We Are the Rebel Alliance: A Manifesto to Transform the Resistance
Using Cultural Acupuncture to Harness Myth, Ritual, Symbol, and Community for Lasting Transformation
I. The Collapse of the Resistance
The Story of the Resistance is crumbling. What are we to do? As Inauguration Day looms, the institutions we trusted to protect democracy are falling, one by one, under the grip of Donald Trump’s empire. Corporate leaders— once vocal critics—now bend the knee to the new Emperor. Hollywood, once a bastion of opposition, has gone eerily silent. Even the media, our supposed firewall against authoritarianism, has buckled under pressure.
Worst of all, the Liberal Left—once a powerful force behind historic protests like the Women’s March and significant electoral gains—finds itself fractured and heartsick: after everything our nation has learned about Trump, he still won the popular vote. In short, the story of the Resistance lies in shambles.
And if you need a stark example of how severely we’re losing the story wars, consider this: billionaire Peter Thiel recently cast progressives as “Imperial Stormtroopers” while portraying his side as a “ragtag Rebel Alliance” of underdogs. The fact that Thiel could say this with a straight face—and align with a larger narrative that has found a foothold among millions—shows just how effective the Far Right has been at twisting cultural symbols to serve their agenda.
Let’s pause to appreciate the audacity of that claim, for if ever there were a Sith mind trick designed to warp reality, this is it. Peter Thiel—a fascist billionaire—now positions himself and his fellow brownshirts as scrappy freedom fighters akin to the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars. This, even as they work to undermine our economic freedoms, bodily autonomy, and the very habitability of our planet.
Perhaps it’s just a flippant comment. Even so, it lays bare the delusions men like Thiel and Elon Musk have embraced. Because no matter what, part of Thiel is still a little boy, desperate for us to see him as an underdog battling the evil, Imperial forces of… I don’t know… domestic care workers or something. Yet the fact that he’s made this narrative resonate with millions is staggering. It’s a breathtaking act of narrative theft—a masterstroke of gaslighting that reveals the Far Right’s dangerous expertise in hijacking cultural symbols to advance their authoritarian agenda.
We either outmaneuver that expertise or cede the power of our collective imagination to them.
And so, where does that leave us? Are we going to take this lying down, or will we fight back with the very weapon they’ve mastered: the power of cultural mythos? Can we reclaim the stories they’ve twisted and wield them for not just resistance but transformation?
Because make no mistake—this isn’t just a battle of policies or protests. It’s a battle for the soul of our collective imagination.
I believe there is a way forward. The task is monumental, but it’s possible. To understand how—and why becoming the American Rebel Alliance might be the right path—we need to venture deep into the nature of storytelling itself.
What follows is a manifesto of sorts, serving a dual purpose: to win immediate political fights and to address the deeper cultural sickness that has allowed these crises to fester.
So, how do we reclaim our stories from those who would twist them? We’ll trace a journey—from humanity’s first experiments with storytelling, to Hollywood’s mastery of myth-making, to the Far Right’s alarming sophistication in mythic warfare. Only by understanding these forces can we wield them ourselves—not just to resist empire, but to build something better.
This manifesto isn’t a quick fix. It’s a deep exploration of the four elements that have always driven cultural transformation: Myth, Ritual, Symbol, and Community. Master these, and we can transform the Resistance into something far more powerful than mere opposition—something truly deserving of the name Rebel Alliance.
Let’s start at the very beginning. Which, according to both Julie Andrews and common sense, is a very good place to start.
II. The Power of Storytelling
Before the Before
A long time ago—in a galaxy before the written word—humans discovered one of our most powerful technologies: storytelling. Our evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals, might have been physically stronger, but their world ended where their personal acquaintance did.
We, Homo sapiens, were different. As Yuval Noah Harari argues in Sapiens, we evolved the unprecedented ability to create and believe in shared fictions—tales of gods, spirits, and collective destinies. These myths were enacted through rituals and expressed through symbols, enabling vast groups of strangers to trust one another, coordinate, and thrive. Fifteen Neanderthals could never stand against a hundred Sapiens united by a shared myth.
