Why do people spend so much time analyzing and documenting the seemingly never-ending horrors taking place throughout the world at the hands of Trump & Co, but not nearly as much time proposing what to do about them or fighting back? This was the question posed by Michael Albert in a recent episode of Revolution Z: Life After Capitalism.
It’s a question I’ve reflected on more and more since 2013, back when tens of millions of Americans acquired iPhones and created social media accounts. Before the era of nonstop social media posting, people would grapple with and debate issues, such as analysis vs. action, in person during organizing meetings, electoral campaigns, direct actions, strikes, rallies, and strategy retreats. You know, back when people did things together, in person, in the real world.
Today, however, Americans spend an inordinate amount of time online, posting, liking, sharing, and commenting. Each time I log into my social media accounts, my timelines are filled with posts examining Trump’s foreign policy decisions, denouncing ICE, and pointing out the obvious absurdities and lies of the administration’s public statements. Of course, none of this builds actual political power, but it does allow people to feel engaged and informed, however shallow that engagement and information may be. Indeed, posting hot takes on social media requires little effort or sacrifice — both prerequisites for serious political involvement.
In my thinking, the reasons for this unfortunate dynamic are quite straightforward and simple to understand. Likewise, the remedies are equally uncomplicated. People are alienated and disempowered. They are atomized and unorganized. As Robert Putman’s work shows, that’s been true for decades. Yet, in my experience, action breeds action. Activism creates more activism. And organizing produces (or at least it should produce) more organizers. The more people spend time together, the more likely they are to develop trustworthy bonds and personal relationships. Those bonds and relationships should form the foundation of future political actions and campaigns.
The only way to combat these trends is through political organizing, creating alternative cultures, and rejecting the social pressures of capitalism and the attention economy. Solidarity and resistance are the antidotes to hyper-individualism and passivity.
Institutionalizing Education and Knowledge
It would be irresponsible to argue that better understanding history and analyzing current events is a completely useless exercise. But an overemphasis on analysis and the growing tendency of people documenting horrors ad nauseam has become a problem. Furthermore, to the degree that existing analysis is useful, it must also become institutionalized, which isn’t happening.
There are two ways in which political knowledge can become institutionalized: first, through state institutions. Second, through political organizations and institutions that operate independently from the state. Public education, arguably the crown jewel of American progressivism, has been gutted, censored, and viciously attacked by both right-wing free marketeers and neoliberal Democrats such as Arnie Duncan and Rahm Emanuel. That said, it’s not as if Americans were beneficiaries of a robust, critical, and empowering form of public education before the neoliberal assault on state institutions. For the most part, Americans received a rather milquetoast version of history and politics.
Yet, the whitewashed history of the United States that Americans receive in public schools is still far better than the unregulated and often regressive education Americans receive in private schools or through homeschooling (a growing trend in the U.S.). Most importantly, state institutions standardize and regulate the education curriculum. Children attending public schools generally receive the same training, the same information, and the same opportunities to learn. That training and knowledge are then passed down through generations of public school attendees, providing everyone with a generalized understanding of historical and current events, how to think about such issues, and the objective facts accompanying them.
The alternative option, radical popular education — the sort of education that empowers poor and working-class people with the tools necessary to not only better understand the economy, the government, and so forth, but also the knowledge and information necessary to effectively fight back — is also largely absent in our current political context. That knowledge, too, can be institutionalized, but only through the existence of vibrant, cohesive, and robust independent political organizations. Historically, unions played this role in various regions and localities, as did student organizations and social movements.
In today’s context, the ever-present digital landscape has filled the gap. In fact, the majority of Americans now receive their news and political analysis from social media. As a result, the quality of analysis is not only declining, but it’s also less institutionalized than ever before. Unlike classrooms or union halls, where dozens or hundreds of people gather in person to learn, reflect, and debate, social media allows individuals to sit at home, isolated from their fellow citizens and coworkers. And the results are clear: American attitudes toward any number of issues are incoherent and, many times, completely absurd. Conspiracy theories proliferate. Deepfake A.I. videos become the norm. A fragmented cultural landscape doesn’t bode well for political organizing efforts.
The response, in my mind, is twofold: first, build the sort of independent political organizations that are capable of providing alternative, yet institutionalized forms of popular education — unions, student groups, community organizations, neighborhood committees, tenant rights groups, party apparatuses, etc. Such an undertaking will require consistent and effective activism and organizing on behalf of ordinary Americans. No amount of advocacy or marginalized efforts will suffice. We need tens of millions of people involved. And we need local, regional, state-wide, and national organizations. Ideally, we would develop a potentially universal curriculum with the aim of connecting political movements across continents.
