The Other.” Without realizing it, they participated in rhetoric designed to dehumanize them. They believed themselves safe—until the disappearances reached their own doorsteps.
Cars were left running. Beds were left warm. Entire families vanished.
The missing were not from one group—they were the blended ones, the global ones, the future itself.
Some mysteries were never solved.
⭐ THE EXPANSION OF SURVEILLANCE
As disappearances increased, Dominia entered a new phase of control—one so subtle at first that many citizens barely noticed it happening. Surveillance cameras appeared on street corners, justified as “public safety measures.” Identity checkpoints were added in airports, train stations, and eventually bus routes and school entrances. Most citizens complied without complaint, telling themselves they had nothing to hide, reassuring one another that only criminals needed to fear scrutiny. They repeated these phrases so often that they became a kind of national lullaby.
Phones began prompting for secondary identity confirmations to access trivial services. Banking apps required facial scans. Government portals demanded new biometric data, always explained as necessary updates to prevent fraud. People accepted each change individually, never recognizing how quickly the cumulative effect was tightening around them.
The irony was that Dominia’s citizens had grown accustomed to surveillance long before the Leader arrived. They had embraced devices that tracked their steps, their purchases, their conversations, and their preferences. They had invited microphones into their homes and cameras into their pockets. They had willingly surrendered the very privacy their grandparents once fought to protect.
It did not take long for the state to merge its systems with the technology people had already woven into their lives. No dramatic takeover was needed; the infrastructure of self-surveillance was already in place. All the Leader had to do was flip the switch.
Within months, Dominia became a country where every movement was logged, every purchase cataloged, every conversation—no matter how private—potentially stored somewhere beyond reach. Citizens adjusted because they always had. And in that adjustment lay their undoing.
⭐ THE MACHINERY OF LOYALTY
Surveillance, however vast, was only one part of the apparatus. Empires do not maintain control merely by watching; they retain control by encouraging citizens to watch each other. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Dominia shifted from a country of neighbors to a nation of informants.
Businesses were incentivized to report suspicious behavior. Schools were encouraged to monitor families. Medical professionals were asked to flag irregularities in patient backgrounds. Apartment complexes formed “community committees” whose real purpose was to assess ideological reliability. People learned that any disagreement with official policy, no matter how minor, could be interpreted as disloyalty.
Whispers traveled faster than facts.
Rumors destroyed reputations overnight.
Social circles dissolved under the pressure of suspicion.
What made this system so effective was that it did not require strict obedience—only fear of noncompliance. Citizens reported one another not out of conviction, but out of anxiety. A concerned father might report his son’s teacher to preempt being reported himself. A neighbor might turn in a friend because she feared being associated with the wrong kind of conversation. Entire communities fragmented under the weight of self-protection.
And beneath all of this, the true believers were quietly elevated. Their loyalty was rewarded with small privileges—priority access, leniency in disputes, faster bureaucratic processing. These perks were subtle at first, then increasingly blatant, turning devotion into currency and obedience into social capital.
The cult of the Leader did not require uniform agreement.
It required only the perception that disagreement was dangerous.
⭐ THE TURNING OF THE WHEEL
No authoritarian system stops with the elimination of its initial enemies. Once the machinery of fear is set in motion, it must continue to operate, consuming new targets to justify its existence. At first, the Leader’s most loyal supporters believed themselves immune to scrutiny. They imagined loyalty as armor, believing their devotion had placed them on the winning side of history. They were sure they would never face the threats directed at others.
But the wheel turns.
It always turns.
As internal power struggles surfaced, loyalists who once stood at the center found themselves at the edges. A minor disagreement became “questionable allegiance.” A careless remark became “counterrevolutionary behavior.” Suddenly, people who had dedicated their lives to defending the Leader discovered that their loyalty was conditional—and fragile.
A local party organizer disappeared after questioning a policy detail.
A fervent broadcaster vanished after deviating from the approved narrative.
A regional enforcer was quietly removed after being outperformed by a rival.
Each disappearance sent shockwaves through the ranks, but the remaining loyalists convinced themselves the fallen must have done something wrong. They told themselves that obedience was still protection, even as the circle of protection grew smaller.
The empire devoured its architects as readily as its enemies.
⭐ THE TRUE NATURE OF THE EMPIRE REVEALED
By the time Dominia understood the shape of the system controlling it, the transformation was complete. Fear had become the national language. Silence had become the highest law. The Leader, once a figure of spectacle and bluster, now existed in mythic proportions—an omnipresent force whose whims defined reality.
He no longer needed to speak often. His image alone carried weight.
He no longer needed to make threats. The people made them for him.
He no longer needed to justify actions. The justifications arose organically, whispered and repeated until they calcified into truth.
The nation that once prided itself on freedom now accepted restriction as stability.
The people who once cherished debate now avoided conversation entirely.
The society that once defined itself by diversity now feared the very idea of difference.
Dominia had crossed the threshold, not through a single dramatic moment, but through thousands of incremental shifts—each one rationalized, each one justified, each one small enough to ignore until the sum became unmistakable.
