A Political Crossroad
What are We to do with our Political Reality and Why the Answer is Revolution
The answer is Revolution.
With barely a month passing following the revelation of the 2024 presidential election results, the signs of a declining empire have become more and more apparent. With a new administration entering office that will continue one of the most long standing traditions upheld by our oligarchic system in the most blatant manner through the president-elect’s openly friendly relationship with the richest man in the world, and the current administration, consisting of a resentful, senile old man and an M.I.A. second-in-command, that continues to spit on the rule of law via the continuation of aid to a genocidal regime utilizing starvation as a tactic, the fueling of nuclear war with Russia, and the hypocritical pardoning of crimes committed by the president’s son; where does this leave the American people?
To the duopolists or two-party loyalists, many are left in total disarray.
On November 5th, 2024 the greatest evil a sitting administration can commit, genocide, was not rewarded. However, that news that should be good was not taken as such by many, including Black Americans. Instead, a heightened sense of agony and despair as the all true reality of too many black girls and women being constantly scrutinized while being overqualified in many areas of their lives was projected onto Kamala Harris. As a more reasonable source of the aforementioned despair, the G.O.P. in control of both chambers of Congress (a simple majority in the Senate and majority in the House) and the Whitehouse is a valid threat to the American people and global community. However, the grief and heartbreak regarding the election results seemed to have manifested in various outlets, some beyond disappointing.
These reactions included proclamations of no longer serving causes, completely checking out politically, or withholding their transactional solidarity with other marginalized groups due to the votes a portion of said groups casted for Donald Trump or just simply against Kamala Harris. Others proudly advertise their utter ignorance regarding boycott purposes by announcing their patronage to franchises explicitly as a retaliation to Pro-Palestinian voters who didn’t vote for Harris. Some have gone so far as to boast of their utilization of the very tools of the police state they once rebuked as being inhumane against the most vulnerable of these marginalized groups they seek to punish. And the most egregious of these reactions were democratic voters mocking the destruction of Gaza.
These actions are done under the guise of doing right by our martyrs and ancestors. However, it should be understood that such behavior is antithetical to the radical spirit of the martyrs and ancestors we hold with reverence.
It is a behavior that is unfortunately all too American, and not new. One of the most disappointing realizations observed during the 2024 election, the past 4 years, and the first election I ever participated in (2016) is the sheer amount of learned helplessness, shortsightedness, and heightened individualism that festers the average American psyche most particularly in the realm of politics.
As we see the literal repeat of the 2016 presidential election, with the status quo completely rejected by the popular vote in this case, the Democratic Party, its operatives, and too many of its voters have again looked externally as the source of their failure. Presenting no signs of internal reflection and, instead, choose to make a rightward shift in the overton window. And on the flipside, the likelihood that the Republican Party will abandon the populist ideals they espouse that offsets their blatant bigotry is high. Trump has already picked prominent zionists and warmongers for his administration. This includes Sen. Marco Rubio, who was integral to the introduction of Anti-BDS laws in 2019, as his choice for Secretary of State.
Will the Republican base speak out in droves against this preliminary sign of betrayal to the America First movement? Among prominent conservative political pundits, this is either not an issue or it is because Trump is being manipulated by the establishment. Like the democrats, these republicans are incapable of reflecting on their party’s betrayals and failures.
What allows these parties to continuously disrespect and abandon their bases are the voters themselves. Democratic outreach operatives spent the bulk of Harris’ campaign chastising marginalized groups that were negatively impacted by the Biden administration (which includes Kamala Harris) with the Democratic Party to ignore their realities in support of a leader that was the source of their political woes. The voters demanded nothing of the actual leader, for to them, the leader couldn’t fail to inspire the people, only the people could fail to see the leader as the correct choice. The Republican Party doesn’t hide the fact that it is an anti-workers party beholden to billionaires, corporations, and warmongers. Its voters however are easily convinced their societal woes explained by the existence of said billionaires, corporations, and warmongers are the fault of the most vulnerable or marginalized groups, absolving their leaders of any accountability.
This peasant behavior among the American electorate is the driving force that maintains the two-party system. And with this realization, the only answer we have left to not only survive the impending harms that are set to besiege the average American, most especially black Americans, but to thrive in prosperous futures is to abandon the two-party system entirely, increase our involvement in local politics, and focus on organizing outside of electoral politics.