Second, rebuild public institutions with the same vision and curriculum as those expressed in independent social and political circles. In other words, the former should influence and develop the latter. Since the state apparatus is unlikely to evaporate anytime soon, the emphasis on public institutions is both practical and ideological. We’re a nation of roughly 340 million people. The idea that independent organizations alone can provide a worthwhile education for all Americans — young and old alike — is not realistic. Right now, the only institution capable of scaling up to such a task is the government. But that doesn’t mean the government must remain in its current form. The Constitution can change. Public institutions can be reimagined. All of this is possible with enough political power.
Today, it’s true: many Americans view the government as a sort of alien entity, and not one that holds the best interests of its citizens. People are extremely cynical about the ability of the government to enact meaningful reforms, let alone radical changes that would benefit their lives. And we all know that elected officials will not take it upon themselves to restructure the education system, nor is that ideal. Reordering the system and developing alternative forms of education is a direct threat to the top-down approach preferred by those in power. The prospect of developing independent organizations with the aim of institutionalizing our collective knowledge in ways that benefit ordinary people is a lofty but necessary goal if we hope to defeat those in power and create a more humane society.
Writers and Podcasters Don’t Organize, and Organizers Don’t Write or Podcast
Focusing specifically on left-wing media outlets, I think there’s a rather simple explanation as to why there’s so much analysis and not much commentary about what people can do about the horrible situation in which we find ourselves: namely, most of the people writing and commenting are not currently engaged in political organizing efforts. That’s been the case since I became involved with the anti-war movement back in 2006. One of the reasons why I was granted opportunities to write and interview people, podcast, and so forth, is because I was directly engaged in existing campaigns and social movements. Over time, I realized that was a rare thing, especially for an organizer based in the Rust Belt.
Likewise, most of the organizers and activists I’ve met over the years didn’t have the time to write, or they didn’t find that writing and commenting were useful ways of spending their time. Occasionally, you’d find an article in The Nation, In These Times,Jacobin, or ZNet written by an activist or organizer who’s on the ground, but the ratio is still lopsided. Visit any left-wing alternative media site of your choosing, and take a look at the author bios of those regularly pumping out articles. You won’t find many organizers. You’ll find some activists, sure. But you’ll mostly find academics and others who haven’t spent much time organizing poor and working-class people.
That’s not to say that their input is worthless. I’ve gained important insights about the world through reading the work of academics and various other commentators. Yet, I do think this schism is real and not talked about nearly enough. In my view, the work of activists and organizers should influence the writing of public intellectuals, and vice versa. Solid analysis should influence our organizing efforts. And our organizing efforts should influence the analysis of those who write and podcast. That, to me, is a dynamic inherent to vibrant political movements, campaigns, and organizations.
When People Do Propose Ideas, They’re Filleted
Another obvious reason people refrain from proposing what to do about the various injustices and atrocities taking place in the world is due to the overwhelmingly negative response they receive as a result of proposing alternative visions, ideas, methods, and tactics. At best, they’re ignored, which can prove as hurtful as venomous attacks. At least you know that someone has read your work if they’re taking the time to attack you. For some reason, perhaps out of alienation and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness, people on the left respond to proposals of what to do with the sharpest criticism.
Without doubt, this dynamic prevents more people from offering up ideas, organizing methods, and visions for the future. For instance, I don’t agree with everything the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) proposes, but they’ve built the largest left-wing organization in the U.S., and they’ve had many electoral and non-electoral victories. We should take their work seriously, always supporting and highlighting successes. We should also provide critiques, always in solidarity, and to create more effective organizations and movements. In short, we can be critical without being assholes.
People must get beyond the notion that in order to support a candidate, a campaign, movement, or organization, we must agree 100% of the time. That’s not realistic, nor ideal. Constructive criticism and debate are essential components of successful political movements and institutions. It’s okay to disagree. We’re engaged in a fight against one of the most retrograde political forces this country has ever produced. We need a united front. We need as much solidarity and cohesion as possible. To win, we must work with people who hold different views about how we should respond to right-wing extremists.
People Feel Powerless
You can find a hundred studies that show Americans are disempowered and completely disconnected from the political process. Anecdotally, I can say that my experiences of organizing in the Chicagoland Region have taught me that most people know things are terrible. They understand corporations are destroying their lives and the environment. They know that most politicians are dumb, corrupt, and/or hold radically different values than their own. Most people don’t want more wars. They don’t want data centers. And they don’t want ICE executing people in the streets. But they also feel like there’s nothing they can do about those issues that will make a difference.
