The American free fall
Does America's exhaustion end with revolution?
After my home burned in the Eaton Fire, a boomer candidly admitted, "I wish I could tell you things will get better but I know that's not true. Everything is bad and getting worse." As a 35-year-old who never had the expectation of homeownership, retirement, safety nets, or predictable prices as a birthright, it was validating hearing a boomer say this. He would know what America was even a short time ago, and what it is now. The decline is obvious for anyone trying to buy a house, find a job, or count on justice or liberty. The only people I know who are optimistic about the future of the country are those who were born or married into privilege. And yet, despite this widespread recognition that things are getting worse, we all carry on as if the system still works. The illusion of normalcy persists because no one can imagine an alternative.
There are two types of revolutions. In the first type, revolution is intentional and active, driven by a novel force that cannot be adopted easily into the existing structure. Socialism is a good example. Socialism couldn’t be adopted piecemeal or incrementally over time into capitalist or mercantilist systems. It could only be enacted by the destruction of the existing system and the imposition of a new system. The second type of revolution is passively born out of exhaustion and frustration. Up until the turmoil, reformers believe that the system, however flawed, can be fixed from within — until they realize it simply can’t. America is rocketing toward this type of revolution.
I mean, who would jump to revolution? It’s just been the last resort for those fed up with the direction of their country. They petition. They protest. They negotiate. They join bands of like-minded individuals and attempt to exert influence on those who actually hold power. They cling to the belief that change can happen without collapse. And then some random dude does something dramatic like set himself on fire.
But do institutions even pay attention to dudes setting themselves on fire anymore? Apparently not. When the institutions are resistant to change — when elites obstruct reforms, when courts and legislatures grow paralyzed or corrupt, when peaceful dissent is punished rather than heard — the reformers transform from passive drones to calling for heads on a stick. Often reluctantly, they embrace revolution, not because they craved upheaval, but because no other option remains. The remaining options are comically and obviously limited.
France before 1789 is the most well-known example of where this leads. The French people, burdened by inequality and economic crisis, initially turned to the centuries-old institutions they could count on. They sent representatives to the Estates General. They drafted the Cahiers de Doléances, formal grievance petitions intended to guide peaceful reform. But the privileged estates and the monarchy resisted change, dismissing the Third Estate's concerns. Within months, the path to revolution opened, driven not by radicals, but by frustrated reformers who happened to be decent woodworkers.
The lessons learned must have faded in the 200 years following the French Revolution, since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc decided to perform a hard restart in 1989. For decades, people across East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and beyond tried to reform their authoritarian systems from within. They joined underground movements, signed petitions, and engaged in limited protests, holding out hope for change. But as the decades dragged on and promises of reform were repeatedly broken, a deep exhaustion set in. When Soviet power weakened, the facade crumbled rapidly. It wasn't driven by new ideology—it was driven by collective fatigue and a recognition that the system could not and would not change.
If Europe seems far from home, America itself was also born in the second type of revolution. The American Revolution began with legal appeals and peaceful protests. Colonists organized the Stamp Act Congress, the First Continental Congress, and the Olive Branch Petition in attempts to redress grievances within the British imperial framework. Only after years of rejection and repression did rebellion become inevitable. We’re now apparently on the way to our second revolution of exhaustion.
But Americans have so many effective political outlets, right? People organize protests once per year, join political groups of like-minded individuals, pour their hopes into electoral participation, and champion figures they believe will challenge the status quo, whether populists or “wildcard” idealists like Trump, Sanders, or recently, Mamdani. But over and over, these movements collide with the entrenched machinery of political inertia, corporate influence, and institutional gatekeeping. Electoral victories prove fleeting or symbolic, real structural change remains elusive, and frustration only deepens. When was the last time the loser you voted for accomplished what you sent them to do?
Voting doesn’t work. We vote on what they allow us to vote on. We vote on issues at the fringes, never on the foundations. They let us choose our local judges, but not whether America should start another war. We can vote on a new gas tax, but not on how more than a trillion dollars is spent every year. They count on us voting for “the lesser of two evils.” The illusion of choice masks the reality of impotence.
We blog and post, circulating frustration and outrage among people who already agree with us, without ever making inroads with those who need to listen. The elite don't read our messages and even if they did, they wouldn't care. They're not working for us. They're working for other elites.
Modern-day America is walking the same well-worn path as other declining nations. The warning signs are everywhere. Gallup polling shows that trust in major institutions like Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, and the media has hit historic lows. Pew Research finds that nearly 80% of Americans are dissatisfied with how democracy is working in the U.S. A longer lens shows even deeper pessimism: 58% of Americans say life for people like them is worse today than it was 50 years ago, compared to just 23% who say it's better. Do you really think we as a country, can reverse this trajectory?
Probably not, because the anger is directionless. While Americans are deeply frustrated, many cannot articulate concrete policy changes that would restore their faith in the system. Instead, their frustration takes the form of cultural grievance, identity-driven animosity, and a growing belief that the system itself is irredeemable. Even if they could pinpoint the cause of their issues, their frustration can’t be channeled effectively. Instead, it will fester.
The only channel we’ve pretended to have - political parties - are failing fast. One is neutered, and the other is basically a single person. They have different definitions of reality itself. Political scientists have termed this "affective polarization," where people don't just disagree — they actively hate and distrust the other side. They’re unsalvageable. Each side sees the other as a threat. We’re no longer one country.
And so we continue, recognizing the steep decline America is on but knowing that there’s no way for us to turn the ship around. It reminds me of Nathan Fielder’s recent season of The Rehearsal covering preventable plane crashes. The automated safety systems are screaming, “pull up, pull up,” but our pilots are instead trying to push each other out of the plane while we careen toward the earth. We can’t vote or advocate or compromise our way into stability. We just have to brace for impact.
Revolutions expose the raw, latent divisions that institutions are meant to manage and soften. Class, race, ideology, religion — these fractures, long buried or papered over by political mechanisms, eventually erupt into the open. Sometimes they are resolved through new constitutions or governments. Other times, they metastasize into prolonged conflict, civil war, or authoritarian rule. The aftermath of the French Revolution spiraled into the Reign of Terror and then the rise of Napoleon. The 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe led to new governments, but not without social upheaval, displacement, and in some cases, the painful birth of new nationalisms.
The truth is sobering: we need novel ideas, credible reformers, and a collective willingness to transcend tribalism.
But you and I both know that we will not get that. Whether our eventual destiny is revolution, collapse, or slow institutional decay remains uncertain. But the trajectory is clear.
My Independence Day featured more than a few half-joking conversations on how this might be our last. These are people with kids, good jobs, 401ks, and Teslas i.e., people who don’t want revolution but feel America is on the brink of something cataclysmic.
How much time do you think America has left to figure this out?