From that leap in consciousness arose every culture, religion, government, and social movement. Even today, as Harari notes, we live by shared fictions: money, corporations, and laws have no intrinsic reality; they’re stories we collectively agree to believe. Yet they shape our world with the permanence of gravity. Like the Force in Star Wars, shared myths can unite us or rip us apart, depending on how they’re wielded.
It’s hard to overstate how mind-blowing—and liberating—this concept is. Just as physical matter is composed of quarks and atoms, human civilization is woven from stories. Change those stories, and you alter our world at a foundational level—akin to splitting the atom on a civilizational scale. This reveals the profound malleability of social structures and unlocks endless possibilities for transformation.
Put simply, if the world isn’t working, we can change it—by changing the stories that shape it. Stories are powerful tools, capable of building a better future or deepening the crises we face. When we imagine better stories—rooted in justice, dignity, and hope—we can transform what once seemed impossible into something inevitable.
However, wielding the Force of storytelling isn’t simple, and it has always taken time. For tens of thousands of years, stories traveled slowly—around campfires, within small tribes, or passed through generations. Fast-forward through millennia, and we meet pivotal innovations like the written word, the printing press, and eventually the telegraph, radio, film, and television. By the twentieth century, time and space had suddenly collapsed, and the same story could reach millions—billions—almost instantly.
But amplification alone can’t create myths that resonate across cultures and eras. That kind of magic demands a deep understanding of storytelling’s architecture. Which stories fade? Which become timeless myths? What patterns connect them?
Enter mythologist Joseph Campbell—a modern Prometheus who handed contemporary storytellers a gift as transformative as fire: a framework for unlocking the deepest recesses of the human psyche.
A New Hope for Magic
The year was 1977, and the film was Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope. This movie revolutionized the modern blockbuster, blending Westerns, war movies, serial adventures, pulp sci-fi, epic fantasy, and more. Yet beneath those tropes lay something deeper.
Desperate to replicate the film’s unprecedented success, Hollywood executives yearned to understand its secret. Why did this particular hero story resonate so profoundly—capturing the world’s imagination and transforming popular culture forever?
The answer emerged when filmmaker George Lucas revealed his secret weapon: the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell.
Building on Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious—populated by universal archetypes—Campbell introduced a revolutionary idea: human history is steeped in hero stories following one universal pattern, the monomyth, the stages of which he called The Hero’s Journey. These mythic beats mirror our collective hopes, fears, and aspirations, speaking directly to the core of the human mind.
For years, Campbell’s insights were confined to academic and literary circles. Then Lucas’s public acknowledgment of Campbell’s influence launched Hollywood into a quest to decode the formula. Enter Christopher Vogler. In 1985, as a story analyst at Disney, Vogler brilliantly distilled Campbell’s ideas into a concise memo, A Practical Guide to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, providing a map to the heart of human storytelling.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
To simplify it further:
The Ordinary World: The hero’s everyday life, where they yearn for something more—like Dorothy dreaming of a land “somewhere over the rainbow” or Luke Skywalker gazing at Tatooine’s twin suns.
The Call to Adventure: The hero is summoned to a quest far beyond imagination but initially resists, doubting their abilities.
Crossing the Threshold: The hero steps into an extraordinary world that mirrors both external challenges and inner depths.
Tests, Allies, and Enemies: Mentors appear, alliances form, and life-altering trials loom.
Death and Rebirth: A profound transformation, often symbolized by literal or metaphorical death and rebirth.
The Return Home: Returning with hard-earned wisdom to share, the hero forever changes their ordinary world.
Vogler’s memo was a revelation. For the first time, storytellers had a conscious framework for one of humanity’s oldest art forms. Hollywood eagerly embraced it—shaping blockbusters, TV shows, and even commercials. Think of ad campaigns from the 1990s like Apple’s Think Different or Nike’s Just Do It, both of which echo these timeless beats. Years later, showrunner Dan Harmon refined these principles into his now-famous Story Circle, underscoring their enduring influence.