The time for passivity is over. It was this passivity that led us to the point we are now. Voting for whichever domestic representation of U.S. imperialism holds the reins of the war machine is no longer a viable avenue for creating positive change in our material conditions.
The answer is Revolution.
To achieve the first step toward liberation, we must start by shedding the individualism that is practically intrinsic to American culture. We, as a community and a people, need to see beyond our front doors.
This rugged individualism is a major component in the continuation of ills that the U.S. government inflicts on the most vulnerable communities within the country and abroad. Even the most well-meaning, progressive minded duopolist struggles with recognizing realities and struggles that exist outside of their world views. For these individuals, their life origins, stories, and outcomes are entirely dependent on choices. Regardless of what life throws at them, their individual choices are ultimately the deciding factors for where they are in life. In other words, they fully believe in their own merit and that this country in particular is a meritocracy.
This ideology is extremely flawed. It either downplays or completely ignores the collusion between the state and capitalist class that contribute to the poor conditions and outcomes of the vulnerable and marginalized. It is an insular perspective that is common among those who trust our state institutions (i.e. banks, corporate conglomerates, court systems, federal agencies, universities, or all three branches of government).
This capitulation to these institutions has been a large hindrance on what was a steadfast trajectory toward collective prosperity that was once the goal of many prominent activists and community leaders before it was entirely stomped out by the neoliberal ambitions of Ronald Reagan and every president since then. These ambitions have resulted in the continued growth of wealth, as well as improvements in the material conditions of the top 1% within the United States and a steady decline in both regarding the bottom 50%.
In the corporate world for example, of all major industries dating from 1980 to 2010, the top 1% ownership or share in corporate assets rose from 87% to 97%. In contrast, those categorized in the 90th percentile in income saw a decrease from a mere 4% of corporate wealth ownership to 0.03%. As for income in general, members of the top quintile saw a 147% increase in their income (after taxes and transfers) from 1980 to 2020. The bottom quintile saw a large increase as well, 138%, however, an increase from around $35,000 to $48,000 does nothing to improve the material conditions of those Americans due to the fact the average livable income in the U.S. is greater than $60,000. The middle quintile or median income saw the lowest increase of 76%, and is almost $200,000 poorer compared to the top quintile.
Though much closer in income and status to the lowest wage earners in the country, Americans in the middle class act as apologists for the means to which the top earners accumulate their wealth. They’ve essentially served as a buffer between the rich and those ready to eat the rich. And this secular form of apologetics isn’t limited to random, well-off citizens; it is actually extended to the government leaders and “representatives” who’ve played the largest role in the increased wealth disparity and further subjugation of the poor.
In 2018, the median minimum net worth of members of both the House of Representatives and Senate was found to be $511,000. This is more than twice the median net worth of all Americans (after a four year surge following 2019) and 3 times the actual salary of a member of congress. This is due to the intimate relationship between corporate America and America’s representatives. Many of the richest senators and representatives have a financial incentive to cater to corporations, wall street, and the military industrial complex.
This corporate greed infests areas of great necessity, particularly housing and healthcare. These are both areas to which investment would greatly benefit the American taxpayer, both saving us money and saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
An annual investment of $20 billion dollars into developing affordable housing and permanent housing would end homelessness all while saving the American tax dollars almost $20 billion each year. (it cost taxpayers on average to arrest and jail one unhoused individual $83,000 per person per year and upwards of 70% of the now 650,000 recorded homeless population have encountered law enforcement and more than 20% experience incarceration; upwards of $37 billion is wasted on jailing the most vulnerable in the country.)
Likewise with our for-profit healthcare system, published out the Lancet Journal in 2021, a single-payer healthcare system, one that would open vital opportunities to the uninsured and underinsured regarding preventative and critical healthcare, would save the American people half a trillion dollars each year compared to what our current national system cost. How is it that it is more fiscally responsible to take care of the working class and poor, yet none of our leaders prioritize our well being as they in fact prioritize the opposite gleefully in our faces?
It begins to make sense when one realizes that since 2019 more than 20 healthcare and pharmaceutical lobbies have contributed heavily to the campaign funding of numerous politicians on both sides of the aisle to essentially kill any movement toward a nationalized healthcare system. These political investors include the likes of Blackrock, a hedge fund with large investments in numerous industries including pharmaceuticals and real estate via Blackstone. These are the forces our government yields to.
