It's time to make a choice. What will you do?

The cognitive dissonance at the heart of government is driving America off a cliff, but is it a deliberate act of destruction aimed at reimaging America?

As we begin another week after a long weekend, I trust that my American friends have had a chance to reflect on the sacrifices made by so many. I hope their selfless patriotism will serve as an inspiration in the fight for American values in this moment of peril. This piece today did not go in the direction I had initially intended, as is often the case, given how I write in the moment. It’s always a delicate balance to strike when sharing personal history, for fear that it may not be received in the sincerity of its intent, but I’ll leave that for you to judge.

I have given up trying to understand what is in Mad King Don's mind at this moment because I think therein lies the road to insanity. All we can do is wake up each day and face the threats posed by his incoherent ramblings. We keep going round in circles, as liberal thinkers on social media are losing their minds, caught up in a fever of outrage and despair. The level of ‘rage tweeting’, as I like to call it, is off the charts, and while it may make the authors of these anger-fueled responses feel better, it’s just wasted energy.

I am always caught in the dilemma of what will make a difference, which is a challenge. History tells us that the secret to success in fighting authoritarian rule is collective action. You would expect that in this modern age of everyone being connected, it would be easy to organise a coordinated level of resistance that could crush a government. It should be straightforward. Stay at home, spend only on necessities to survive, and embark on an economic siege. International visitors could stop visiting America, which is happening already, but I mean a total halt to US travel. The options are limitless; the global community can strategically pick and choose what to participate in, but sadly, it will never happen because in a ‘me, me, me’ society, human nature takes over, and ‘screw the other guy’ prevails. We really can be a despicable species.

In a world where news output is almost state-controlled and social media is held hostage, we are rapidly approaching a point where physical protests become increasingly critical, but only if you are prepared to participate in a prolonged general strike. One-day strikes, while they can disrupt corporate America, big business has the resilience to absorb short-term pain. It lacks the impact that long-term non-participation in the economy can deliver. Also, you should be mindful that sustained mass protests on the streets may play into the hands of Trump, as he, I think, would be prepared to put the military on the streets to extinguish such public dissent, and people may well be killed. We also have to consider that those at the bottom are already participating by default because they live a non-participatory life every day.

These are very challenging times, and America must act urgently to mitigate the damage that Trump is causing to the country's foundational economic structure. The longer people wait to act, the more damage is being done. This must be about applying damaging economic pressure, as it’s the only action that corporations and the wealthy understand. These people have stolen so much wealth from the bottom and the middle, they are like squirrels storing nuts to sustain them through the winter. Their winter is your economic siege. I can guarantee that if nobody travelled on planes for a week, they would sit up and pay attention. If all Americans were buying only the food they needed to live on for a week, that would prompt them to take notice.

It’s about strategic participation. There's no need to stop using the internet, Gmail, or any other technology you need for basic communication. However, if everyone cancelled all their streaming services for a month and decided to speak to each other and engage as humans were meant to, that might work too. I could go on, but you get the idea. This is about reestablishing the understanding that governments govern and corporations profit by the consent of the people. Currently, the people are slaves to both.

They haven’t made a prison big enough to jail everyone who withholds taxes. It’s the same principle that Trump applies to trading partners, including Apple, one of the most profitable companies in modern history. It’s about punitive action if people don’t bend to his will. The same applies to society’s participation in consumer spending. The American economy is now totally dependent on Americans spending their money. If they decide to weaponise their spending, then Trump can’t operate his autocracy, because they have taken back the power.

He is well aware of the dangers he faces, but public non-participation in the economy is not on his bingo card. His view would be that the wealthy can starve the population into submission. The point he misses, though, is that this is not just a battle of wills; it actually becomes a battle for survival for those at the top who, if they lose, will never again be able to subjugate the consumer. It is the quintessential battle for hearts and minds. The rich depend on our unrequited thirst to be one of them. Lose that thirst, and they will lose their hold on us all.

I fear, however, that there is no appetite beyond a token protest in the United States. We are, by nature, selfish creatures and have no problem stepping on the broken lives of others if it means we gain an advantage. While this mentality persists, I fear the hole will widen and deepen because we can’t help ourselves.

America is facing the biggest geopolitical challenge of the century, not because it’s been foisted upon it, but because of self-inflicted structural damage. The arrogance of a political class has led to a moment of blindness to reality, and the tsunami of societal damage it is causing is nothing in comparison to what will come if this madness is not halted.