Vogler’s work revolutionized Hollywood and revealed something profound: myth isn’t merely entertainment—it’s humanity’s operating system. And now, the source code was available to all.
But while Hollywood eagerly embraced the Hero’s Journey, much of Washington, D.C. remained stubbornly blind. Nonprofits, foundations, and political campaigns prided themselves on logos over mythos—dismissing popular culture as frivolous or unserious.
It was as if Joseph Campbell had handed humanity a skeleton key to the deepest chambers of the heart, only for our so-called leaders to glance at it, shrug, and toss it into the abyss. At least our Neanderthal cousins had the excuse of being, well, Neanderthals; many in D.C. simply lacked the imagination—or courage—to leave their Muggle-minded caves.
This neglect of storytelling created a dangerous vacuum, a space where disconnection, confusion, and division thrive. Without compelling myths, our collective imagination withers, leaving us vulnerable to the siren songs of opportunistic demagogues. Alarmed by this, I developed an approach called cultural acupuncture: just as traditional acupuncture maps the body’s meridians to restore health, cultural acupuncture identifies society’s narrative currents and redirects them for healing.
Two decades ago, I put this idea into practice by co-founding the Harry Potter Alliance (later known as Fandom Forward). We formed our own Dumbledore’s Army, mobilizing over a million fans into first-time activists, establishing hundreds of chapters in 30+ countries, and even pushing Warner Bros. to ethically source Harry Potter chocolate. Regardless of its author’s horrifying evolution, the Harry Potter series didn’t just inspire fans to act; it gave them a framework for imagining a better world—and we offered the structure to fight for it. That’s what fills me with the most pride: we proved that ultimately,
Fantasy is not an escape from our world but an invitation to go deeper into it.
Yet for all our success—and that of so many other pop culture organizers over the last two decades—three broader dilemmas still outflank us:
The Absence of a Shared Deep Narrative.
The Liberal Left lacks a unifying mythology—a core story that binds us in purpose and solidarity. Without it, we stay fragmented and can’t muster lasting cultural or political power.The Great Chasm.
Our material technologies have soared, but our cultural technologies—our stories, rituals, and values—haven’t kept pace. This gap breeds disorientation, alienation, and despair.The Narrative Vacuum.
By failing to harness mythic storytelling, we’ve left the field wide open for fascist ideologues armed with social media and a knack for weaponizing our own cultural symbols.
Compounding these dilemmas is a broader crisis of societal betrayals—endless wars, economic collapse, overdose epidemics—all of which act like accelerants. Together, they form a vicious cycle: a society adrift from its own story becomes easy prey for those who thrive on division. Enter the Global Far Right.
The Empire Strikes Back
In 2019, struggling to recognize my country after Trump’s ascension, I found myself in Europe, helping to counter a Far Right resurgence ahead of the EU elections. I traveled between Spain, Belgium, and Germany, working to keep mini-Trumps from overtaking the European Union.
It was my first time in Berlin. As a Jew, I felt history’s weight, knowing this city once conceived the Holocaust. Sometimes, I had to fight off waves of panic, but I was moved by how far Germany had gone to confront its shameful past. Even so, the people I spoke with saw a real threat in the rise of AfD and other white nationalist movements spreading across Europe. That’s when I learned something even more disturbing: American white nationalists were flooding European cyberspace, using sophisticated digital tactics to recruit with alarming efficacy.
And it wasn’t just standard propaganda; these digital stormtroopers were weaponizing pop culture. Fight Club, a film that masterfully critiques toxic masculinity, was twisted into a celebration of it. The Matrix, an allegory for transgender awakening, anti-capitalist rebellion, and spiritual enlightenment, became a handbook for white supremacy and misogyny.
This led to two chilling realizations:
1. The same European nations that birthed fascism were seeing its resurgence, fueled in part by the United States—the very nation that once led its defeat.
2. By effectively leveraging pop culture, the Far Right accomplished with stories what I had set out to do—only far better than I ever had.
