America loves a good story about itself. Freedom, liberty, rebellion, all sung in a major key and wrapped in a flag. They turned revolution into a genre, democracy into a Broadway soundtrack, and tyranny into something that only happens somewhere else.

For years, they sang along to Hamilton like it was gospel. They memorized the verses, quoted the lines, cosplayed on TikTok, cried over the Founding Fathers recast as rappers, a nation rediscovering its roots through rhyme. “Rise up!” they cheered, fists raised in theaters that cost more than a week’s rent. “History has its eyes on you!” they shouted, and then went home to post about how democracy works best when everyone just calms down.

They turned a revolution into karaoke.

What could have been a cultural reawakening became merch, mugs, magnets, tote bags. They treated it like nostalgia porn, not civic scripture. Hamilton made them feel brave for three minutes at a time, but not brave enough to stand up when their leaders turned liberty into a punchline.

And here we are, a government once founded on the act of defying tyranny now bending to a tyrant who rules by resentment and applause. He doesn’t wear a crown; he wears grievance. He doesn’t demand fealty through divine right; he earns it through fear. He’s convinced millions that oppression looks like fairness and equality looks like persecution, the oldest trick in the imperial playbook.

The same Americans who quote “Not throwing away my shot” on Instagram are now throwing away their rights, willingly, comfortably, with flag emojis. The same nation that fetishizes freedom lets it erode inch by inch, as long as someone else pays the price: immigrants, queer people, the press, the poor, teachers, women. Anyone whose existence complicates the myth of greatness.

But at least something is happening. Seeds have been sown and they’ve grown. Not everyone’s asleep.

There are pockets of resistance, people who still remember what courage feels like. Activists, journalists, students, veterans, mothers, workers, ordinary Americans trying to shake a system that’s calcified around comfort and cowardice. You can feel them humming under the surface, restless, angry, aware that something is deeply broken. They want to rise. They just don’t know what will make them finally stand.

Maybe they’re waiting for a spark. Maybe for a face, a name, a moment that makes rebellion feel possible again. But revolutions don’t schedule themselves, and waiting is a luxury the oppressed can’t afford.

Instead, everyone’s sitting around pretending democracy will course-correct, that the institutions will hold, that the next election will fix it, that accountability will come “through the proper channels.” Meanwhile, those channels are being rerouted, blocked, or bought. The republic’s on fire, and half the country’s still asking for the fire marshal’s permission to panic.

What America needs now isn’t another election cycle. It needs new leaders, ones who aren’t complicit, compliant, or conveniently silent. The revolutionaries of old didn’t wait for permission; they became the permission. They didn’t play by the tyrant’s rules; they rewrote them.

The irony is that the script already exists. They’ve been singing it for years. Hamilton told them exactly what to do: rise up, speak truth, make noise, leave a mark. Instead, they’ve isolated it as entertainment, something to consume, not something to live.

The country that once burned tea over taxes now shrugs as billionaires buy politicians in bulk. The land that preached “no taxation without representation” now lets votes be stripped and districts redrawn beyond recognition. The people who belt “freedom” before every game are fine watching it die, as long as the anthem still plays before kickoff and nobody is taking the knee.

It’s not that America forgot the revolution, it’s that it’s scared of what remembering it would require.

Because to remember is to act. And acting would mean admitting the system no longer works as promised. It would mean standing up to neighbors, bosses, governors, cops, to comfort itself.

They don’t know or don’t realize that this is what’s written in their own Declaration of Independence:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

And if this post somehow gains traction among Americans, I can guess what’s coming: the replies calling it “unfounded,” “uninformed,” or “too simplistic to understand the nuance of American politics.” But there’s nothing nuanced about the erosion of freedom, or the spectacle of cruelty being televised daily. There’s no complexity in racism and fascism when it’s parading down Main Street with a flag and these days they’re not just carrying the Star Spangled Banner, they’re flying the Israeli flag alongside and calling for allegiance to that other country ahead of their own.

Nuance is what people invoke when they’re too scared to pick a side. What’s left now isn’t nuance. It’s clarity. The kind that history forces on you when you’ve waited too long to act. Maybe history really does have its eyes on them. It’s just wondering what the hell they’re waiting for.