The Fable of the Slowly Boiling Frog

America’s in hot water...

Oct 09, 2025

The story of the frog that slowly boils in the pot, but doesn’t notice due to the gradual rise in temperature, is a popular allegory for creeping normality, the phenomenon by which a major, objectionable change can be accepted by society if it occurs slowly in unnoticeable increments.

While it’s a powerful statement on human behavior, the “frog science” is flawed.

The real story is rooted in experiments conducted in 1869 by German physiologist Friedrich Goltz, who sought to determine the location of the frog’s “soul.”

His diabolical approach involved lobotomizing a group of frogs, placing them in a pot of water alongside a control group of normal frogs, and then turning up the heat.

The experiment found that lobotomized frogs would stay in the water until their inevitable demise, while the normal frogs would always jump out as the water grew too hot.

Following Goltz’s work, other scientists tested a “slow boil” concept, but no matter how slowly the water was heated, the normal frogs’ survival instinct prompted them to hop out of the pot every time.

Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, with Adolf Hitler, 1930s

The Downfall of Democracy

Fifty years after Goltz lobotomized frogs, the Nazis began “lobotomizing” the German people… with propaganda.

They began promulgating the “Führer Myth” in the 1920s to create a messianic public image of Adolf Hitler as an all-powerful, infallible, divinely appointed savior who would make Germany great again.

Opposition politicians were demonized, Jews and communists (a pejorative term for anyone not on board with the Nazis) were condemned, ethnic minorities were oppressed, journalists were attacked, intellectuals were censured.

A form of right-wing Christian nationalism took hold, led by the “German Christians” movement, an antisemitic and racist “Nazification” of Christianity, which evolved into the “Reich Church.”

Once Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933, the Nazis rapidly turned up the heat. Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, took control of the media, burned books, and purged cultural institutions. Within months, Germany’s democracy was dead, and dissenters were being herded into concentration camps.

Despite the warning signs, much of the German population just didn’t see it coming. There were those who didn’t want to see it, those who simply didn’t pay enough attention, and those who just couldn’t imagine it was possible.

Then there were those so thoroughly lobotomized by Nazi propaganda that they had no idea they were in the boiling waters of tyranny.

And Now: The Same Propaganda Lobotomy in America

The election was rigged. The news is fake. Obama is from Kenya. Windmills cause cancer. Climate change is a hoax. The (Jan 6 actual) insurrection was peaceful. The immigrants are eating our dogs and cats. They’re poisoning our blood. War-ravaged Portland is on fire. Political opponents are terrorists. My critics are insurrectionists. My opponents are vermin. I’m a stable genius. I alone can fix it. I don’t know anything about Project 2025. And on. And on. And endlessly on…

Susceptible Americans have been lobotomized by pervasive propaganda from the MAGA cult, Q-Anon conspiracy theorists, bot farms, paid podcasters, and professional conspiracy theorists.

Opposition politicians, ethnic minorities, journalists, and academics are being demonized. Internment camps are being built. Christian Nationalist extremists, dedicated to replacing our democracy with an ultra-right theocracy, now hold key positions in the Trump administration. Top officials in the military and the Department of Justice are being purged.

President Trump’s echo chamber, Fox TV, reported endlessly on “rigged voting machines” in the 2020 presidential election, only to have to pay out a record $787 million because it was all false propaganda. Fox inserted protests from the George Floyd riots from five years ago during current “reports” on small, peaceful ICE protests, prompting Trump to claim the city is a war zone on fire and use it as an excuse to send in troops.

Trump continues to deploy federal troops into US cities despite it having been found to be in violation of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of federal military forces for domestic law enforcement purposes.

Dressed in black and wearing a clerical collar, Reverand David Black was reportedly offering prayers and urging ICE officers stationed on the roof of an ICE facility in suburban Chicago last month to “repent from their unnecessarily brutal enforcement of the immigration laws.”

An ICE agent responded by firing a pepper ball from the rooftop that struck the reverend in the head. Black collapsed to his knees, and other protesters rushed to help him as agents kept on firing.

Yesterday, Trump called for Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to be jailed for “failure to protect ICE officers.” The Governor’s response was, “This is a man who’s suffering dementia… he is unhinged… a coward… a wannabe dictator.”

Pritzger went on to argue that Trump wants to militarize America in order to stop free and fair elections in 2026 unless “we all stand up and speak out.”

Now, the Pentagon, under the control of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whispers about deploying the 82nd Airborne into American cities.

Please let that sink in.

The 82nd Airborne Division, which flew into Normandy to fight Hitler and the Nazis as part of Operation Overlord on D-Day, June 6, 1944, is now being considered for use in American cities by an administration that is echoing the Nazi playbook.

Troops parachuting into Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944

The choice now facing all Americans is to stand in every way possible to regain our democracy, or perish in the boiling water with the lobotomized frogs.