We Need a Cognitive Revolution to Survive
“You’ll never find ways of breaking through unless you listen.” - (Timothy Snyder, RW&B live online event, 3/5/25).
We’ve got to talk about the “R” word, “revolution”; but not the kind you think. What we need is a cognitive revolution – now. Our opposition isn’t simply the Republicans. Our opposition is the ruling class. Not recognizing this is why the Democratic Party is so powerless and it’s also the reason why they lost the 2024 Presidential Election.
As long as our representatives in Congress are beholden to corporate powers which fund their campaigns they will continue to vote in favor of their supporting corporate partners over their constituents. This is because their political life and careers depend upon funding for survival.
“The Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited money on elections” Citizens United Explained | Brennan Center for Justice. The “no caps on spending” opening in the law in 2010 is what enabled corporate powers to capture our political system in what Pulitzer prize winning journalist, author, historian, and scholar – Chris Hedges – calls a “corporate coup d'etat” – which is a sudden, violent overthrow of an existing government by a small group. Hedges has on occasion included the word, “silent”, before the phrase to describe the covert nature of the crime; hence, “violence” is the intangibly-occurring violence which occurs against our government covertly, behind the scenes – in meetings, offices, courtrooms, Halls of Congress, etc. – usually unnoticed by the general public. Although it is intangible during occurrence, the effects are not. What is created intangibly becomes the real life consequences of the covert violence resulting from the silent coup d’etat. This Corporate Coup – which includes both the Democrats and Republicans in The Legislative Branch; The Supreme Court in The Judicial Branch; and The President of the United States in The Executive Branch – has captured all three pillars of our Democratic Republic.
Complicating matters more are the incalculable reverberating captures, like the capture of our voting infrastructure through state legislatures, judiciaries, and executive branches throughout our country.
Here we are with both our Democracy and our government captured by unfriendly forces who are destroying our government and our nation’s global standing. To top this, our chief in command appears to be a Russian asset. We’re losing all our allies and becoming more and more isolated each day. Our nation is in immediate danger. This is not hyperbole. We must act quickly.
What do we do? How do we change this? What can we do?
We need to get rid of “Citizens United” and reclaim our power. But if our government is already captured, then we can’t change “Citizens United” today, right now; so what else can we do? We can strengthen our civil and voting rights by passing The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and blocking the SAVE Act. (For more information, visit the ACLU link here: ACLU Celebrates Reintroduction of John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act Amidst 60th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday | American Civil Liberties Union )
The Democratic Party is captured by Corporate Powers which prevents them from supporting issues that their constituents need. Here is a good example. One of the most powerful corporate interests which has captured both political parties is AIPAC, the political action committee representing Zionists’ interests for the nation of Israel. (For more information, visit AIPAC here: AIPAC PAC ) “AIPAC brings together Democrats and Republicans to advance our shared mission. Building bipartisan support for the U.S. -Israel relationship.” (For more information, visit AIPAC here: AIPAC - About Us)
The Democrats failed to form their 2024 Presidential Campaign policy platform around the needs of the majority of segments or factions of their constituents. They chose to ignore entire communities of voters which were very large. “When Biden 2020 voters cast a ballot for someone besides Harris in 2024 were asked ‘Which one of the following issues was MOST important in deciding your vote?’ they selected …ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” as the top reason why they disengaged and did not vote for Harris. See the chart below from the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project for the questions and their resulting breakdowns. ( IMEU Policy Project Post-Election Polling Shows Gaza Cost Harris Votes )
29% - Ending Israel’s violence in Gaza
24% - The economy
12% - Medicare and Social Security
11% - Immigration and border security
10% - Healthcare
9% - Abortion policy
5% - Don’t know
“It’s clear this issue played a key role in battleground states as well. Across the six battleground states that flipped from Biden to Trump, 20% of these voters said ‘ending Israel’s violence in Gaza’ was their top issue in deciding not to vote for Harris, the second-most cited reason behind only the economy (33%)”( IMEU Policy Project Post-Election Polling Shows Gaza Cost Harris Votes).
This wasn’t a kitchen table issue. This was an issue very much akin, if not near identical, to the “conscientious objector” laws we have which provide anyone whose moral or religious principles and beliefs conflict with the duties of their military service then they are given an exemption from forced participation in active military duty during wartime. It’s the same issue which has principled citizens choosing to be imprisoned for their beliefs rather than go against them. And it can go as deep as the willingness to die rather than compromise one’s virtue or go against it.
It was these type individuals that the Democrats thought they could scare, threaten, or shame into voting for Vice President and 2024 Democratic Presidential Candidate, Kamala Harris – by warning that if voters didn’t support Harris, then it would be their fault if Republican Presidential Candidate, Donald Trump, won the election. This is scare, threaten, shame tactics used by abusers in abusive relationships everyday. Is the Democratic Party Leadership toxic to its constituents?
