The Agreement vs Reality
Thesis: Our willingness to trust, and their willingness to exploit, has left our democracy in shambles—especially at the state and local level.
As we all reel from the state of federal programs being cut and power being abused, I asked myself a question:
If this is happening on a federal level, what’s happening on a state and local level?
Without saying too much—I’ve been looking into my local government. And I still am.
What I can say is this: things may be as bad or worse at the state and local level.
As Americans, we all operate on this unspoken idea—this agreement. We assume people will act honestly. That our tax dollars will be used to help the homeless, build parks, maintain roads, and pay those who keep our cities functioning day to day.
We have been naive. Myself included.
Why do people fear the police?
Because they are often corrupt.
Why are they corrupt?
Because they protect the interests of local politicians. They’re on the payroll.
While the federal government has been slowly degrading, what has been happening at the local and municipal level?
Our cities are run by mobs—real estate scammers, corrupt judges, bought sheriffs, and crooked lawyers.
If you’ve ever wondered why you pay city taxes and yet everything seems slow, delayed, or non-existent… here’s the likely truth:
The level of corruption is staggering.
I won’t say all local governments are this way—but it would be wrong to assume they’re doing things correctly.
When’s the last time you saw your mayor?
Went to a real town hall?
Looked at your city’s budget?
Probably not for a while. More likely—never.
I didn’t. Not until I got a bill for my ambulance.
I was shocked. I looked at my fiancée and said:
“Why would I ever call for help if I can’t afford it?”
Emergency help should be free—paid for by the city.
So what the hell are we paying taxes for if we can’t even get help without breaking the bank?
That was my catalyst.
I looked into the budget. My fiancée started digging. And very quickly, things started to break down.
City council minutes buried in red tape.
Closed-door meetings.
Shady real estate deals.
Education grants that never made it to schools.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you start scrutinizing your local government records. Most states have transparency laws. You’re allowed to look. Use them.
Look at budgets, meeting minutes, contract bids, zoning agreements, and grants.
So what does all this tell us?
It tells us that somewhere along the line, we stopped engaging in our democracy. Not just on a national level—but especially on a local one.
Our local institutions are vulnerable. There’s little to no oversight. And the responsibility? It’s on us.
And that, in itself, isn’t unreasonable.
To a large degree, this corruption is a failure of community.
We all trusted in the agreement: we pay, you spend the money correctly.
But we should’ve known better.
Where do all the corrupt congressmen and women come from?
They started local.
Corruption in politics is cultural. That means assuming everything is being done legally is folly.
For a long time, I didn’t even consider what a city government did. I think most of us don’t.
That’s where they get their power.
That’s how our tax dollars end up in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland… while the homeless sleep in tents and mayors pay off judges to bury whistleblowers.
Here’s the problem—and I say this often: the core of my view on humanity is this—
As communities, we thrive.
But when power and communication are centralized, those in power will capitalize—not because everyone in office is corrupt, but because the corruptible are drawn to those positions.
In a time when people can’t afford groceries, we cannot afford for our local governments to siphon our tax dollars, lie about community programs, or scam funds from education.
But here’s the good part:
These people suck at hiding anything.
They succeed because no one looks.
They assume no one cares.
And so far, they’ve been right.
We need to change that.
Because right now, more than ever, people need these programs to be real. Funded. Honest. Functional.
Local politicians siphoning money offshore while their neighbors go hungry is no different than what DOGE and Trump are doing.
It’s the same nature of evil.
Just a different face.
We can’t directly fight the federal government.
But we can take back our local communities from these grifters and gangsters.
We can build a foundation to fight from.
We can use our city budgets to lift up the people.
We can show what democracy is supposed to look like.
Democracy only works if we work to keep it.
So I’m asking you—don’t just scrutinize the White House. Scrutinize City Hall. Scrutinize the courthouse. Go to the meetings. File the records requests.
We might not be able to kick out Trump today.
But we can clean up our cities.
We can demand the return of our stolen tax dollars.
We can build stronger communities that actually serve the people.
We don’t have a choice anymore.
So let’s fight where we still can.
Let’s clean up our democracy from the bottom up.
Burn bright.
If you are going to take action in your community! Comment, like, and restack!
I’m a school administrator. In my classes for licensure we were taught: what gets monitored, gets done. Sounds like the same principle. Yes, you want to afford adults the respect of trust, but it’s common sense to check in to be sure things are running smoothly. As a citizen, what I’m guilty of? Thinking that, “surely there is someone else who has done the monitoring.”
Thanks for the post. 👍🏼
Trust but verify. The mantra of every corporation that is successful. Audit and business controls are key weapons to counter fraud.
This is excellent advice. Suggest everyone use Chatgpt to review your town/city budget and other documents that you can get access to. Chatgpt has very good financial analysis tools. Typically you can just upload the documents and the system will take it from there.