As a result, people are relegated to posting their outrage in various online mediums: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, SnapChat, TikTok, Discord, and so on. However, by doing so, people are only feeding the alienation and powerlessness they inherently feel. Of course, this is precisely what the tech oligarchs want: a distracted population posting, sharing, liking, and commenting. Doing so poses no threat to those in power. Posting doesn’t change policy, but it lines the pockets of the billionaires in Silicon Valley. The internet provides a mirage of civic engagement. These days, it seems as if people have confused being informed with having influence. There’s also the subjective psychological-physiological aspect of posting to social media: people receive a dopamine hit whenever they open their apps and see those little red notification bubbles pop up. Again, all of this is by design, as those who’ve previously worked for the social media companies have testified.
The antidote to this futile approach is in-person organizing efforts. Obviously, people are outraged, and rightly so. That’s the good part. Fortunately, we’re not living in a completely dystopian reality where everyone thinks everything is okay, and Americans are marching in lock-step with the Trump regime. The bad part is that people don’t know what to do. They don’t know what to do because the left is so small, so marginalized, that it doesn’t have the capacity to bring millions of Americans into the fold. The only way that will change is through organizing efforts. Everything else is cosplay politics.
People Are Not Organized
Back in 2016, when Sergio and I opened Politics Art Roots Culture (PARC), a community-cultural center and organizing hub located in the deindustrialized Rust Belt town of Michigan City, Indiana, our primary goal was to get people off their computers and phones. At the time, we believed (and still do) that states like Indiana and former Democratic strongholds like Michigan City that, over time, have drifted toward Trump were key locations for political struggle. For us, the idea of moving to a major metropolitan area to do political work didn’t make sense.
Over time, we built PARC into a functioning entity capable of bringing a wide range of people together for a multitude of causes, projects, and campaigns. People felt connected and empowered. For the first time in their lives, many people became members of an organization, Organized and United Residents of Michigan City (OURMC). By providing a physical space for people to gather, socialize, and organize, they didn’t feel as alienated and disempowered as they did prior to entering the space and connecting with their neighbors and the broader community.
Throughout this process, people sacrificed countless hours in the pursuit of better political, economic, environmental, and social policies. Yes, we spent time analyzing and theorizing, but only insofar as those things were connected to the work we were doing on the ground. Theory without action is intellectual masturbation. Action without theory is often misguided. In our experience, people were less inclined to provide never-ending analysis once they became involved with OURMC and started attending events at PARC. Instead of going home and shit-posting to social media, people went home and used social media as a way to promote local events, connect with various other political organizations, both locally and nationally, and to encourage their family and friends to show up (in person) to upcoming events.
While I wish more people would encourage their friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors to disengage from social media, simply discouraging such behavior is easy and limited. Without providing people with alternatives to digital zombieism, we can’t expect that people will untether themselves from the holographic heroin on their own accord. Plus, it’s always easy to criticize something, generally speaking. Identifying problems, cultural or otherwise, doesn’t require much effort. However, creating political and cultural alternatives is a different matter. Doing so requires effort, sacrifice, and discipline. But it’s doable.
Taking Responsibility and Action
In the end, each of us who takes the time to write articles, record podcasts, and post public statements has a responsibility to encourage, promote, and aid existing organizing efforts. Instead of opening our laptops to highlight or denounce Trump’s latest personal transgression or insane policy decision, we should reflect on what we’re hoping to achieve by doing so. Right now, for example, Americans can find thousands of social media videos, memes, posts, articles, and podcasts analyzing the war in Iran. The same was true of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Public opinion polls show that Americans strongly oppose the war. Attitudes concerning Israel have radically shifted over the past two years. But US policy hasn’t radically changed.
Part of the role left writers and podcasters can play is to constantly encourage people to organize. Whenever I watch a video on YouTube, I see commentators with decent audiences (400,000 – 800,000 views per video) sign off asking their viewers to ‘Subscribe’ and ‘Like’ their content. Each time, my head wants to explode. What if these commentators asked their audiences to join a local organization, start a political organization, or provided a list of groups and movements people could connect with in the aim of actually stopping the wars, as opposed to incessantly examining and denouncing them?
What if the folks pumping out weekly essays illustrating the decay of the American Empire took the time to instead write about how Americans might effectively oppose, restructure, dismantle, or reenvision the American political and economic system? At this point, for every one article written about how bad the situation is, there should be ten articles written about how we can fight back and change this rotten system. The more people become engaged in organizing efforts, the easier this will become. Individually, each of us has a choice to make whenever we open our laptops to write or record: do we add to the deluge of negative information, or do we offer up alternatives?