Only We Decide When It’s Over

The American experiment isn’t dead; it’s under siege. But only we get to decide how it ends. And I say we’re not done fighting.

Guest article by Michael Cohen

Photo by iStrfry , Marcus on Unsplash

Let me be blunt—because that’s how I roll: if you’re watching the chaos unfold in this country and thinking, “Well, that’s it. America’s toast,” you need to get a grip.
Seriously.

Yes, things look bleak. Yes, the country feels like it’s cracked straight down the middle—a fault line separating truth from conspiracy, democracy from authoritarian cosplay, and sanity from whatever unhinged circus is running out of the White House this week. But don’t confuse the noise with the outcome. Don’t mistake the madness of a moment for the destiny of a nation.

Because here's the thing: America’s story isn’t over—not unless we decide it is.

That’s right. We the People. Not the man in the Oval. Not those in Congress. Not some robe-wrapped Supreme Court Justice with a billionaire sugar daddy. Not the fascist cosplayers marching with tiki torches or driving cars into crowds of protesters. The fate of this republic isn’t in the hands of the extremists—unless we give it to them.
And I, for one, am not handing over the keys.

Let’s talk about what just happened. On June 14, 2025, we saw the dark and the light of America playing out in real time. A sitting State Senator and her husband gunned down in Minnesota. A Senator handcuffed at a presser for asking a question. A Trump parade that looked more like a North Korean knockoff than a tribute to our troops.
And then—the people. Millions of Americans, coast to coast, rising up under the banner of No Kings, taking to the streets not because they hate America, but because they refuse to let it die. Because they love America.

You want to know who we are? We’re not the cowards hiding behind AR-15s. We’re not the ghouls cheering on political violence from anonymous burner accounts. We are the citizens who showed up. We are the marchers who know that democracy isn’t a spectator sport—it’s a full-contact battle for the soul of this country.

And it’s a fight worth having.

Now I know some of you are tired. Hell, I’m tired. The political whiplash of the last decade has left us bruised, broken, and frankly, pissed off. But you don’t walk away from the ring because the fight gets tough. You dig in, you swing harder, and you remember who you are.

You are not powerless.

You are not irrelevant.

You are not some extra in a reality TV show gone rogue.

You are the main character. The voter. The marcher. The one who drags this country back from the ledge—one conversation, one protest, one vote at a time.

Yes, we are ranked 50th on the ACLED Conflict Index—right behind Libya. Yes, our Global Peace Index scores us lower than Iran. Let that sink in. Iran. And yet—and yet—we still show up in numbers that terrify the establishment. We still rise after every blow. We still believe that this experiment—battered, bruised, barely breathing—is not finished. Not by a long shot.

Because unlike the cowards who fantasize about authoritarianism on Telegram and Signal, we actually love this country. We don’t want to burn it down to feel powerful. We want to build it up so everyone has a seat at the table—and a chair that isn’t on fire.

You want to talk about political violence? Let’s be honest about where it’s coming from. Yes, there’s some on the left. But let’s not do this “both sides” dance when one side stormed the Capitol in tactical gear and zip ties, screaming about hanging the Vice President while waving Blue Lives Matter flags. This isn’t the Weather Underground. This is a political party that treats the Constitution like a buffet: take what you like, toss the rest.

Trump didn’t just welcome violent extremists; he empowered them. He pardoned them. He gave them a platform and then built a movement around their paranoia.
And now we’re supposed to act surprised when the powder keg explodes? Please. This isn’t accidental. It’s engineered.

But here’s the rub—and it’s the most important point I’ll make: we are not past the point of no return. Bullshit. That’s the lie they want you to believe. That it’s over. That it’s too late. That you’re too small to matter.

I call bullshit again.

It is not too late.

It is not over.

It is not their country to ruin—unless we let them.

This moment demands clarity, courage, and a colossal middle finger to the forces trying to drag us into the dark. We don’t retreat. We don’t cower. We organize. We mobilize. We join communities like this one on Substack. We vote. We show up.

The republic isn’t dying. It’s fighting for breath. And it needs us—not as spectators, but as warriors for truth, for justice, and for every single person who still believes America can be better than this.

We don’t give up now. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

Because it’s not the politicians who get to decide when this story ends.

It’s us.

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THEY’RE COMING FOR ALL OF US. SO WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO—SCROLL OR STAND UP?

If you’re reading this, you already know the truth:
We are at war.
Not with bombs or tanks—yet.
But with lies. With propaganda. With the slow, suffocating death of democracy under a gilded boot.

This is no longer politics.
It’s survival.

They’ve hijacked the courts, rigged the laws, turned patriotism into a punchline, and weaponized justice like it’s a mob vendetta. I’ve seen it up close. I lived it. And now I’m telling the truth. Every week. Every post. Every time they try to bury it.

But I can’t do this alone.
This platform—our platform—isn’t some vanity blog. It’s a bunker. It’s a broadcast tower. It’s a Molotov cocktail of facts lit by courage and hurled at the walls of authoritarianism.

We’re building an army of the fed-up. Of the awake. Of the never-again. And we need you in it.

Become a subscriber. Not tomorrow. Now.

Not just because you’ll get the truth uncut.

Not just because the first 240 Founding Members get a signed, numbered, limited-edition copy of Revenge—my book on how Trump turned the DOJ into his personal hit squad (though yes, you will).

Do it because history is watching.

Do it because you refuse to be gaslit into submission.

Do it because if we don’t rise up now, the next chapter gets written without us—and spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well.

You want to fight back? Here’s how:

• Become a paid member today—help us grow this megaphone until it shatters glass in Mar-a-Lago.

• Send this to everyone who’s done being polite while democracy bleeds out.

• Bring your voice. Your outrage. Your truth. This is your call to action.

We are not the silent majority.
We are the loud, relentless, pissed-off resistance.
And if we lock arms now, they can’t erase us.

Let’s be louder than their lies.
Let’s be smarter than their spin.
Let’s be unignorable, unbending, and unbreakable.

Join the fight. Share the fire.

Subscribe today—before they write the ending without us.