Carpe Momentum: Build What Comes Next

To end autocracy, we must also end economic dictatorship.

The Trump era has torn the veil off illusions many Americans still clung to. While some saw his rise as an anomaly or a betrayal of democratic norms, others understood him as the symptom of a much deeper pathology. Trump did not create this crisis. He merely arrived like a fever, dangerous, yes, but revealing the illness already present in the body politic. And now, with the country weakened, the system strained, and the rot exposed, the question is no longer: "How did this happen?" It is: "What now?"

To answer that, we must stop treating economics and politics as separate struggles. Richard Wolff and Ruth Ben-Ghiat come at this from different angles, but together they illuminate a shared truth: capitalism and autocracy are not just connected, they are co-dependent. One enforces the other, sustains the other, and disguises the other.