The Post-State Billionaire, Part 2: Is the Cause Already Lost?

Revolution isn’t lost - it’s just quiet. The billionaire class hasn’t won unless we let them. The antidote to despair is action. Start where you are.

TL;DR:

No, the U.S. can’t disappear billionaires. But it doesn’t need to because billionaires have already pulled the disappearing act on democracy.

The Post-State Billionaire, Part 2: Is the Cause Already Lost?

Every thinking person eventually hits the wall. You connect the dots between Elon Musk dictating foreign policy from orbit, Peter Thiel funding political dark ops, Jeff Bezos hosting the CIA's cloud infrastructure, and Zuckerberg rewiring cognition for profit, and the question comes:

Is the cause already lost?

Maybe. But only if we let ourselves believe that hope is synonymous with certainty, and only if we keep asking the question instead of organizing.

We are not staring at a cliff. We are already tumbling down the slope of late-stage capitalism, caught in a landslide of collapsing institutions, platform monopolies, algorithmic control, and a population more distracted than mobilized.

But listen closely: revolution does not always wear a guillotine.

Historical Misread: Revolution Isn’t Always Blood and Blades

Everyone wants to cosplay the French Revolution. But most actual power shifts looked more like legal attrition, labor unrest, backroom legislation, and ideological drift. Here’s what we miss:

• The New Deal (1933): Not born from guillotine frenzy, but from mass mobilization, strikes, and a government terrified enough of revolt to compromise.

• The Civil Rights Movement (1950s-60s) was a decades-long pressure campaign that forced the state to move. It was Strategic, legal, religious, and media-savvy as hell.

• The collapse of apartheid (1994): International divestment, labor solidarity, student organizing, propaganda wars. All without mass executions.

• Arab Spring (2010-2012): Sparked by a fruit vendor, spread by memes, and brought down regimes - not all for the better, but fast.

Revolution is not a single act. It is relentless pressure across multiple fronts. And that means hope isn’t in the guillotine. It’s in the cracks forming beneath every billionaire’s feet.

The Billionaire Sovereign is Not God

They are rich. They are powerful. But they are not gods.

They need workers, engineers, infrastructure, public sentiment, access to state contracts, and a media ecosystem that doesn’t call them the unelected emperors of Earth.

They fear regulation. They fear popular uprisings. They fear lawsuits, whistleblowers, and the collapse of brand loyalty. That’s why they spend billions on narrative control. That’s why they hire ex-spies to run security and flood your feed with propaganda disguised as memes. They’re not secure. They’re defensive.

The biggest lie they sell is that they’ve already won.

Because if we stop believing in the power of collective resistance, they don’t have to use force. We will police ourselves.

Where the Real Revolution Lives

We think the front lines are on Capitol Hill. Maybe. But they’re also in:

• Small-town school boards where fascists are trying to ban books.

• Tech conferences where engineers are building open-source alternatives.

• Corporate union drives that terrify CEOs more than any protest.

• Public libraries where the last scraps of unfiltered knowledge live.

• Zines, podcasts, and Substacks that shatter legacy media's narratives.

• Mutual aid networks that bypass the billionaire-owned state entirely.

This is how you beat sovereigns: you ignore their authority and build your own.

But Let’s Be Real: What Are the Odds?

Honestly? Low. But not zero.

And unlike billionaires, we don’t have to succeed in every front. They require perfection. We only need critical mass.

They are brittle. Their systems depend on compliance and silence. One leak. One mass defection. One refusal. One cultural break. That’s all it takes to tip the balance.

So, is the cause already lost?

Not if you’re still breathing. Not if your neighbor is still angry. Not if your daughter is asking questions. Not if you’re still willing to act.

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Action (Even If It Feels Small or Impossible):

Pick a platform and start de-platforming them.

Seriously. Choose one:

• Delete Instagram.

• Block Amazon.

• Stop using Google Search.

• Use a VPN to starve surveillance ad revenue.

• Join a union.

• Start a co-op.

• Host a teach-in.

• Build something open-source.

• Run for your damn school board.

No action is too small if thousands replicate it. What they fear most is a pattern. Be the glitch.

Next up: The Post-State Billionaire, Part 3: Infrastructure Is the New Crown