Back in our formative days — before we were even a nation — an American community tore itself apart in a frenzy of fear and accusation. Salem, Mass., became convinced that witches walked among them, intent on destroying their way of life.
The town split. On one side were the witch-believers, convinced their neighbors were in league with the devil. On the other side were those who saw the hysteria for what it was — madness. For nearly a year, the witch-believers won.
Why? Poor leadership, for one. Human wickedness, for another. (One sheriff even seized possessions down to the pots still simmering over the hearth and sold them for his own profit.) But mostly it was because mob frenzies take on a life of their own. They feed on fear, they thrive on conformity, and they punish anyone who dares to resist.
By the time it ended, 25 people were dead — hanged or pressed to death for crimes they never committed, or dead in prison from disease or deprivation. Hundreds more were imprisoned. Families were stripped of their homes and possessions. And the madness only stopped when it turned inward, accusing the governor’s own wife. Only then did leaders come to their senses, admit they had been wrong, and rein in the mob.
This is not so different, though on a smaller scale, from what we face today. America has once again split between those enthralled by hysteria and those begging for sanity. Cancel culture, mob justice, and now the celebration of political violence are the heirs of Salem. The line of descent is clear.
For years, we told ourselves cancel culture was just words — boycotts, bans, deplatformings. But those were rehearsals. Once people grew comfortable stripping away reputations and livelihoods, it was only a matter of time before the mob came for bodies. That is what we saw in Utah: a young man gunned down, and the other half of the country either laughed, shrugged, or found ways to blame everyone but the killer.
The civic glue that once bound us together is dissolving. A moment of silence for the dead could not be observed in Congress without radical Democrats shouting it down. That is not politics. That is Salem.
Where do we go from here? The first and most urgent demand must be leadership. The leaders who have fed the mob must now calm the mob. They must do what Salem’s magistrates eventually did: admit they were wrong, humble themselves, and call off the frenzy. It will be humiliating. It will be humbling. But it is the only path that avoids ruin.
And we must act quickly. It is not too late — but it is close. We are marching fast toward a split that will rival the Civil War, only worse, because there is no Mason-Dixon line this time. The fracture will run through every neighborhood, every workplace, every family. If we do not stop it now, we will not like what comes next.
Two Paths Before Us
In moments like this, history can bend two ways.
The dark path is already visible. If nothing changes, the mob will grow bolder. Politics will harden into revenge. Every institution will be treated as a weapon to punish the other side. Violence will answer violence. And because the fracture is everywhere — no borderlines, no easy separation — it will consume communities house by house, block by block. That path ends in national ruin.
But there is another way. The hopeful path begins with leadership — leaders who have the courage to calm the mob instead of feeding it, even if it costs them pride. It continues with communities that refuse hysteria and instead build something lasting: strong families, strong schools, strong churches, strong businesses. It requires ordinary people who can do what Charlie Kirk did so well — meet hostility with courage, meet insults with questions, and carry joy as a weapon.
On this path, conservatives stop waiting for legacy institutions to reform and build their own. As the rotten structures of the Left collapse under the weight of their corruption, a parallel America stands ready — not just as a refuge, but as a beacon. That path ends not with destruction, but with renewal.
It is not too late to choose. But it is close.
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