That second revelation hit me like a gut punch. In midlife, I began questioning everything: Had my decades of campaigns, organizing, and activism really mattered against this rising tide? Dark voices told me I’d wasted my life: you should have pursued you original wish to be an actor and screenwriter. Why did you throw away what could have been a more fulfilling career, at least something that mattered?!
I’d love to say those doubts no longer haunt me, but they do—and Trump’s re-election has only made them flare up again.
Yet I also remind myself that this exhaustion and demoralization is precisely what the Far Right wants. When we feel powerless, we stop fighting, and they win by default. But in an age of accelerating change, I’m convinced that cultural acupuncture—this ancient-yet-modern art of redirecting our shared narratives—isn’t optional; it’s a survival technology. And the hope is that along the way, we can develop the vision to finally bridge the Great Chasm between our material and cultural technologies, allowing us to give birth to a world grounded in justice, equity, and shared humanity.
Ultimately, this battle extends far beyond the next election. It’s a battle for the shared stories that will define our future.
V. Cultural Acupuncture Explained
The Four Pillars of Cultural Acupuncture (MRSC)
At its core, cultural acupuncture (or cultural technology) relies on four components that work together to spark change. I often refer to them collectively as MRSC: Myths, Rituals, Symbols, and Community.
For millennia, these tools have helped us make sense of the world, galvanize action, and build shared meaning. To counter the Far Right’s narrative assault, we must embrace these pillars as wholeheartedly as Hollywood producers embraced Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey:
Myths (M)
Myths are the epic stories that give meaning to our struggles. They aren’t limited to fantasies or fairy tales; they’re the deep narratives that shape who we are and what we fight for. Whether it’s the Rebel Alliance battling the Galactic Empire in Star Wars or the abolitionists’ pursuit of genuine liberty, a mythic framework offers us a collective identity and purpose.
Reclaiming our story isn’t just about resisting oppression—it’s about envisioning and building a better future. Myths give us the “why” behind our actions. Without them, movements risk becoming reactive rather than truly visionary.
Rituals (R)
Rituals bring myths to life. Think of major religious ceremonies, civic traditions like voting, or cultural gatherings like Pride parades. On the Far Right, Trump rallies blend entertainment with loyalty pledges, forging intense communal bonds that make participants feel part of something greater.
We need our own powerful rituals—moments that regularly remind us of who we are and why we fight. Rituals transform belief into action, uniting people in a shared purpose.
Symbols (S)
Symbols give myths and rituals a tangible form—like the rainbow flag for LGBTQ+ rights or the raised fist of anti-oppression struggles. In our hyper-visual age, symbols cut through language barriers.
The MAGA hat, while steeped in authoritarian nostalgia, is undeniably potent for Trump supporters. We need symbols that unify us in hope and rebellion. A single, resonant image can have more impact than a thousand speeches, creating a rallying point for action and identity.
Community (C)
None of the above matters without community. Myths, rituals, and symbols only flourish if they’re shared, embodied, and sustained by real relationships. True community is more than social media follows—it’s built on a shared belief in the overarching myth, deep mutual support, and tangible connections.
The Far Right mobilizes media companies, dark money, online communities, and fundamentalist congregations to reinforce its agenda. We must build communities equally strong in their sense of belonging—but grounded in empathy, justice, and solidarity.
Ultimately, it’s community that breathes life into our myths, rituals, and symbols, allowing them to take root and thrive.
Why It Matters
Joseph Campbell handed storytellers a skeleton key for consciously crafting narratives that invite audiences into the universal Hero’s Journey. To adapt that framework for the Resistance—or any social movement—we must apply the MRSC model of cultural acupuncture. After all, history’s most transformative religions, political campaigns, marketing strategies, and even fandoms demonstrate how Myth, Ritual, Symbol, and Community function as a direct line to the human heart.
