The Long Descent into the Madness + A Light at the End of the Tunnel

My real life world is drastically different from my online world right now – and I’m betting yours is, too.
Either people are hiding their fear… or they’re hiding their heads in the sand, choosing to stay intentionally oblivious to the reality we find ourselves in.

And honestly? I get it. It’s easier to scroll past the headlines and focus on iced coffee and flower beds than it is to fully face the unraveling of a country. But avoidance doesn’t equal safety—and denial doesn’t make us ready.

That’s why I’m writing this. Not to add to the fear, but to cut through it.
Because clarity is what helps us breathe. Clarity is how we steady ourselves.
Clarity is how we remember that madness doesn’t last forever – but neither does complacency.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

Let’s get something straight: this didn’t happen overnight. The chaos we’re living through isn’t a glitch in the system. It is the system—decades in the making, layered like sediment, each generation inheriting the fallout of the one before.

If we zoom out and trace it honestly, the pattern becomes clear:

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Post-WWII America (1945–1960s): The Myth of the Golden Era

After World War II, America emerged as a global superpower. Soldiers came home, suburbs exploded, and white families were sold the American Dream—a house, a car, a wife at home, and 2.5 kids in the yard.

But that dream was built on exclusion.
Redlining kept Black families from building generational wealth.
Women were pushed back into domesticity after taking wartime jobs.
Indigenous communities were further displaced.
And the U.S. quietly set up a global empire under the banner of “freedom.”

We were fed patriotism. What we got was patriarchy + profit.

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The 1970s: Cracks in the Illusion

The Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, second-wave feminism, Stonewall, Watergate; America’s mythos started to fracture. The people rose. They questioned. They resisted.

But the backlash was brutal.

When the movements of the ‘60s demanded justice, the ‘70s responded with containment.
Nixon’s “War on Drugs” became a war on Black communities.
COINTELPRO dismantled radical movements from the inside.
And think tanks like the Heritage Foundation were formed to ensure that progress never got too far.

It was the beginning of what would become a well-funded, slow-burning counter-revolution.

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The 1980s: Reaganomics and the Rise of White Christian Nationalism

Reagan swept in like a cowboy messiah: charming, calculated, and devastating. He wasn’t just a president. He was a marketing campaign for the ruling class.

• Deregulation gutted protections.
• Tax cuts for the rich widened inequality.
• Union-busting shattered worker power.
• And Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority” began merging evangelical Christianity with right-wing politics.

This is the decade that seeded the world we’re in now:
Corporate power, Christian nationalism, and media manipulation became sacred tools of the conservative movement.

And liberals? Mostly played defense.

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The 1990s: Neoliberalism Disguised as Progress

Clinton-era Democrats painted themselves as modern and compassionate. But behind the soft smiles were sharp policies.

• The 1994 Crime Bill ballooned mass incarceration.
• NAFTA gutted American manufacturing towns.
• “Welfare reform” punished the poor.
• The Telecommunications Act of 1996 let media conglomerates take over the airwaves.

All of this came with a fresh coat of diversity optics…. but the substance?
More power for the elite. Less power for the people.

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Mid to Late 90’s: The Rise of Propaganda Masquerading as News

And while neoliberalism softened the language of oppression, right-wing media learned how to weaponize it.

• Fox News launched in 1996 – not to report facts, but to reshape reality.
• Clear Channel and Sinclair bought up local stations, turning hometown news into fear-mongering scripts.
• Radio and TV became pipelines for moral panic and manufactured outrage.
• And the Fairness Doctrine? Gone.

By the time Facebook and YouTube arrived, Americans had already been primed to distrust truth itself.

The algorithm didn’t invent division.
It just amplified it beyond our control.

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The 2000s: Fear, War, and the Surveillance State

9/11 changed everything. And not for the better.

We were traumatized. And that trauma was weaponized.

• The Patriot Act normalized mass surveillance.
• The Department of Homeland Security was born.
• Endless wars funneled billions to defense contractors.
• And anyone who questioned the government was branded unpatriotic.

At the same time, social media was coming online. Algorithms didn’t exist to inform us; they existed to divide and radicalize us.
And they did.

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The 2010s: The Boiling Point

The Obama years gave hope… but also lulled many into a false sense of progress.

• The Tea Party rose.
• Voter suppression tactics ramped up.
• Gerrymandering entrenched minority rule.
• Citizens United opened the floodgates for unlimited dark money in politics.

And then came Trump.
A culmination – not an aberration.
He didn’t break the system. He exposed it.

Underneath the chaos, one machine kept turning:
Keep the people divided. Keep the billionaires fed. Keep the truth distorted.

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The 2020s: The Fracture is Fully Visible

A pandemic.
A failed coup.
Books banned.
Teachers censored.
Reproductive rights overturned.
Trans people targeted.
Christian nationalism emboldened.
And a majority of Americans ruled by a minority clinging to outdated power.

Then the real coup ensued.

We are in the late-stage symptoms of empire collapse.

This is what it looks like. Not just in textbooks… but in real time.

And yet we wonder…

What comes next?

This is where most people either flinch or fantasize.
They either bury their heads or dream of instant revolution.
But the truth? The road ahead is neither clean nor quick.

We are standing at the crossroads of collapse and creation.
And both paths will unfold—simultaneously, messily, and unequally.

Let’s break it down clearly:

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Short-Term: Theocracy Will Tighten Its Grip

Let’s not sugarcoat it.

The next few years will likely bring:

• More rights rolled back.
• More violence against marginalized people.
• More corporate feasting while working families starve.
• More gerrymandering, voter suppression, and sham elections.
• More “God and country” propaganda used to justify cruelty.

This isn’t a theory. It’s already happening.

• 14-year-olds being forced to give birth.
• School libraries stripped bare.
• Women jailed for miscarriages.
• Public education under attack.
• LGBTQ+ existence treated like a threat.

And the courts – especially the Supreme Court – are stacked in favor of regression for at least a generation.

Authoritarianism isn’t coming. It’s here.

The question isn’t will it happen. The question is: how will we respond?

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Long-Term: Parallel Systems + Soft Revolution

Here’s the part they don’t see coming.

While they pour billions into controlling the old systems…
We are quietly building new ones.

• Community farms.
• Skill-sharing networks.
• Home education pods.
• Mutual aid collectives.
• Spiritual and creative practices that heal instead of harm.

This is a soft revolution… not through violence, but through withdrawal.
Through refusing to obey systems that were never designed for our freedom.
Through living differently, now, instead of waiting for permission.

We’re not trying to “fix” the empire.
We’re composting it.

And in its place, we’re growing something rooted. Something real. Something ours.

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Rooted & Ready Isn’t About Doom Prep

It’s about soul prep.
It’s about steadiness.
It’s about choosing clarity over panic.
And resilience over despair.

Because yes – the fire is coming. But so is the regrowth.

Every empire ends. Every system built on cruelty eventually crumbles.
The question isn’t if. It’s who we will be when it does.

And that’s why the Rooted + Ready series is built with this mission.

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You Were Born for This Threshold

You feel it, don’t you?

This pull toward simplicity. Toward truth. Toward community.
This ache to remember how to live with the land, not just on it.
This exhaustion with performative politics and a hunger for real connection.

That’s not a coincidence. That’s ancestral memory waking up inside you.
It’s your soul saying:

“The world may be falling apart… but you don’t have to.
You can root in. You can prepare. You can resist: with love, with craft, with clarity.”

You are not here to fix what was.
You are here to midwife what will be.

And that, my friend, is the truest kind of readiness there is.