Have you been looking around recently and thinking, What the fuck? Why is this happening? Why is no one stopping the US government from committing crimes against humanity? If not, you probably should be.

Back in March, ICE arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a grad student at Columbia University and Palestinian activist. ICE told Khalil’s lawyer and pregnant wife that he was taken to a detention facility in Elizabeth, NJ. However, when Khalil’s wife attempted to visit him there, he was nowhere to be found. Days later, Khalil’s lawyer and wife were told he was taken to Louisiana instead.

Also in March, Tufts university student Rumeysa Öztürk was taken by plainclothes ICE officers off a sidewalk in broad daylight. Öztürk, understandably, was confused, and thought the men quickly surrounding her were civilians with the intent to harm her. She has since been able to speak out about the conditions at the Louisiana facility in which she’s being detained, saying, “The conditions in the facility are very unsanitary, unsafe, and inhumane,” and, “There is a mouse in our cell. The boxes they provide for our clothing are very dirty and they don’t give us adequate hygiene supplies.” Her access to food has also allegedly been limited and her asthma not properly treated.

On March 19, trans woman Marcy Rheintgen was arrested for using a women’s restroom in Florida. Rheintgen intentionally entered that restroom, knowing she may be arrested for doing so. In her own words, “I wanted people to see the absurdity of this law in practice. If I’m a criminal, it’s going to be so hard for me to live a normal life, all because I washed my hands. Like, that’s so insane.” The law she referenced is the anti-trans bathroom law Florida passed in 2023.

It seems the stripping of rights and personhood from regular, everyday people is being normalized in the US. Events like the above are becoming commonplace, and I’d argue, as time passes, it will only become easier for the Trump administration and conservative states to make them as normalized as mass shootings have become. I am filled with rage due to this reality we find ourselves stuck in. Enter Chat Pile and their 2024 release Cool World.

I may not be equipped to talk about the musicality of this album, but I’m certainly equipped to examine it as a text. In my view, Cool World is an explicitly anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-evangelical album in all the best ways. Take the song “Camcorder” as an example. In it, lead vocalist Busch sings,

Watch it change in my hands
Watch the whole goddamn world change
Everything that I know completely obliterated

Hearing this, I can only think of figures like Elon Musk, who, owing to their vast wealth, are as close to being gods as anyone will ever get. But how do these gods choose to spend their time? They spend it hurting regular people, breaking laws, and rewriting laws in their favor. Musk, Trump, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and every other billionaire would see the world burn to get their way.

How about the song “Masc,” which is an indictment not only of American masculinity but of the normalization of bullying those seen as “different”? In the refrain, Busch sings,

Don't tell your friends
I trust and bleed
I trust and bleed
I trust and bleed
I trust and bleed

And in one verse,

I caught you laughing again
I know I'm lower than scum
I need to keep my mouth shut
Before I look fuckin' dumb
Before I look fuckin' dumb

If you’re Black, queer, disabled, or in any other category of people wrongly treated as something other than “normal,” I imagine you’ll find “Masc” relatable. As a trans woman and someone who unknowingly grew up with the eating disorder ARFID (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder), “Masc” honestly feels like it was written about me.

Then there’s the song that stood out as my favorite during my first listen of Cool World: “The New World.” I don’t think there isn’t a single strong lyric on this album, but “The New World” may have the strongest, at least in terms of delivery if nothing else (seriously, if you love rock music and/or you hate the US government or evangelicalism, you owe it to yourself to give this song a listen). Verse one is as follows:

Every moment that we gave such meaning
Is all drawings on the sides of caves in chalk
I don't wanna be a part of your nightmare, listen
I don't wanna be the reason you don't talk
The night falls whichever way it wants to
They came for them and then they madе them walk
The skull speaks and its words arе truthful
The skull speaks as the wind curves around the rock

The chorus:

To be lost, to be whole, to be bought, to be sold
To lose hope, to lose God, to find hate, to find law
Most are dragged, most are dragged
Most are dragged kicking and screaming out
Most are dragged, most are dragged
Most are dragged kicking and screaming out

And the second verse:

Every moment that the bird sings sweetly
Can't be captured by the tip of the ballpoint pen
I couldn't take on the weight of existence
I couldn't watch them execute my friends
The dark falls whichever way it wants to
They came for me and then they made me walk
The skull speaks and its words are truthful
The skull speaks as the wind curves around the rock

If you listen to these lyrics and don’t immediately think about the horrors the US government is committing and has been committing since it was founded, I would genuinely like to know what does come to mind for you.

Maybe the news has just infested my brain. Maybe I’m just too worried about my HRT getting taken from me. Maybe I’m too worried about the likelihood someone in my neighborhood will realize I’m trans and kill me for it. Or that RFK, Jr. will send me to a “wellness” camp. Or my friends and I will get deported to El Salvador. Or maybe Cool World is perfect for this moment.