A decade ago, two professors from Princeton University and Northwestern concluded that the U.S. government operates as an oligarchy. They observed over 20 years of policy implementation starting from 1981 and noticed legislation with a large number of support from the wealthy had more than twice the chance of passing versus legislation with low support from the wealthy. They even noted the following regarding the influence the average American masses have on policy enactment:
“When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.”
This is why tax cuts for the wealthy (established by Reagan, slashed by Bush, made permanent by Obama, and slashed even more by Trump) can pass a bipartisan congress and military funding consistently increases each year, but Medicare-for-all, increasing minimum wage to a living wage, and the end of homelessness can never pass regardless of which party controls which branch of government.
The kind-hearted duopolist is impeded by their isolated reality or lack of perspective to realize they are being played by the very duopoly they legitimize. Or they are well-to-do enough that the only factors about U.S. leadership that matter to them are rhetoric and physical representation. Either way, the first course of action one must do is abandon the ludicrous airplane mask analogy regarding politics.
“I must make sure I’m good first”.
“I have to worry about myself first”.
Instead, “We must prosper collectively”. If our leaders can so easily abandon us for their own wealth, we can not absolve them of their betrayal as loyal duopolists do in every election.
The answer is Revolution.
The State, completely captured by the capitalist class, is our enemy. And its goal is to exploit our labor and steal the resources of the global community for the benefit of the people who pay the state actors.
American Policing, for example, has been a tool for the wealthy to protect their capital and subjugate the undesirables since the introduction of chattel slavery. This has been demonstrated clearly during these past 4 years with the number of police killings steadily increasing each year since 2020, with 2023 having the highest number of around 1250 police killings. We also saw intense and excessive police force used against Anti-Genocide protestors on college campuses at the behest of the university leadership.
However, both sides of the duopoly maintain a heavy affinity toward law enforcement with a plethora of cities (both Red and Blue) in the United States aspiring to develop or in the midst of developing tactical police training facilities (aka cop cities). The development of these facilities combined with local legislation that criminalizes protest and homelessness during a time with a greater amount of civil unrest and an increasing homeless population does two things:
It threatens the crucial right to protest.
It opens the door for more people to filter into the criminal system, which can lead to more incarcerations and more slave labor for the capitalist class.
Up to 15% of the prison population has a record of experiencing homelessness within a year preceding their incarceration. The average inmate, before their imprisonment, had a median income almost half that of the median income of a non-incarcerated individual. Prison labor is an over $10 billion industry that flourishes alongside the growth of law enforcement and utilizes the criminalization of poverty, criminalization that is legislated by our representatives.
Poverty criminalization as opposed to poverty alleviation is another tactic that contributes to military recruitment. Though not noted as the number one reason for military members to join any of the military branches, gaining financial stability, increasing access to better healthcare and higher education, even securing housing are all significant motivators for military service outside of sheer patriotism or family tradition.
In the United States, one of the most pervasive lies that has convinced a swarm of citizens to grant its members unwarranted reverence is that the military exists to protect the rights of the American people. This lie falls flat on its head when you realize the United States has the greatest military presence around the globe compared to any empire in world history, has initiated over 200 military conflicts since World War 2, and yet the rights of American citizens remain greatly threatened.
Since the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Shelby County vs Holder, voting rights have been continuously assaulted by the G.O.P. with mild, timid resistance from their “opposition”. Even a decade later, when the party that declared itself to be the true defender of democracy held control of all but one branch of government, no federal protections to our right to vote were implemented. In fact, more rights have been lost since the explosion of the military industrial complex dating back to the late-1960s.
In 2022, a major blow was made against women’s rights in the realm of healthcare, the overturning of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Roe vs Wade. The new decision has placed the legality of the medical procedure that is an abortion entirely on the states’ legislators as opposed to being protected as a federal right. This consequential loss was done at the hands of U.S. leadership, not a foreign adversary.
