How Do We Stop This?

Without serious opposition, we will soon transition from a law-based society to a code-based society, allowing for ubiquitous control and anonymous cruelty

I find myself grieving the meager uselessness of words. Words seem like flittering nothing compared with the great dereliction, the onslaught that is underway against what remains of the realm of human autonomy, dignity, and freedom. This process would be very difficult to interrupt, stop, or reverse in any case. But few of us are even trying to do so. I wish words could help. I doubt they can. But they are what I possess.

On one level, we are living through the apotheosis of the “Western idea” or of the “American project:” The grand finale of extractive capitalism, cybernetic technocracy, Capitalist rationalism, with no humane underpinning, no redemptive spark. The fragile territory of human freedom, along with all vestiges of egalitarian idealism, are to be stomped out, crushed, so that tyranny becomes omnipresent and irresistible—automated via universal surveillance and AI-based systems of control.

I encounter few thinkers confronting the existential threat of our situation at its proper scale and valence. One problem we have is that most people are simply not thinking: They haven’t reflected on the obvious trajectory of where this is heading, unless we make some concerted effort to pull the emergency brake. People have lost the habit of thinking; they confuse kneejerk cynicism or irony for authentic reflection. Together we all seem trapped in molasses, moving in slow motion, stunned, scared, waiting for some outside force to step in and save us, as in a scifi movie.

Our current techno-political landscape splits our reality between what is loud, grotesque, and visible, and what is quiet, malevolent, and secret. Trump and his cronies provide a spectacle that is consequential in its own way, but it also distracts us—like a grotesque clown show—from what is outside of the spotlight. The media focuses on the carnival, ignoring what’s happening behind the scenes: The assembly of the techno-fascistic control grid. The integration of all our data by Palantir, the control of the media by the Ellisons and a handful of other tech oligarchs, the end of restrictions on corporations, and so on. These invisible developments are far more consequential than any antics of the executive branch (unless, of course, Trump starts nuclear war, which I can’t rule out as possible).

If “the opposition” does not find a more powerful means to resist and fight back, all of us will be subsumed within this airtight infrastructure, this all-seeing control grid or Panopticon, with, potentially, no means to resist or escape in our lifetimes. At a time when we confront a dire, immediate existential threat, the opposition political leaders are failing us, with a very few exceptions. One exception is Bernie Sanders. Bernie has exposed the likely consequences of unrestricted AI development, and he fights against further U.S. military support for Israel.

Instead of sounding the proper alarm and offering a real alternative to the totalitarian takeover, the mainstream Democratic Party continues to be pathetic and anemic. I watched a recent interview between Ken Martin, chairman of the DNC, and Jon Favreau on Pod Save America several times—I couldn’t believe it at first. The interview centered on a report commissioned by the DNC on why Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election. A quintessential toadyish bureaucratic apparatchik, Martin had promised to released the report, which included interviews with thousands of people across all 50 states. But he did not release this “autopsy.” Instead, he offered a series of duplicitous, rehearsed defenses when questioned about it. Many in the Democratic establishment prefer to fail, which allows them to maintain their well-paid positions, than fight for the people, even at this precipice.

Almost certainly, the DNC didn’t release the report because it reveals that widespread anger regarding U.S. support for Israel, the U.S. providing weapons for Israel to perpetuate atrocities in Gaza, was a major driver for Harris losing the election. The Democrats’ continued support for Israel plunged the U.S. into the suicidal madness of the Trump regime. The party is unable to confront this.

A few months ago, Hilary Clinton spoke at a summit for Israel Hayom, a far Right Wing Jewish magazine largely funded by Miriam Adelson, a Trump megadonor who donated over $100 million to Trump campaign efforts in 2024. During her speech, Clinton claimed that young people are against the Gaza genocide due to “totally made up” short videos that are “pure propaganda,” implying that tighter controls on social media such as TikTok should be imposed. What a travesty!

Reports on Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians are meticulously well-documented at this point. Esteemed Jewish and Israeli historians of genocide, like Omer Bartov of Brown University, have named it a genocide. In a New York Times Editorial, “I’m a Genocide Scholar: I Know It When I see It”, Bartov wrote:

Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group.

He also noted: “Nations, politicians and military personnel suspected of, indicted on a charge of or found guilty of genocide are seen as beyond the pale of humanity and may compromise or lose their right to remain members of the international community.”

As a Jewish American, I feel devastated, witnessing the Israeli conduct in Gaza and, now, Lebanon. I am also horrified that so many Jewish friends of mine now tacitly or openly support Israel’s annexation of Lebanon, its ongoing torture and well-documented sexual torture of Palestinian prisoners (which includes, according to many reports, using dogs to rape Palestinians), its targeted assassinations of Palestinian children, and so on. I still struggle to believe this is happening, which, I suppose, is normal in times of Fascist excess: the extremes of violence and cruelty create a kind of internal schism: One is forced to compartmentalize.

We enjoy our ongoing lives. The weather, today, is sunny. People are friendly and seem normal. For the moment, my life seems utterly detached from the subjugation and desecration that is taking place. Unless you and/or I somehow turn ourselves into a mechanism that only directs our energy against the horror, you and/or I soon tire of feeling and thinking and acknowledging that horror. You and/or I go back into enjoying a joke, a work of art, a meal, or whatever. We move on, guiltily. We feel powerless. We allow. Because life is short and what is the alternative?

Beyond the humanitarian catastrophe, there is the unsettling question of how Israel, as a foreign power, maintains such control over the political establishment in the U.S. I will explore this, from my perspective, another time.

The American Far Right and Christian nationalists are ultra-Zionists now, but, ultimately, they do not support the Jews. They believe that Israel will get destroyed, eventually, during Armageddon. But for now they admire Israel because they see it as the model and template for what they intend to install here. Israel is teaching the Christian nationalists how to build a repressive, ethno-religious state using high-tech surveillance and military force to marginalize, control, and punish minority groups. The domestic drift toward disenfranchisement is already happening; the Supreme Court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act is something I never expected to see in my lifetime, with, apparently, more to come. Meanwhile, the corrupt, complicit Democrats can’t even confront the reality of what’s happening, for fear of alienating the donor class.

We are seeing a moral collapse and the acceptance of what might be called a new doctrine of casual cruelty. We see this in credible reports of the routine torture and systemic abuse of Palestinian captives—acts that reveal a near-total dehumanization. This moral collapse is expressed by the tech elite; for instance, recent manifestos from Alex Karp of Palantir distinguish between “innovative” and “dormant” populations. The implication is clear: those deemed regressive or unproductive no longer possess inherent rights or protections. They are expendable.

Without any public referendum, we are transitioning from a society governed by human law to one governed by inhuman code. While the rule of law was never perfect, its inherent “fuzziness”—the bureaucratic friction and procedural delays—was a feature, not a bug. It provided margins of mercy and “stays of execution.”

Let me give an example: Under a traditional legal system, a tenant who loses their job and misses rent cannot be instantly thrown out of their home; there is a court process that requires months, allowing for time and mediation. In a society defined by “smart code,” all latitude vanishes. If a digital ledger shows a missed payment, lock down is instant. There is no judge to appeal to, only a faceless algorithm with, perhaps, a weaponized drone to ensure compliance.

This is the logic being installed across every domain of life. Using tools provided by companies like Palantir to synthesize financial, medical, and social data, the goal is a seamless, totalized oversight of the American populace. We are moving toward a future where the state no longer argues with its citizens; once it turns against them for dissent or even “thought crimes”, it will simply deactivate them.