But how do we put this model into practice? By composing a compelling, epic mythology—one rooted in the needs of real people here and now, honoring our shared past, and envisioning a brighter tomorrow. This mythology must run deeper than poll-tested messaging. It must speak the truth about our crises, meet people in their collective anxieties and heartbreaks with genuine curiosity and empathy, and dare us to aspire toward the extraordinary—something we can achieve only by acting as heroes, together.
Right now, the four horsemen of our era—climate collapse, pestilence, nuclear war, and the AI revolution—collide with the rise of demagogues like Donald Trump, propelling our species’ metanarrative toward a dangerous climax. We must transform our worldview, recognizing that we stand at the brink of an epic battle that is often quite advanced in the Hero’s Journey. Yet many social organizers haven’t even seriously considered how to invite people into the second stage of that Journey: the Call to Adventure.
This myth cannot exist in the abstract. It must be enacted through ritual, expressed through symbol, and embodied through community. We must begin scaling up cultural acupuncture immediately—there’s no more time to think small. That failure of the imagination ends here.
And so, rebuilding the story of the Resistance starts now by transforming it into something greater.
VI. Toward the American Rebel Alliance
Applying the Four Pillars to Spark a Movement
So, how do we actually apply these four MRSC pillars to launch a new social movement? Think of this as an invitation, not a decree. I don’t have many answers. But often, I find that questions — of which I have a great deal — are more powerful than answers. That’s why I could use your insights. Let’s build this together!
Why Rebellion Matters More Than Resistance (Myth)
While noble and necessary, resistance keeps us reacting to crises, trapping us in cycles of exhaustion. Rebellion offers something bigger: a bold vision for a better future.
Like the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars, rebellion unites us not just against empire but for a shared dream of freedom, solidarity, and hope. The fact that Peter Thiel tries to appropriate this symbol proves its power—and underscores why we need to reclaim it.
A Rebel Alliance unites a coalition to shift deep narratives that include:
Interdependence Over Individualism
We’re not just defending life—we are life defending itself.Creation Over Preservation
This is bigger than retrieving what’s lost; it’s about building what’s never been fully realized.Solidarity Over Isolation
No one fights an empire alone. We weave diverse movements into collective power, ensuring fairness and justice for all.
May the Fourth Be With Us (Ritual)
Just as the Women’s March inaugurated the Resistance, May 4th—Star Wars Day—can inaugurate the Rebel Alliance.
The timing is ideal: Trump’s first 100 days end right before May 4th—a traditional milestone for judging a presidency. While pundits debate his policies and parrot his propaganda, we’ll offer something far more profound: the birth of a new story.
On May 4th, we’ll march. We’ll gather in parks, community centers, online spaces, and the halls of power to declare the rise of the Rebel Alliance.
Three Fingers Raised (Symbol)
Every transformative movement needs a symbol that cuts through language—a single gesture that travels virally and tells an entire story. For the American Rebel Alliance, that symbol is the three-finger salute.
An Elegant Response to Division
In The Hunger Games, the Capitol used reality TV tactics to sow division and consolidate control.
Trump and Musk thrive on the same divide-and-conquer playbook as these villains.
Just as people rebel in The Hunger Games with the three-finger salute as the symbol of their rebellion, this symbolic gesture exposes the Trump-Musk attempts to distract and divide.
A Universal Gesture of Defiance
Born as a fictional resistance symbol, the three-finger salute has since become a global emblem of democracy and justice. In 2014, I led the Odds In Our Favor campaign, rallying workers at Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, appearing in the halls of the Senate, and inspiring powerful street art.
Meanwhile, the salute has evolved into something far more profound: a universal sign for pro-democracy protests worldwide—most notably in Thailand and Myanmar—where activists, often risking their lives, raise three fingers in defiance of authoritarian regimes.
A Digital Symbol for the 21st Century
In a social media world, simplicity equals power. A single selfie with three fingers raised conveys defiance, solidarity, and hope—while calling out Trump and Musk’s manipulative tactics in real-time.
A Call to Revolutionary Love
This salute signifies more than resistance; it’s a declaration of solidarity, justice, and love for one another and for the Earth we share. By adopting it, we align ourselves with global anti-authoritarian movements and deepen the meaning of our fight for democracy and dignity.