Even the fundamental right to free speech and freedom to assemble are under threat by our very own military. In late September, the Department of Defense (D.O.D.) released an update to Directive 5240.01. This update, particularly to chapter 3.3, allows the military and local law enforcement the use of lethal force against public gatherings in any situation to which a “confrontation” between civilian law enforcement and the civilians themselves are “reasonably anticipated”. We witness the brutality of these confrontations between American citizens and police, most particularly in the aforementioned student-led protest against the use of their schools’ dollars to enable or support the genocidal state of Israel. (which was the only state to vote with the U.S. against the U.N. declaration that access to food is a human right)
Here we have the second epiphany in our steps toward liberation:
The State, which has colluded with the bourgeois, capitalist class against the working masses since the victories of communist organizers in the early 1900s forced Franklin Delano Roosevelt (F.D.R.) to concede massive gains to the working class in the passage of the New Deal legislation.
Though such a concession left behind numerous black Americans, it was the crux of their introduction into the Democratic Party as their political home. It was such a major political win for the Democratic Party that it forced the creation of term limits for the face of their party who at the time secured four presidential terms in a row. Appealing to the vast majority of working Americans was proven to garner political capital, yet this is a concession the State never intends to make again.
It would rather starve us, leave us destitute, arrest us, and enslave us before betraying the corporate, billionaire class for the sake of those inches away from dereliction. It is a backwards system that must be destroyed.
The answer is Revolution.
So what does this look like? How can this be achieved? What can I really do? What must I sacrifice? Is it even worth it? These are questions that exist in the minds of many revolutionary skeptics and optimists, including myself. However, as a revolutionary optimist, these questions have answers and those answers are derivative of the basic belief that collective production can sustain collective prosperity.
Rejecting the legitimacy of the duopoly is an easy first step. That doesn’t limit itself to simply not voting Red or Blue, it is actively engaging with the local parties in our neighborhoods and completely forcing the hand of the State to cave power via third party electorialism and ballot initiative campaigning.
On election night, many red state and swing state voters were recorded voting in greater majorities and pluralities than Kamala Harris for policies that would be identified as “progressive” or “left-wing”. For example, the state of Missouri voted against Harris by 14 points, however the protection of abortion as a constitutional right as well as a state requirement to raise the minimum wage and provide paid sick leave passed into Missouri state law via ballot initiative.
We do not need these wealthy corporate stooges posing as legislators to develop the laws we require to thrive. And we are in shape to no longer need these corrupt individuals to provide basic daily essentials to our vulnerable neighbors, for we will be the hands that serve them. We can look locally to see these actions.
Preceding the Thanksgiving holiday, a mutual aid group located in Central Florida known as the People’s Free Kitchen joined by fellow mutual aid group, RBN Orlando, as well as a fledgling organization located in Brevard County, Florida called the Freedom Feeders Cooperative organized and executed a community hub. This community hub consisted of warm food stations, dry food, medical and hygiene essentials stations, clothing stations, beverage stations, even a covered seating area for families and disabled. That is the power of community organizing!
The event lasted all but a couple of hours before all of the food had run out. And as fulfilling and vital this work is, regardless of how consistent that work is, it’s not enough.
With these actions, must come education. The REAL Orlando, one of the key facilitators of the Thanksgiving community hub, effectively educates the masses via political pamphlets and social media posts. The PFK teaches farming essentials and techniques to the Central Florida Community. RBN Orlando is one of four major news shows and sources found on YouTube.
The point of the matter is that we are the ones who help and teach each other particularly where the State fails. Relying on someone to be benevolent enough to alter its functionality or for the State to somehow “fix itself” is a pinnacle example of political nihilism. These leaders and these institutions are undeserving of our trust and have shown to not respond to our pleas and compliance. It’s only a matter of time before a face from the indistinguishable masses speaks the language the capitalist class has spoken to the workers for decades back to said capitalists.
What awaits the U.S. in 2025 is very unknown. However, it behooves all who’ve read this article to abandon any isolationist instinct for self-preservation that doesn't require the suffering of your community.
Use your privileges to serve the community. Use the service experience to educate your peers about the ills you combat. Use your resources to petition laws. Use your funds to bolster mutual aid efforts. ARM YOURSELVES! If Trump and his ghouls were so much of a threat that even the most empathetic duopolist was able to ignore the mass slaughter of innocence facilitated by our tax dollars to vote for his largest opponent, then we must willing and able to act in a manner that prepares us for results of the threat that is Donald Trump, and in all honesty, the threat that is capitalist controlled state.