Why did the Democratic Party leadership feel the need to warn and shame potential voters – almost like a threat – to gain their support and their vote? This is an absurd position for either side to be on. One is like an abuser scapegoating an innocent constituent who happens to have a moral conflict with the candidate’s position on something very important to the constituent, but obviously not so for the candidate. What went wrong here?
To add more insult to suffering, serving as Vice President of the United States, this is the same administration which was supporting and enabling the genocide, the starvation, the cruelty, and with the most unprecedented vicious targeting and attacks against a civilian population in modern history. Imagine that. This is like being in an abusive relationship where the abuser tells its victim that they’d better do as they say - hurt your family member, your loved one, or friend, or acquaintance – or else things will get worse for you both. It’s extortion.
What could the Democratic Leadership have done instead? They could have left their denial behind and listened to the people who they were elected to represent. Was it an outlandish ask, to ask that their concerns be recognized and addressed by simply listening to them, then to agree to stop supporting the livestreamed genocide of their family, loved ones, and friends with our own U.S. tax dollars?
Not only did the Democrats choose to ignore this huge segment of voters, they again added insult on top of pain by leading this coalition (the Uncommitted Movement, the Green Party, and more) to believe that their concerns would be listened to and addressed at the DNC. The planned event was to let a representative address the gathering on stage like other groups had been given. Yet with a speaker waiting in the wings for her chance to address the crowd, and with the DNC knowing this, they instead chose to ignore the waiting speaker and gave the stage over to representatives of AIPAC who went on to express excitement about continuing to supply Israel with the political and monetary support to continue their war on Gaza.
How could the Democrats expect a voter to react?
Has anything changed? No.
Will it change? No, it won’t – not unless the Democrats get honest with themselves about what they’ve done, failed to do, and what they’ve become. They are no longer the party which represents the people. The Democratic Party morphed into the Republican Party which represents corporate interests. We’ve been living under one party – representing corporate interests – only with two extremes.. But now the Republicans have morphed their representation of corporate interests into rule by oligarchs while the Democrats still represent corporate interests over interests of its constituents and voters. The Democrats now represent what the Republicans used to be before they morphed with the MAGA cult, the Christo Fascists, and the Oligarchs. The Democrats are the Republicans. The Republicans are Team Trump/Musk/Vance. There’s no one standing to represent the left behind Progressives – the largest group conglomerate of the three groups.
If you choose to ignore, threaten, and punish an entire segment of your voter base who are standing in principle on moral ground, while still expecting – demanding – these people to vote for your candidate or else their punishment will get worse, you’ve lost these people. Wake up. You lost them. They didn’t lose you. In fact, they were begging you to hear them, to listen to their pleas. Instead you chose AIPAC and AIPAC’s money over your own people.
The Democrats could have chosen to pause sending any more money or military support to Israel as long as it continued its war crimes and crimes against humanity. In fact, it was and still is illegal for the United States to provide such assistance knowing that the nation they are providing it to is breaking international laws against humanity. The Leahy Law prevents the U.S. from sending money or weapons to such a nation, whether ally or not. (See the two links provided here for more details into how the United States is violating The Leahy Law which was created and enacted to protect human rights and international humanitarian laws. Leahy Law Fact Sheet - United States Department of State and How US violates its own Leahy Law to ensure military support for Israel | Politics News | Al Jazeera)
The Democrats could have chosen to stop ignoring and violating our own U.S. laws with regards to the Israeli War on Gaza. The Democrats could have chosen to adhere to their own laws – our own laws – in this case in particular, The Leahy Law. The Democrats could have stopped sending money and arms to Israel until a full investigation by International Courts could have determined whether or not Israel was committing such criminal acts. This would have been the right thing to do in the eyes of law and humanity. This would have given the Democrats “a way out” of their predicament of being between the two groups – American Zionists and Evangelical Christians – against the large and rapidly growing segment of voters who were against the U.S. support of this war based on conscientious objector grounds – on a moral standing which they could not alter or bend.
If the Democrats, and in this case we have to include the Biden administration, had chosen to stop ignoring our own U.S. laws which prevent us from providing money and weapons to nations who are in violation, then we would not have even had this problem. But instead the Biden administration chose to look the other way; and the VP Harris campaign chose to go along. Herein lies the reason the Democrats lost the 2024 Presidential election. It is a problem which lies at the root of the party’s principles and it’s bolstered with the corporate capture of our political system.
Until the Democrats look honestly at themselves for the reason they lost such a huge swath of their base – the huge numbers of youth who adamantly support Palestine, anti-zionists, and family, friends, and loved ones of Palestinians who’ve been victimized by Israel and the Israeli military forces, and anti-war believers – until then, the Democrats will not get these voters back.
If the Democratic Party is incapable of taking an honest inventory of itself, then addressing its shortcomings and failures with renewed vigor and life, then the Democratic Party is over because it will have lost these voters forever.
So what do we, the people, do?