I learned a vital lesson when I was out of work for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic and was forced to claim state benefits, which I had not utilised in 45 years. I have always been the sole wage earner in our family, and the love of my life, for whom I can never find the words to say how much I love and respect her, was faced with a very new experience. COVID had destroyed our livelihood to the extent that we might lose our home. Mine was a small business that fell through the cracks in government support, and all we had was enough money to survive for around six months, while those at the top, including government ministers and their friends, hoovered up taxpayer cash as if it were going out of fashion.

Four months in, I was in a position where the writing was on the wall. I was angry at the injustice of being in a position where, through no fault of my own, it seemed like we were about to lose everything at a time in our lives when we should have been looking forward to retirement. A major project I had been working on just before COVID, which was intended to make us comfortable in retirement, had collapsed, and we were now staring down the barrel of fiscal catastrophe.

I’m not sharing this difficult period of my life for your sympathy, but rather to convey that losing everything, while soul-destroying, can be a life lesson that delivers a sobering perspective on life. Nobody ever wants to walk through the valley of dark despair and helplessness that is a mental health crisis. However, I was living in it, and it changed me forever. I had lived the dream. Had a beautiful house, three gorgeous kids who had all grown up. I had paid for two of them to study at university, and for my eldest daughter to study for the bar and become a barrister. We had lived a good life by any measure.

The word COVID is a trigger word for me because it represents everything our society has become in terms of privilege. The rich got obscenely richer while those who couldn’t or wouldn’t play the system were left by the wayside. I’m proud to say that I grew up in social housing, attended college for a year, dropped out, and never went to university. However, despite that, I always managed to earn a good living working for myself. I was the son of a middle manager at a glass factory who had worked for the same company his entire life, starting as a floor sweeper in his teenage years. I was the boy who did good in my father’s eyes, which was always good enough for me.

I sailed through the 2008 crash, slightly damaged but not hurt. I understand that life is not a bed of roses and is not always fair, but we are defined by how we cope in moments of pressure. No more was that evident than when we faced the reality that we would lose our home of 20 years. We were trapped in a variable-rate mortgage that was killing us, and I was dead in the water at a time when businesses were not investing and banks were sitting on their hands. We knew we had to sell or face foreclosure. We tried to buy time with the mortgage company, who was, to my mind, a predatory thug.

It was at this point that my world fell apart, and for the first time in my life, I shook hands with depression. I couldn't cope with the levels of stress. I spiralled helplessly to a point where nothing made sense anymore, and I could see no light at the end of the tunnel. I was no longer the thinking man, but rather a hollowed-out carcass of the man I had once been, lost in an ocean of despair. We had been fighting in court with the lender, and I was exhausted. I was the one who provided for a family through both the good and bad times, which is always a part of business, but I couldn’t see beyond the despair.

I don’t have to explain to those who have been down the rabbit hole of depression how debilitating it is and how you seem to be locked in a dark, quiet room with just a chair and no doors. It was at this point that things took a very dark turn. My dark, now irrational thoughts led me to the notion that I was at the heart of the problem, and it would help everyone if I exited stage left. Nothing about this makes sense to anyone on the outside looking in, but on the inside, a door appeared in the dark room and suddenly became appealing.

I was struggling to figure out how to do it. The next day, I went to the train station, where I selfishly decided it would end. I stood on the platform for what seemed an eternity, feeling that hot and clammy feeling you get just before you think you want to vomit. I had zoned out and was waiting to shake hands with the next express train. I can’t to this day tell you why I chose that as the method for my exit, but what I can tell you is that God smiled on me that day, because a young women must have picked up on my body language or something in the way I was pacing and came up and said, ‘I don’t want to intrude, but are you OK?’ I didn’t hear her properly the first time as I was so zoned out, but when I heard her, it was like someone had jolted me out of the darkness to see a kind face concerned for a stranger. The dam burst, and the mental anguish of months of unspeakable anguish flooded out in public view.

To this day, I still can’t tell you if I would have carried through, because the honest answer is that I don’t know. However, I can tell you that on that day, a collection of the kindest people intervened to bring me back from the edge. A policeman took over from the kind woman whose name I don’t know to this day, but I will never forget her face and the empathy in her eyes. The policeman was unbelievable; the kindness and compassion he showed were a testament to him as a person and a professional public servant. He drove me to the hospital and contacted my family. It was the darkest day of my life, but in some ways it was the day someone switched the lights on in my world again. I learned that the comforts of a modern, successful life can be gone in the blink of an eye. The true challenge is how you cope and attempt to recover.

