The High Cost of Silence
Why Leaders Can No Longer Look Away
This is the moment where we stop talking about tax rates and start talking about survival.
Tomorrow, January 30th, the movement that started in Minneapolis is going nationwide. If you’re a leader, you might be tempted to look at a “National Strike” as a productivity loss. But the real loss — the one that will bankrupt your legacy — is the cost of staying silent while the country fractures.
Americans were promised a return to traditional values. Instead, we’re watching the Second Confederacy take shape.
The Business Case for Reality
If you aren’t a defense contractor, chaos is your enemy. As a leader, you need to understand that the current climate isn’t just “unrest;” it is a direct assault on the infrastructure of your business.
The Safety Tax: A “business-friendly” environment doesn’t exist if your employees are too terrified to walk to their cars. When an ICU nurse like Alex Pretti is executed in the street for filming federal agents, the social contract is dead.
The Talent Drain: Your best people aren’t focused on your Q1 goals; they are focused on whether their families will be snatched off the street. You cannot build a high-performance team in a state of perpetual trauma.
The ROI of a Civil War is Zero: We’ve seen this blueprint in the 1860s and the 1930s. Authoritarianism and civil conflict don’t create “greatness.” They create wreckage. If the foundation is on fire, the size of your tax break is irrelevant.
Why Tomorrow Matters
Supporting the strike tomorrow isn’t about “taking a side” in a partisan fight. It is about demanding a return to a predictable, safe society. As founders and managers, we are the architects of our communities. We provide the stability that people rely on. But we cannot provide that stability if we are complicit in the violence through our silence.
The “Economic Blackout” is the only peaceful lever left. It is a collective “Stop” to a regime that has traded the rule of law for masked violence.
The Call to Action: Pick a Foundation
You can’t lead a company if you don’t have a country.
I’m calling on every founder, CEO, and manager to look past the short-term gains of deregulation and see the long-term threat of a crumbling democracy.
Acknowledge the moment: Tell your employees you see what’s happening.
Support the pause: If they strike tomorrow, don’t penalize them. Stand with them.
Demand accountability: Use your voice to tell the “oligarchs” and the regime that a Second Civil War is bad for the bottom line and worse for humanity.
We don’t get to be “great” again until we are safe again.