Carpe Momentum: The Old Thinking That Got Us Here Won’t Save Us Now

A convicted felon became president, the planet burns, and inequality grows under the watch of Democrats and Republicans alike.

Albert Einstein once observed that we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. It is a reminder that crises, once born, demand a radical shift in perspective if they are to be resolved. Yet in American politics today, nowhere is the refusal to embrace new thinking more evident than in the Democratic Party’s treatment of its own progressive challengers and its paralysis in the face of planetary crisis.

We saw this when the Democratic establishment moved to sabotage Bernie Sanders, a candidate whose movement threatened to upend a comfortable donor-driven status quo. Now, we are witnessing the same old thinking deployed against Zohran Mamdani, who faces smears and cold shoulders from party leadership, including Hakeem Jeffries refusing to endorse him and Kirsten Gillibrand falsely smearing him with Islamophobic attacks for daring to prioritize working people, immigrants, and climate justice. Meanwhile, in the space of a decade, the Republican Party has transformed radically into an authoritarian, grievance-fueled machine openly celebrating cruelty and destruction.

It is important to remind everyone that the state of the country today, the extreme wealth gap, wage inequalities, environmental destruction, climate collapse, and even the fact that a convicted felon and incompetent bungler like Donald Trump could even become president, has been presided over by the two major parties. Both parties, dependent on corporate donations to stay in power, have brought us to this point, and their continued reliance on corporate money ensures they protect the systems of extraction and inequality that created these crises.

As bad as the passage of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is for working people, the true existential threat posed by this administration is its war on the planet and democracy itself. As Heather Cox Richardson emphasizes, this moment reflects a broader authoritarian drift, pushing militarization and fossil fuel expansion while stripping away social protections and democratic norms. The bill slashes Medicaid by nearly $890 billion, cuts SNAP benefits that feed millions of children, and guts renewable energy incentives while boosting fossil fuels. It also allocates $170 billion to expand ICE into the largest federal law enforcement agency in history, surpassing the budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, and US Marshals combined, enabling the construction of border walls and the hiring of 19,000 additional ICE agents.

Trump has made clear his intention to use these expanded powers not only to target migrants but also what he calls the “home growns”, American citizens he deems disloyal, threatening to imprison political opponents in newly expanded detention camps. As Richardson reminds us, the definition of a concentration camp is the mass detention of people without due process, and that is precisely what is being normalized in real time.

Climate justice underpins all other forms of justice, and without it, there can be no racial, economic, gender, or immigrant justice. And yet, faced with these converging crises, the Democratic Party remains stuck in the same cautious, donor-pleasing thinking that created them, attacking their own young, diverse leaders demanding structural change while the Republican Party reshapes institutions to serve authoritarian goals. This is why progressives like me don’t join the Democratic Party. Yes, I donate to some Democratic candidates who are fighting for justice and the climate, but never to the DNC, which remains determined to protect the status quo instead of meeting the moment.

And yet, faced with these converging crises, the Democratic Party remains stuck in the same cautious, donor-pleasing thinking that created them. The Republicans are radicalizing, reshaping institutions to serve their authoritarian agenda, while Democrats attack their own young, diverse leaders demanding structural change and urgent climate action.

Richardson reminds us that the only way out is through. The history of collective action in America, from the Revolution to the New Deal to the civil rights era, shows that local organizing and solidarity are how we reclaim democracy from those who seek to erase it. We need a politics ready to confront the climate crisis, corporate capture, and creeping authoritarianism with urgency and solidarity.

Einstein’s warning was clear: the old thinking that created our crises will never be the thinking that saves us. If we want a livable future, we must embrace new thinking and build collective power from the ground up, refusing to surrender to despair or authoritarian drift. The stakes could not be higher, and the only way out is forward, together. Carpe Momentum!