There is no happy ending here; it is just the crushing reality of the fact that the many things you’ve acquired over a lifetime won’t fit into the place you are forced to rent in a rental market gone mad. It was a sobering experience, from owning a beautiful home to paying a landlord's mortgage with overpriced rent, knowing this would be the closing chapter of my life. We were lucky; we had enough equity from being forced to sell our house for far less than it was worth to pay a year’s rent upfront, cover moving costs, and still have enough to see us through the COVID-19 pandemic. As they always say, ‘nobody owes you a living’, but in my 60s, I’m not considered prime meat in the labour market.

I am clumsily trying to make the point that I have been to the dark side, that many others may face in the coming months. Therefore, when I write about social justice issues and advocate for a fairer society, I do so from the perspective of my own lived experience, which has been shaped by a societal failure to meet its ideals. The cruel twist in my tale is that during that period, we were potentially facing repossession by our lender. I was trying to fight the punitive interest rates they were imposing at the time. The problem was that we lacked the resources to fight them. However, after losing everything, a group of borrowers filed a class action lawsuit, which led to the financial regulator forcing the lender to compensate borrowers for the unfair rates they had imposed during my time of despair. The upshot was a check that, had we received it when we were struggling, would have got us through the COVID crisis. I can’t say, in all honesty, that it would have saved us, but it certainly would have given us a fighting chance to recover and survive in a better position.

Compared to many, I regard myself as one of the lucky ones. I have slowly found a comfortable balance. Not something many might find in the impending stress they may face. I strive in my work here to help and inform others with a deep conviction and a sense of urgency to make sense of the world. This political landscape appears intoxicated by the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable. We get just one life, and I’m all for living it to the max, but not at the expense of the less fortunate.

In the ensuing years, I have learned many things, not least the essential role charities play in the survival of the vulnerable. If you are reading this and thinking I’ll never be in that position, you and I thought alike until fate came knocking. The food banks that Trump is defunding, along with SNAP and other benefits, are a lifeline for millions in an economy that is failing them, not because the economy is failing, but because the prosperity being generated is being diverted, denying the vulnerable fundamental humanitarian rights.

I know I have gone off-piste today, which was not my intention. Still, I feel better for sharing my story because authenticity in political advocacy is the whole ball game. It is critical never to give up, even though I did at one point. That experience has led me to this fight today, and it will likely be my final contribution to a global society that has brought me immense joy and happiness, yet has taught me that we all need to do better. The problem is that we can only do better if we are better informed and can look beyond the lies and deceit. To do that, we need access to the truth, which has become my mission.

When you travel the journey I have taken over the past few years, you will see that I’m just one example of the pain suffered by so many. I have been blessed with an albeit raw talent for writing and sharing my perspective at a moment in history that will shape us all for generations to come. This is a pivotal moment in collective responsibility. I believe that those of us with the ability to communicate have a moral duty to inform those seeking answers amidst a storm of deliberate lies and disinformation.

It is safe to say that the reality of what many Americans face in the coming weeks will not hit home until that impact becomes real to them, when the things they take for granted are being placed out of reach. Yes, this will hit the poorest the hardest, but it will also hit the middle class hard. Trump will keep telling the lies because, like all madmen, he and his acolytes now believe their own lies. They have distorted their own reality so much that they think disquiet is much ado about nothing. This is simply unsustainable when the truth eventually bangs at the door.

In my next piece, I’ll examine how Democratic political messaging must adapt to an entirely new messaging landscape. I have already prepared a set of short Ads thanks to the support of my paid subscribers, whose subscriptions have covered the cost of their production. These will be included in my next post and will be the first additions to the new Truth Matters video library, which will be launched a week from today. This resource will be made available to all digital activists, allowing them to download and incorporate it into their messaging at no cost. As an evolving resource, your subscriptions will play a vital role in reimagining the future of short-form political messaging. We’ll discuss my vision for geospatial message distribution in the new media landscape next time.

Thank you again for the faith and trust you place in me to cut through the nonsense every day to deliver the truth. It takes a level of intellectual engagement to read these lengthy pieces, and for that, I am most grateful. What I want to do is supplement this with short, dynamic, emotion-inducing visual pieces that deliver the same message but require less dedication to receive the information.