“Mom,” my daughter said, her voice still laced with disbelief. “You’re not going to believe what happened in history class today.”

Her teacher had proposed a simple game. As he moved through the room, he whispered a secret role to each student: “witch” or “regular person.” The instructions were deceptively simple: “Form the largest group you can without a witch. If a single witch is in your group, you all fail.”

Instantly, the atmosphere shifted. Suspicion bloomed, turning the classroom into a tense, silent battlefield. Students began to interrogate each other in hushed tones. “Are you a witch? How can we trust you?” Trust, it seemed, was the first casualty. Some students, desperate to avoid failure, clung to a single, uneasy alliance. But most broke off, forming small, guarded cliques. They instinctively turned away anyone who seemed nervous. They avoided those whose answers were hesitant. It was as if the slightest uncertainty were a sign of guilt.

The air grew thick with whispers, finger-pointing, and furtive side-eyes. What had been a community of classmates just moments before dissolved into isolated, fearful factions.

When all the groups were finally formed, the teacher waited a moment before speaking. “Alright,” he announced. “Time to find out who fails. Witches, please raise your hands.”

Not a single hand went up.

The class erupted in a mixture of confusion and frustration. “The game is broken! You messed it up!” a chorus of voices cried.

The teacher’s response was a question that hung in the air, heavy and profound: “Did I? Were there any actual witches in Salem, or did everyone just believe what they were told?”

A profound silence fell over the room. That’s when the truth of the lesson truly hit them. No witch was ever needed for the damage to happen. Fear had already done its work. The mere idea of a witch had divided the entire class, turning trust into chaos.

Different words, same playbook.

Today, the labels may have changed from “witch” to “liberal,” “conservative,” “pro-this,” or “anti-that.” The specifics are different, but the tactic is the same. Get people scared. Get them suspicious. Get them divided. Then, watch as communities crumble and trust dissolves.

The danger was never the witch. The danger is the rumor. The suspicion. The fear. The lies.

Refuse the whisper. Don’t play the game. Because the second we start hunting “witches,” we’ve already lost.