Divided, We Always Fall: How the Elites Control Us and How We Can Fight Back

"In the 16th century, [Niccolò] Machiavelli - in an attempt to get back in the good graces of the powerful - wrote a slim volume called The Prince. In that book he showed the powers that be how to control the people. That book is a statement: separate and rule, divide and conquer. That's five hundred years ago and it still works, because we allow ourselves to be lead around with holes through our noses."

—Maya Angelou

Dividing a group of people in order to make them weaker and easier to control is a strategy used in politics, governments, and even interpersonal relationships worldwide. What has happened to the United States over the last twenty years or so isn't an accident. The Elites (both left and right wing) have been using all of the tools they have at their disposal to assure that we stay weak, splintered, and easy to herd. It is white against black, religious against secular, straight against LGBTQ, trans against feminist, working class against middle class, US-born against immigrants, and on and on.

How it Happened

In our capitalist world, the rich and powerful will do whatever it takes to keep that money and power. Their biggest threat? A united, conscious majority that refuses to be controlled. However, in our age of social media, AI and algorithms, sowing discord among the masses is easier than ever.

Mission: Division

The United States government and the governments of other countries have been secretly waging war on unifying movements for decades (longer for older countries). The largest and most far-reaching operation (that has been exposed) is COINTELPRO, a covert program in which several illegal (and often bloody) operations were carried out by the FBI from the 1950s to the 1970s against groups and individuals that they deemed as "subversive". However, when you look at the targets, from Martin Luther King to The Black Panthers and the Young Patriots(a group of poor white Southerners that joined forces with the black panthers), it becomes clear that the government wasn't only threatened by subversive targets, but by people and groups that were encouraging unity instead of division. They infiltrated the groups, incited violence, spread disinformation, and used psychological tactics to splinter the groups and eventually eliminate the threat. These tactics are still happening today, but the tools are way more advanced and harder to spot.

The 'rithms gonna getcha

Algorithms are the blood running through the veins of the social media machine. They are designed to increase engagement, which can be any way of interacting with content, from likes and clicks to shares and views. What multiple high-profile studies have found is that social media content that inspires hate, fear, or anger has the highest level of engagement. Many people think that algorithms exist to serve the user, but again, the key word here is engagement. When the algorithms find out what you like, they show you more of the same, so you wind up in an echo chamber where it seems like everyone agrees with you.

Social media, when it first emerged, was about connecting with people, but now, look at how you participate in it. See how great it makes you feel when a witty (but negative) comment or post you make gets likes or shares. Check your Reddit, where everyone is trying to outdo everyone else in being the most upvoted funny asshole. Log into TikTok, where Chinese surveillance teams watch you interact with petty, hateful and time-wasting videos. Watch your heart speed up as Elon Musk counts his billions while you argue on X. Enjoy how it feels when it seems that everyone in the world agrees with you on BlueSky or Truth Social. The way we live now isn't a way to thrive: it is a way to a world run by and designed for rich elites—and it is already happening. In fact, the transformation is accelerating. To keep our humanity, to rediscover the real power of community, we must act now.

What We Can Do

Finding Out What We Have in Common

I touched on this a bit in "Straight White People: You are Not Safe", but it deserves to be explored more. We focus so much on what is different about the other person/the other group of people, that we rarely stop to see what our commonalities are. Maybe you are an upper-middle class academic and they are working class and work in fast food. There are probably more similarities than either of you could imagine. Music, movies, childhood experiences, hobbies... location, even. Don't just assume that you know all about strangers because of what they look like, the color of their skin, or their political leanings.

Letting Money Talk and Bullshit Walk

We all have power in our wallets, no matter how thick or thin our wallets are. Where, when, and how we spend our money matters, and diverting that flow of cash away from the bullshit power elites and towards our local communities creates an undeniable power shift. If everyone stopped shopping on Amazon and instead gave their money to local or independent businesses, Jeff Bezos would lose. If we shopped at locally owned or indie grocery stores, the huge grocery monopolies like Kroger would cease to exist. But it can't just be a few people, and it can't be temporary. If you have decided to do this, talk to your friends and family about it. Explain why it is so important. Post that on social media instead of the other crap. Switch from banks to credit unions. Stop spending money on useless or materialistic things so you can work on getting out of debt.

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need...The things you own, end up owning you." — Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Live Life Awake

Everything on our smart phones is there is distract us. We use social media for connection, but end up feeling lonely and angry. We engage in activities often just so we can post about it online. This is not a way to live. By always having our heads in our phones, we are voluntarily sleeping through life. The escape is our heroin. We must learn to be okay with the weirdness of trying to live most of our life offline, without the crutch of technology, and we need to do it now.

The powers that be are creating a police state, and have ever-evolving AI, advanced surveillance and data capturing systems, and money to burn. It is time to wake up and live.