There is a growing sense of frustration coursing through American politics, and it is no longer confined to one party or ideology.

That frustration has real roots. Major institutions badly damaged their credibility during the COVID-19 pandemic, the excesses of the Black Lives Matter movement, and years of breathless coverage of Russiagate. At the same time, artificial intelligence looms over the labor market with few clear answers about what comes next. Add to that a political class that often appears shamelessly corrupt, and the result is a public that feels misled, ignored and exposed.

But frustration does not remain static. In the United States today, it is mutating into something darker: nihilism.

This nihilism is built on an enormous lie. It tells people that America's problems are unsolvable, that their personal struggles are not the result of bad decisions, bad luck or even fixable structural flaws but of an all-encompassing evil system. In this story, shadowy elites control everything, success is impossible without "piercing the matrix," and anyone who talks about personal responsibility or moral restraint must be part of the conspiracy itself.

This mindset does not produce solutions. It prevents them. It short-circuits thought, discourages effort, and ultimately leads to personal and........

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