ARE YOU AWAKE YET?

Are You Awake Yet?

Democracy is dead, or, if not yet fully buried, it lies on a slab in the morgue, awaiting a toe tag and final rites. The United States, once a shining beacon of representative government and the rule of law, is now being dismantled, brick by brick, law by law, institution by institution. And the worst part? We saw it coming. We were warned. And yet, we remain asleep.

Two powerful forces have executed a silent coup, each feeding the other until the American experiment in self-governance has been all but snuffed out.

First, there is Project 2025, an audacious and detailed plan hatched by the radical right to demolish America’s democratic institutions and replace them with a theocratic autocracy. It’s not just a policy roadmap; it’s a blueprint for regime change. It calls for the removal of career civil servants, the hollowing out of federal agencies, the centralization of power in a single figurehead, and the imposition of biblical fundamentalism as the law of the land. This is not reform; it is demolition. The goal is not to fix America; it is to burn it to the ground and rebuild it as a rigid, repressive theocracy governed by dogma, not law.

Second, and no less dangerous, is the rise of the billionaire oligarchy, personified most vividly by Elon Musk. A man not born on American soil, Musk has nonetheless managed to seize the levers of national power through wealth, technological monopoly, and political manipulation. He is no longer merely a private businessman, the unelected, unaccountable architect of our national infrastructure. His satellites serve our military, his platform shapes our public discourse, and his whims dictate the policies of elected leaders too spineless to challenge him. One man, with no loyalty to the country or the Constitution, now holds more sway over our future than the American people themselves.

These two forces—religious authoritarianism and corporate oligarchy—have found a common cause. The theocrats offer moral cover to the billionaires, and the billionaires offer financial power to the theocrats. It is an alliance of convenience and ambition. Together, they are forging a new American order in which power is divinely ordained, and wealth is the proof of righteousness. You will kneel to God or Gold, but either way, you will kneel.

The people? We’ve been shoved aside, pacified with culture wars and disinformation, manipulated into infighting, and rendered politically impotent. The institutions we thought would save us, courts, elections, and media, have been co-opted or neutralized. We are spectators at our demise.

So I ask again: Are you awake yet?

Because if not now, then when?

There is still a flicker of hope, though it grows dimmer by the day. The only viable path forward is grassroots resistance on a scale we have not yet dared to attempt. We must organize, unify, throw aside our petty differences, and build a coalition so vast, determined, and morally unyielding that it cannot be ignored.

It won’t be easy. It may not even be peaceful. And yes, we may have to consider once-unthinkable strategies to preserve what little remains of our freedom. The alternative submission to a billionaire-led theocracy is far worse.

There is still time, but not much.

So, are you awake yet?

William James Spriggs