The empire did not reveal itself with marching boots or burning banners.
It revealed itself in the quiet conformity of a population that realized too late that they had surrendered their power, piece by piece, believing each surrender was temporary.
And by the time the spell broke, the Leader stood unchallenged.
The gravity that once pulled the nation toward him now pinned it beneath him.
⭐ THE SLOW AWAKENING
Awareness did not return to Dominia all at once; it emerged in scattered moments—quiet, private realizations that something fundamental had gone terribly wrong. A mother who had supported the Leader out of fear noticed her teenage son lowering his voice whenever he spoke at home. A retired man who had once worn his patriotism like a badge felt his pulse quicken when a stranger knocked at the door. A family who had always trusted the system panicked when a routine clerical error placed them on a list they had never heard of.
Small cracks appeared in the facade of obedience, and through those cracks, light began to seep.
People started asking careful questions in whispers, testing whether anyone else felt the unease that had settled into their bones. Quiet conversations unfolded in kitchens with the curtains drawn, in late-night phone calls, in coded messages on platforms that had once felt innocently social. Parents warned their children not to speak openly at school. Neighbors exchanged looks heavy with unspoken truths.
Some of the true believers also began to stir. Not many, and not quickly, but enough that the shift became noticeable. A few had watched colleagues disappear despite perfect loyalty; others had witnessed rules change overnight without explanation. One morning, a devoted follower who had always defended the Leader to his friends woke with a feeling he could not name: a flicker of doubt, faint but persistent, like a distant alarm finally reaching the surface.
Awakening was not a revolution.
Awakening was a remembering.
A remembering of who they had been.
A remembering of what had mattered.
A remembering of the warnings they once dismissed from their elders—the ones who knew what empires looked like before they collapsed.
Slowly, a truth spread through the population: no one was safe if everyone was a suspect.
And in that understanding, the seeds of resistance began to germinate.
⭐ RESISTANCE IN THE QUIET PLACES
Resistance did not begin with banners or crowds. It started with the smallest and most fragile forms of courage: a refusal to report a neighbor, a deliberate misfiling of paperwork, a password quietly shared with someone on the verge of being erased. It began in old libraries where volunteers scanned banned books into digital archives. It started with teachers who smuggled erased chapters of history back into their lessons. It started with nurses who kept unofficial lists of the disappeared so their families would not be left in the dark.
Dominia’s resistance was not a single movement but a constellation of scattered acts, each one tiny on its own, but immense in aggregate. People found one another through chance, through intuition, through the unmistakable glimmer of recognition in a stranger’s eyes. They learned to read the subtle language of dissent: a symbol drawn in chalk on a lamppost, a phrase embedded in a conversation, a gesture held a moment too long.
Some worked from within the system, feeding misinformation into the surveillance grid, altering identification codes, and rerouting investigations. Others operated entirely outside of it, forming hidden networks that communicated through analog methods the state had forgotten to monitor.
The resistance was not united, not organized, not even fully conscious of itself.
But it was growing.
And the Empire, for the first time, felt something it had never anticipated: friction.
⭐ THE REVEAL
The revelation did not come as a single dramatic announcement; it arrived like a slow unmasking, a peeling back of illusions until only the stark truth remained. Citizens who had once believed the Leader was merely unorthodox began to see the architecture of his design. The raids, the surveillance, the disappearances, the purges, the loyalty tests — all threads that led back to a single intention: absolute power concentrated in the hands of one man and the loyalists who served him without question.
Documents leaked, revealing the extent of the population mapping. Testimonies emerged from those who escaped the holding facilities. Digital archives were uncovered showing how far back the plans had been laid, long before the Leader ever assumed office. People realized that the abuses were not reactions to crises, but premeditated steps in a blueprint for dominance.
And then the final truth landed with crushing clarity:
He had always intended to rule, not govern.
The Leader was not a mistake.
He was not an aberration.
He was the logical conclusion of a nation that had forgotten its history.
The people saw, at last, what had been in front of them all along.
⭐ THE MORAL OF THE EMPIRE
(Bridge to the next article)
Dominia’s fall was not the story of a single tyrant rising to power. It was the story of a society that allowed itself to be divided by illusions of superiority and myths of purity. In trying to protect themselves from “The Other,” citizens failed to realize that every category of “Other” would eventually include them. The attempt to draw lines of belonging became the very weapon that erased them.
Empires do not collapse when the oppressed rise up; they collapse when the majority realizes they have been complicit in their own diminishment.
And this is where your second article begins.
The Whitening of America is not merely a political initiative or a policy debate. It is the continuation of the same ancient pattern: reducing a diverse, vibrant population into rigid categories of legitimacy and illegitimacy. First, they target the undocumented. Then the naturalized. Then the birthright citizens whose parents were not citizens. Then the mixed. Then the inconveniently different. Then the dissenters. Then the silent.
In the end, an empire built on purity consumes even those who believed themselves pure.
Dominia learned its lesson too late.
America still has time — if it chooses to remember.
