Tomorrow

You're on Reddit. None of this is anything you haven't heard before. But I needed to write it all out for myself.

Today is the last day of the last four years. Tomorrow will be the first day of something else. So where are we today? For generations, we’ve told ourselves that America is the land of opportunity, a place where anyone who works hard can build a better life. It’s a story many of us grew up believing. But if we’re honest, that story no longer reflects the reality most people face today.

Wages have stagnated. Families are struggling to make ends meet. Millions are crushed under debt: medical, student, housing. And all the while, a handful of billionaires are amassing fortunes that could solve these crises overnight, yet they choose not to. Instead, they choose to use their wealth to divide us, and rob us blind.

How did we get here? It didn’t happen by accident. Decades of decisions, from policies that favored the wealthy to trade-offs made in the name of global security, led us to this moment.

In the mid 20th century U.S. leaders worked to make ours the default international trade currency, giving America unprecedented financial power. It allowed us to impose economic sanctions on our foreign adversaries, and influence global trade. But, with every action there is a reaction. As the value of the almighty dollar soared, it became more and more costly to manufacture goods here at home. Factories shuttered. Jobs moved overseas. And entire communities that once thrived on manufacturing were left behind.

Of course the logic at the time was that Americans would "upskill", moving away from so-called “menial” factory work into higher-paying, more technical jobs. But those same leaders, the ones who promised this brighter future, spent the following decades cutting education funding. They hollowed out the very system that was supposed to prepare us for this new economy. Instead of a country full of opportunity, we got a workforce left struggling to adapt, while the people at the top profited from every single decision.

And let’s not forget tax policy. As boomers consolidated their influence, they lowered capital gains taxes, allowing their wealth to compound year after year. The rich got richer without lifting a finger, while the rest of us were told to work harder just to keep up.

Meanwhile, the rise of dark money in politics allowed corporations and the ultra-wealthy to buy influence and bend the rules even further in their favor. Campaign finance laws were gutted. Lobbyists began writing legislation directly. And through it all, the media, controlled by the same corporations profiting from this system, worked overtime to convince people that their struggles were isolated, their fault, or simply the way things had to be.

This wasn’t some accident of history. It was policy. This was a system being built, piece by piece, of billionaires, for billionaires, and by billionaires, at the expense of everyone else. Healthcare, housing, education, things that should be rights, were turned into commodities. And now, we live in a country where the system works exactly as it was designed to: protecting wealth and power for those at the top while leaving everyone else to struggle.

This is oligarchy. It’s not a future threat. It’s the system we’re living in right now.

So, what to do?

It starts with recognizing one essential truth: our struggles are connected. The teacher, the disabled veteran, the warehouse worker, the small farmer struggling to keep their land, they’re all part of the same fight. And the only way we win is by standing together in solidarity.

For decades, we’ve been told to look at each other as competitors instead of allies. Working people are encouraged to see their neighbors as threats instead of partners. Public versus private. Union versus non-union. Native-born versus immigrant. These divisions didn’t arise naturally, they were manufactured. They serve a system that thrives on keeping people fragmented and powerless.

History shows us what’s possible when people refuse to be divided. The labor movements that won fair wages, weekends, and safety protections didn’t ask nicely. They demanded. The civil rights movement wasn’t polite in its fight for justice. It was relentless. Every major change in this country came because people understood their shared power, and they used it.

Today, we have tools that can amplify our voices and our efforts in ways those movements couldn’t have imagined. But tools alone won’t save us. What matters is whether we have the courage to use them. Whether we’re willing to say: Enough.

These American Oligarchs already know what’s at stake. They spend every day protecting their power, silencing unions, buying off politicians, hijacking our information, and rewriting the rules to keep themselves in control. They are counting on us to stay divided, to stay complacent.

But something is stirring in America. As we become more informed and connected, we're beginning to see through the lie. We're realizing that the real fight isn’t with our neighbor, it’s with the system that pits us against each other while the rich and powerful laugh all the way to the bank.

This is not simply a fight over economics. It’s about dignity. Our dignity. It’s about fairness. It’s about building a society with better outcomes for every American. A place where we can thrive.

Now you're expecting me to say "So organize, vote, educate"... these are the same steps we’ve been told to take for years. And yeah you’re right: it hasn’t been enough. We’ve marched, we’ve rallied, we’ve written letters, we’ve voted, and yet the system keeps grinding the American people down.

We must stop pretending that incremental change will save us. It will not. The rules of this system are stacked against us. The people at the top aren’t going to suddenly play fair because we asked politely. If we want real change, we need to be willing to disrupt the system itself.

That means taking risks. It means strikes that don’t just last a day but grind entire industries to a halt until workers get what they deserve. It means protests that don’t just occupy streets but demand fundamental changes in how power is distributed... Or else. It means building networks and platforms that can’t be co-opted or manipulated by the same institutions that have failed us, or actively seek to sabotage our liberty.

And yes, it means discomfort. It means sacrifice. Because the reality is, the people who hold power aren’t going to give it up without a fight. They’re betting that we’ll back down. That we’ll settle for small victories. That we’ll accept the crumbs while they keep the feast. Because up till now, we have.

But we are not required to play by their rules. If history has taught us anything, it’s that systems built on exploitation and inequality are fragile. They rely on compliance, on people believing there’s no alternative. The moment we stop complying, when we disrupt, when we demand, when we refuse to let the status quo continue, that’s when real change begins.

So, what does that look like? It looks like workers refusing to accept starvation wages. It looks like communities banding together to protect one another when institutions fail and adversaries attack. It looks like organizing not just for better conditions or a once a year acknowledgement of our existence and our struggles, but for a world where people coming before profit is the law of the land.

This isn’t about reform. It’s about transformation. A new system. A society where power isn’t hoarded by the few but shared by the many. A world where dignity, fairness, and justice aren’t aspirations, they’re realities. You know... The American Dream

The path forward won’t be easy. It won’t be quick. But the alternative, the slow decay of our rights, our communities, our humanity, isn’t an option. We’ve tried waiting. We’ve tried playing by their rules. It hasn’t worked. It’s time we try something else.

Because if we don’t, nothing will change. And we know what happens if we fail to act. The system won’t just stay broken, it will get worse.

But if we can come together as one people unified in our cause, if we build a true display and demonstration of our class solidarity, nothing will be able to stand in our way. We’ve beaten these despots, fascists, dictators, and gold plated toilet seat oligarcs before, and we can do it again.