Why It’s Okay to Merge Myths
Myth-making has always been about blending symbols and stories. The Far Right does it constantly: Peter Thiel and Bari Weiss compare progressives to Star Wars stormtroopers, Star Trek’s Borg, and the villains of The Hunger Games—all in one breath.
The truth is that pop culture is a universal language, and weaving these references can forge real cohesion. It’s worked throughout history, and even in modern blockbusters like The Avengers, where different mythologies combine to unite people in a shared struggle.
Building the Alliance (Community)
Let’s be honest: while moving from “Resistance” to “American Rebel Alliance” is more than a simple rebrand—it is that, too. Yes, it’s a shift in scope and vision, a bold new story that unites us around something bigger than opposition. But at its heart, it would still be the same community, now galvanized by the urgency of this moment and the promise of a thriving future.
Ultimately, this movement is not only for anyone who sees through Trump’s theatrics but who recognizes in them a call to build a just, thriving world. His spectacle pits struggling families against each other while billionaires pocket ever-larger tax breaks. We’re done with that. “It’s the economic exploitation aimed at all of us, stupid.” Let’s ensure every family—indeed, our broader American family—truly prospers.
Imagine teachers’ unions celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week as May 4th arrives. Picture sanctuary cities, grassroots organizers, Star Wars fans, and every community reeling from Trump’s fascist policies—all standing together and declaring that they’re ready to rebel. (And yes, we’ll connect this to Midterm 2026 strategies, but we’d also play the long game—one centered on people and the planet).
An Invitation to Collaborate
I’ll be honest: I don’t have a fully fleshed-out plan, but I’m convinced this framework is powerful—and we should seize it. I need your insights, your passion, and your critical eye to refine these steps and mobilize the communities that will bring them to life.
So if you are ready to help shape a movement that reclaims our stories and builds a brighter future, we’re hosting an informal group chat to brainstorm ideas, gather feedback, and dream big together. Click here to join our WhatsApp group and don’t forget to subscribe to this newsletter for regular updates and action opportunities!
VII. A New Chapter in an Ancient Story
As we draw to a close, I want to bring this home in a way that stirs the sacred nature of what is at stake and the endless possibility of what lies ahead. For me, that means moving from the head to the heart as I write. Here goes.
In times of darkness, humans have always turned to stories—not for escape, but for guidance. For hope. For reminders of who we are and who we might yet become.
When I realized the Far Right was doing what I set out to do—mobilizing fandoms and wielding cultural narratives—but doing it better, I felt defeated. I’d spent years building movements that turned stories into action, yet there they were, twisting those same strategies to spread division and hate. It was a gut punch, a moment of doubt that made me question whether this fight could ever be won.
But then I remembered: stories do not belong to them. This realization led me to a deeper meditation on stories—who they truly belong to and what is ultimately at stake.
Forgive me for my change in tone, but I must shift to something more akin to a sermon as these closing thoughts demand. Stories are humanity’s inheritance, passed down through the ages to inspire, connect, and transform. They are not the property of billionaires or demagogues, no matter how skillfully they try to claim them. Stories belong to the collective heartbeat of humanity. They nail our hearts to the cross of human struggle—yet they also show us how to rise again. They are vessels of blood and tears, etched with the heartbreak of a world too often faltering, yet stitched with threads of defiance and hope—moments when we refuse to surrender, when the human spirit refuses to be extinguished.
Stories are songs of resilience. They contain the milkmaid’s song as she fed an infant in the shadow of war, the whispered prayers of exiled wanderers clutching remnants of a homeland, and psalms—desperate cries and love letters to a world yet to come—penned beneath an unrelenting sky. They are inked into a diary by a young girl hiding from tyranny, her words a beacon of humanity even as her life was extinguished alongside her sister’s. They are the quiet courage of all those who have ever dreamt of a world they may never see.