We keep using our voice. We organize around unions because union organizing is the only way to unite all the people across the country to make change happen. All historians and subject matter experts (SME) of authoritarian and tyrannical rule tell us the same thing. Once a nation has been captured under tyranny – as we clearly are now with all three pillars of our government captured – the only way to break through to regain control is through a general strike.
With only 11% of our U.S. workforce being unionized, most of us don’t belong to a union and many are out of the workforce; but we can still join a union and support them. Look for a union which has the capability to scale nationwide as we organize to network our groups together. There are many out there. (Personally I have chosen to support Workers Strike Back based out of Washington state. They are an independent movement organizing against the billionaires and their political servants. They also stand against U.S. military funding of the Israeli War on Gaza. You can find out more about them here at Workers Strike Back.)
The way out after being lost in a forest is never easy or quick. It’s a long way out and it’s going to take all of us to find it. To reach our goals and break free from ineffective political leadership while facing tyrannical rule – which has on its side a militarized police force along with countless nationwide cells of domestic terrorists ready and willing to harm us – will not be for the weak. It will require honesty, willingness, courage, and bold action to save our nation. We fight not just the enemies we see but more importantly we fight cognitively in a cognitive revolution of realities and ideas, of sorrows and dreams, and of a faith built on experiences that each and every one of us has somewhere deep inside of us where we know that no matter what – we will push through and we will overcome.
Glory is waiting for us but she won’t come without her sister of heart and mind; that cognitive revolution which has to happen first before much else can succeed. Without this understanding, this honesty, this self-reckoning of each and every one of us – along with a newly reformed “Democratic Party” – we cannot overcome and we cannot win. We will be trapped under the brutal weight of a fascist, tyrannical rule by oligarchs & kleptocracy; where we will be ruled by a dictator with his sycophants and billionaire friends using their power to steal our nation’s resources as they destroy our nation and rob us all blind. This will all be done while we watch, helpless to do anything – lest we be hurt, imprisoned, or killed. This is what we are facing. This is not hyperbole.
The for-profit detention facilities are being expanded and built across the nation as I write. Stocks for these corporations have been rising since the election this past November. They aren’t intending to use them only for immigrants, as if that’s even acceptable. They have publicly stated many times that they intend to arrest many of us – journalists, dissidents, activists, LGBTQ, and more. If you don’t think they’ll do it, maybe you’re forgetting our nation’s shame with the U.S. Japanese-American internment period after the bombing of Pearl Harbor where they rounded up and incarcerated thousands of Japanese American citizens and held them in concentration camps. Come on. Of course they’re going to round many of us up. They say so. And they are known to do what they say they’re going to do – even when the public doesn’t believe them or believes that they’re just joking.
Yes, Glory for the American people is waiting for us; but we have to find her sister, Cognitive Revolution, first.
The Democratic Party has to wake up from its sleepwalking and hear what its constituents are saying. It has to get honest with itself about becoming captured by corporate interests which also led to its indiscriminate support of the American Military Machine. This blind support for the military industrial complex has made us an enemy to much of the world as we inhumanely attack, torture, and kill their people – repeatedly in violation of international humanitarian laws. Until we as a nation are honest about this, and until the leadership of the Democratic Party is honest with themselves about this, nothing will change; which means exactly that – nothing will change and we will be stuck with the orange wanna-be emperor who everybody can see is cloaked in Russian cosplay of another wanna-be imperial dynastic time.
What we need, what the Democratic leadership needs, is to hit bottom with the realization that they’ve really messed up. Then maybe they’ll look at how this happened and why. But as long as the Democrats keep pointing fingers, playing victim, blaming everyone but themselves, they’ll never be able to help the American people break free from under this tyrannical rule we find ourselves in today.
The order may be too big for the Democrats to handle in time. This is why we, as individual American citizens, can’t wait for them or anyone else to save us from this nightmare we find ourselves in. We each have to take responsibility individually to do whatever we can to save our country today.
Find a union and join it. Sign the general strike card so we can organize as a nation. Identify what areas you could be most effective in this fight and get busy. Whatever skills, attributes, or platforms you may have – use them. Choose your side in history. Plant your feet. Stand up and stand your ground. Use your voice. Get loud and get louder. Don’t stop. Remember this is a marathon, not a race. Pace yourself so don’t get out of balance or burn out. Self-care and nurturing of self and others close to you are critical. Don’t ignore these needs while doing the good work. Everyone is valuable and everyone is needed. Take care of yourself as you journey.
You have talents unknown that you may find as you’re on this journey. Don’t be frightened. Be excited, emboldened, empowered. As a nation we must come together and fight this – for not only ourselves, but for our children and our children’s children – and for all future generations of Americans to come.
We have to step up for this fight. We have to or we will not have a country much longer. It’s imploding before our very eyes. We either step up or give up. We either give in to reality and become empowered – or we quit and let them do whatever they want.
Do you care? Will you listen? “You’ll never find ways of breaking through unless you listen.” - (Timothy Snyder, RW&B live online event, 3/5/25)
.