Power is shifting upward -- and you're already feeling it.

[applegrove]

Power is shifting upward — and you’re already feeling it.

Across the country, power is moving away from everyday people and toward politicians, wealthy interests, and unaccountable institutions.

— Gail Waldby ❌👑 (@gailwaldby.bsky.social) 2026-04-29T23:06:44.944Z

You can see it in rising costs, stagnant wages, and communities that feel ignored or targeted. That disconnect isn’t random — it’s what happens when people lose power.

— Gail Waldby ❌👑 (@gailwaldby.bsky.social) 2026-04-29T23:06:44.945Z

[applegrove]

2. Non violence is the only way that works.

https://thejenniwren.substack.com/p/to-the-naysayers-youre-wrong-were?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

The point is not serenity. The point is discipline. Discipline denies authoritarians their favorite story: only extremists oppose us. Power craves images of fire and chaos because those images justify crackdowns and scare bystanders back onto their couches.

Scholars who study nonviolent “dilemma actions” describe tactics that trap authorities in no-win choices. Ignore peaceful defiance and look weak, or attack calm people and expose cruelty. Researchers at Columbia’s International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution explain why this strategy repeatedly destabilizes repressive power in their analysis of violence versus nonviolence.

[OhioBack2Blue]

4. This is the problem with dichotomies....

they are false, oversimplified, deny alternatives, and foster the creation of a structural vacuum.

We are trapped in the dichotomy of non-violence and violence right now, a false choice that happily buries crucial CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. One could never compare the cosplay rallies of today with the real acts of civil disobedience going all the way back to the dumping of tea in the Boston harbor.

People are suffering under this regime. Counting Covid, thousands upon thousands have already died, here in America and around the world. Thousands of real people have been fired from their jobs, had cancer trials cancelled, been unlawfully separated from their families, murdered, are drowning in educational debt, unemployed, homeless, food insecure, losing their constitutional rights, unable to find lawyers, going without medical treatment and much more.

The rallies being held today are unserious and can not in any way be compared to real-time civil disobedience.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE is NOT VIOLENCE!

[applegrove]

5. We disagree on the rallies being held today. Much of the fight is taking

place on the internet which was not available back in the civil rights era and fights the right wing media consolidation, the right wing is gunning for, very effectively. That is where defiance lies in these times.

[Blues Heron]

3. the oligarchs are flexing their muscles - they have the money but we have the numbers

[OhioBack2Blue]

6. They began shutting off the flows of money...

that went to the "bottom" beginning with Reaganomics, and with it power for the last 40+ years. Now there is a giant sucking machine that is taking every last penny out of Americans pockets and it is in overdrive. They question is then, why is the Trump regime going on overdrive to pull money out of the economy, particularly through not just deregulation but sheer destruction, to such an extent as to cause great suffering and death, and pool it and power at the top? What is truly startling is how much damage they are doing to SMALL BUSINESSES, supposedly the darling of the Republicon party.

The standard answers (control inflation, reduce criminal activity, manage public debt, keep people desperate, etc) seem insufficient here. Yes, draining power from the people, but that somewhat assumes a monolith and unification of interests hardly possible in a pluralist society.

Republicons are imploding all by themselves. Trump will pass at some point. The Democratic party has had plenty of chances to shift power back to the people and quite frankly failed or didn't care to really try. The American people were never a threat to Putin, just the American govt. Putin isn't stupid.

Republicons hold all 4 levers of govt, the military, the 4th estate, Wall Street, the FIRE industry, numerous hospital systems, churches, many schools and colleges, and 26 states. That is quite an enormous chunk of power already. One can speculate that big changes are coming for American society, a hostile 2nd re-colonization of sorts, unless the American people step up and reclaim their united popular sovereignty.