We Are Not Alone, We Are Not Powerless

The present crisis is stifling and demoralizing, but surviving it and discovering a more decent world begins with a simple realization: we can make a better future

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There are nine members of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. It might be presumptuous, but I’m guessing if you’re reading this you are not counted among them.

The last time I checked, there was one President, one hundred members of the Senate and 435 representatives in the House. Though there are individuals in the White House and Congress who read this newsletter, their ability to effectively pass legislation or break up the intentional logjam at the federal level is somewhat negligible.

Meanwhile, our political and economic systems have been largely corrupted and co-opted by an increasingly wealthy group of power brokers hellbent on growing their wealth and power at any cost, including the destruction of the Earth and total dismantling of liberal democracy. Chances are, considering the math, you are probably not a member of this historically wealthy class of individuals, but if you are, feel free to get a hold of me. I’ve got some ideas should you want to make a difference.

All of it is overwhelming. To watch detestable actions like the overthrow of Roe V. Wade, followed by a yawning lack of response by those charged with protecting us, leaves a person feeling desperate and, over time, isolated and demoralized. The system, after all, is designed with this in mind. The founding of the United States was predicated on neutralizing the power of the masses in favor of rule by a tiny group of wealthy white men. Almost everything that has happened since then has been to either shore up that rule or battle attempts to trouble it.

To be clear, it feels as if the deck is stacked against you because it is. The flow of history is the story of how the powerful have continually protected themselves from situations where the fate of the masses is weighed more heavily than their own self-interest.

But make no mistake. A stacked deck is not a death sentence. The moment you realize the game is rigged you can set about un-rigging it. And that is the work we must do and we simply cannot deny that very, very obvious fact anymore. Many will tell you our institutions are holding, that warnings such as these are hysterical and counterproductive, and that the only option you have is to support a political party or politician without reservation and simply vote when November rolls around. It should be noted that the same people and organizations who continually hold this line are, almost to a person, beneficiaries of this system. They are wealthy, affluent, powerful, and plenty comfortable in their privileged positions. Standing put and waiting on the system to correct itself isn’t just a political stance, it’s a matter of protecting what is already theirs.

Time and time again, authoritarianism has gained control relying on these people to do nothing or discourage popular movements. In these past few weeks you have undoubtedly gotten a better sense of this as the rollback of reproductive rights has inspired many to call for transgender and gay Americans to be “sacrificed for the greater good” and the political environment has been prepared for us to live within this new paradigm.

Sacrificing anyone, including vulnerable populations, is not only cruel and unnecessary, but a certain route to failure. And you do not have to accept this reactionary, authoritarian takeover.

It may feel as if you are incapable of changing anything. It may feel as if these earth-shaking events are beyond your control, as distant from your life as the dramas of Hollywood or even the gods of the mythological past. It may feel as if you are utterly powerless and irreparably alone.

But you are not. And we can very well change the world.

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Studying history you quickly find an easily identifiable pattern. Over the course of time, power tends to consolidate until a reigning order is established in which all perception and reality is filtered. Sometimes these moments of order are centralized around economic or political ideas (say feudalism, capitalism, or, currently neoliberalism) and sometimes it is bound to hegemonic dominance (i.e. the Roman, British, and American Empires). Inevitably, the former is largely hidden by the latter, obscuring the material conditions that influence events behind mythologies of exceptionalism and religious narrative.

The pull of these reigning orders can be awesome. In fact, the dominance of the order is predicated on its very ability to convince people of their power and undisputed nature. An example of this that should prove relevant for readers in this discussion is the myth of “the End of History,” or the idea, following the fall of the Soviet Union, that America could, through economic and militaristic pressures, create an everlasting order.

Decades later, we know this to be absurd. We’ve watched America falter in the last two decades and that mythology has been rendered laughable. But it was a prevalent belief, so much so that it largely dominated the political environment for many, many years. As that lie fell by the wayside and you and I took a long and sobering look at the decline of the United States, we’ve come to realize the story was always just that, a story, and that it shielded the prevailing economic order of neoliberalism in service of the wealthy.

Our feelings of frustration and demoralization result from the buildup of power in service of that economic order. As the mythology slips away, authoritarian elements rise to fill the vacuum and maintain order. Reactionaries like the Republican Party and their base welcome it while status quo liberals, the wealthy, and elements of the middle class “tolerate” it in order to protect what is already theirs. Meanwhile, they attack anyone wishing to make significant change, pushing constantly to moderate expectations and play within the rigged game.