Stories remind us that we are never truly alone. They call us to reach not just within ourselves but toward each other, expanding our lives, our dreams, and our struggles into something stronger than the sum of their parts. They are a shared heartbeat, a collective reaching for a future where our individual narratives weave a tapestry of courage, solidarity, and grace.
They give us not only a mirror of ourselves but also a golden compass of what we might become—together.
Yet our mythic lore runs deeper still. It sings through ancient psalms that cry out to God, and through the laughter of holy fools who find the divine in cracked jokes and broken bread. It meanders through the streets of Springfield, where townspeople clash and unite in absurdity, offering their own offbeat wisdom. It threads through fairy tales of children wandering dark forests on their way to Grandma’s house, where a cunning wolf awaits—reminding us to stay alert, to stay brave. And it flows through the spandex and capes of modern superheroes, who wrestle with the same age-old questions of power and purpose.
When we connect to this endless past and infinite future and see it converge in the here and now, we realize that we are part of a story far greater than ourselves—maybe even part of a story taking place in the mind of a greater being, a living consciousness in which we each play our roles. And in this story, the villains will not prevail. For though they wield great force and power, ours is a power that cannot be owned. It rises from the Soul of the Earth and the Heart of Humanity.
And in this moment of reckoning, we remember the Force itself. As Master Yoda says, “My ally is the Force—and a powerful ally it is.” Flowing through every living thing and across thunder and fire, wind and water, it binds the galaxy together—no billionaire can claim it, no tyrant can bend it to their will. It is the vitality that animates each act of courage, each spark of defiance, across generations, and across worlds.
Yet our struggle is not limited to politics as usual. The terrifying fires of Los Angeles are a warning that the crisis extends far beyond democracy; the very future of our planet hangs in the balance. If the horrifying glimmers of the Sixth Mass Extinction are any indication, we must confront the chilling truth: the villains profit from the devastation. They are not “pro-life.” They have put Life itself on the chopping block—and with it, every story we hold dear.
That vast tapestry of stories—past, present, and future—has been tossed onto the altar of their cynical whims to serve the avarice of a handful of their friends, each one a demented fool. They see the world as columns on a balance sheet, mistaking greed for power and cruelty for strength. But stories—real stories—thrive in the unquantifiable spaces they cannot reach. They grow in the wild spirit of humanity, in the courage of those who dream of a better world.
Stories are not assets to be owned; they are the heartbeat of life itself. And this heartbeat cannot be silenced by vaults of gold or empires of code. We refuse to let them kill our story. Nor will we allow them to steal it. Because in this story, we are the heroes. And as heroes, we will rebel against their empire.
As Trump’s inauguration looms, let us remember that on May 4th, as Trump marks his first 100 days in power, we will raise our three-finger salute to the sky, light our sabers in the darkness, and rise as the American Rebel Alliance. We honor the Resistance for keeping hope alive and for holding the line when everything was most at risk. Now, we become something greater.
And like every great story, it begins with a choice: to answer the call to adventure, to step beyond comfort, to believe another world is possible.
Together, we can plant seeds for something extraordinary—a realm of shared dignity, ecological harmony, and true democracy. A world where we don’t merely protect Earth but recognize that we are Earth defending itself. A world where our differences become strengths rather than fault lines. And love, innocence, and curiosity prevail.
Let them cling to their empire of fear and division.
We choose hope.
We choose creation.
We choose rebellion.
Welcome to the Alliance.
Special thanks to Micah Sifry for his invaluable insights and guidance in developing earlier iterations of this piece.
It's a breath of fresh air to have somebody reclaim Joseph Campbell's legacy from the bastardized forms that orbit JP, Thiel, and other reactionary figures.
I realized a while ago that much of life is just storytelling, we are all making this shit up as we go along. Happy I stumbled upon this post, I agree with every word of it. The right are winning because they tell a unified story of good vs evil and never waver from it. Its bullshit, but their consistency and repetition sways people over time all the same. You tell the lie often enough and weak minded people will start to believe it. They bought up all the media to ensure news and reality is always framed on their terms as well, further distorting peoples perceptions.