No Truce With the 1%: America’s Rebuild Must Be for the Rest of Us

The thing we all need to accept is that the post-Trump period—whenever it comes—will not and cannot be a project of “national unity.” The America that follows won’t be healed by holding hands with the same forces that profited from tearing it apart. The last thing we should do is invite the arsonists to help rebuild the house.

This will have to be a project of renewal for the 99%—a political, economic, and moral reconstruction led by the overwhelming majority of Americans whose lives have been exploited, ignored, and diminished by a system built for the few.

History gives us the roadmap. After the Civil War, Reconstruction wasn’t about meeting halfway with the slavocracy—it was about replacing it. During the Great Depression, the New Deal wasn’t about balancing the needs of working people with the whims of Wall Street—it was about empowering the working class to save the country from economic collapse. In both cases, real change came from choosing a side: the side of the people against the entrenched power of the elite.

Today, the challenge is no less urgent. Since January 2025, Trump and the billionaire class have accelerated the looting of our economy, dismantled public protections, and turned public office into a private profit center. These are not misunderstandings. They are deliberate choices—choices that benefit a tiny slice of the population while leaving the rest of us more vulnerable, more precarious, and more divided.

The temptation will be to say: Now that it’s over, let’s all come together. That’s the language of surrender. Unity with those who caused the destruction is not reconciliation—it’s permission for them to do it again.

What we need instead is a movement of the 99% that demands the rebuilding of our economy, our democracy, and our shared future on entirely new terms—terms written by and for working people, not corporate boardrooms.

This will mean confrontation. It will mean ending the privilege pipelines, breaking the chokehold of big money over our politics, and rewriting the rules so that they serve the many, not the few. That’s not partisanship—it’s survival.

The wealthy elite have had their turn running America, and they’ve driven it into the ground. The post-Trump era must be led by those who have paid the price for that failure—not those who profited from it.

Our choice is clear: unity with the people, or unity with the powerful. We can’t have both.