But what they do not tell you, or maybe what they don’t even recognize themselves, is that change is not only possible but necessary. Things will not always be as they are today. That would be impossible. This “immortal present” they offer you is as fictional as the dying mythology. Things will change. We’re seeing it now. The question is how they will change. Whether the authoritarian movement will continue gaining momentum and drag us back centuries or if the inherent contradictions and intentional inequalities will be addressed.

Hopelessness and demoralization depends on a faith, installed by the system in order to protect itself and reinforced by these institutionalists, including politicians, publications, and the commentariat, that this rigged game is all we have. That nothing, absolutely nothing, could be done differently beyond continuing to play it and simply hoping for better outcomes.

It depends on leaving a very obvious and flimsy lie go unchallenged.

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On Friday, June 24th, the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade. It was the culmination of a long, expensive, and hard-fought project by the Right Wing, a project funded by some of the wealthiest people in the nation. The Republican Party and the Federalist Society, both receiving substantial contributions from these same donors, as well as major corporations, systematically took over the judiciary from the bottom up, a process that took decades to carry out.

The reaction from the Democratic Party, supposedly the body charged with standing in opposition to the GOP’s agenda and, theoretically, protecting a woman’s right to choose, consisted of predictable speeches decrying the position and calls for supporters to vote for them in November’s midterms. Without detailing a specific plan, they claimed that adding two additional senators and maintaining control of the House would lead to codifying the right into law. All of these appeals neglected to explain why Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema stood in the way of this currently (they are bought and sold by the same wealth class in order to serve as an effective veto) or guarantee that, with a pair of additional senators, the votes would even be there. Manchin and Sinema, after all, shield a variety of Democrats from scrutiny who share their positions and allegiances, making it completely unknowable if this incredibly unlikely electoral scenario would even make a difference.

I am not writing this to tell you not to vote. Currently, the Republican Party represents an existential threat to liberal democracy and simply not voting against them is a self-defeating strategy in my opinion. But I am here to tell you that voting in elections is hardly even the bare minimum requirement for participating in a democratic society, and it is notable that Democratic politicians continually banging the drum that voting is our only hope are also looking out for their own political self-interest and maintaining their control of the party over what the Biden Administration itself labeled “activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream.”

A large reason for our current crisis, as well as the feelings of hopelessness, lies in the intentional erosion of civic participation and mass movements. Neoliberalism, as a tactic, sells the population on the idea that we are all competitors in the marketplace and that organizing is largely a fool’s gambit. The destruction of labor unions and the transformation of politics into a consumer product has left us isolated, pitted against one another, powerless to do much other than consume and watch from the sideliness like spectators at a sporting event.

You should gain hope by watching the burgeoning labor movement. Around the country regular people are joining forces to take on major corporations that control historic wealth and possess incredible power. These are the corporations that continue to fund these antidemocratic actions, the rollback of regulations, the further rigging of the systems. They are seemingly invincible juggernauts. And yet, shops keep opening. The many are rediscovering their ability to come together, to grow their power, to trust and have faith in one another in spite of all of the opposing forces.

You should gain hope watching local communities respond to the lack of federal funding and the all-but-destroyed social safety net. These communal aid efforts represent true empathy and solidarity in action, and as their leaders and workers gain confidence and support, they should be welcomed into the political fold.

At the local level, you can run for office, volunteer, or simply grow your own communities through frank discussions that dispatch with these weaponized mythologies and unreasonable faith in the status quo. Over time, these small acts of solidarity grow. Talk with your family. Talk with your neighbors. Talk with your coworkers. Compare notes. Stop settling for cliches and headlines and talking points designed by strategists and propagandists. Create mutual understanding. Rediscover trust and faith in one another.

These feel like small measures, but to begin tackling the problems of the moment it will require restless building from the ground up. The intentional destruction of trust and solidarity cannot be repaired in an instant, no matter how much we all want it to be the case. Democracy cannot be saved with the speed of a dinner being delivered or an Amazon order being rushed to your door. And we must wrestle with that desire and expectation, lest we again succumb to that awful, awful hopelessness.

With work, faith, and a whole lot of luck, we might look back on this moment as the low-water mark where something began to change. That’s another lesson of history. As the mythologies wane and the authoritarianism emerges, oftentimes the people coalesce into popular movements that literally change the world. It seems impossible until it seems inevitable. Tomorrow will not look like today. It can’t, and to expect otherwise is to gift room and energy for the oppressive actors to grow and shape the future.

You are not required to play a rigged game. If enough of the players demand a new deal or a fresh deck free of manipulation, the old, intractable nature of the game itself is dissolved and gives way to something that had seemed simply unthinkable only moments before.