If A Revolution Comes, It Won’t Look Like 1776
Whether we’re “on the brink of revolution” is a complex question. While there’s growing unrest and dissatisfaction in America, it’s unclear if that will translate into a large-scale revolt. Especially when history shows: revolutions don’t start in the streets. They start at the top.
Revolutions Start With the Elite
Contrary to popular belief, revolutions aren’t born purely from mistreatment or poverty. Political scientist Jack Goldstone argued that real uprisings require elite defection—when those in power decide the regime no longer works for them. Without that fracture, public discontent rarely becomes true upheaval.
Think the American Revolution or the Civil War. It was sparked by enough aspiring elites who were: educated, property-owning men frustrated by a system that no longer served their ambitions. They saw power up close. They saw its flaws. And they decided they could do better by creating their own masses to reach liberty.
Trump’s GOP: Loyal to a Fault
Fast forward to the Trump era, and we might be witnessing something eerily familiar. While Trump still holds strong with his base many of his former allies have turned against him. Figures like Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, John Bolton, Elon Musk and Mark Esper have all publicly broken ranks, calling him “unfit,” “dangerous,” and a “threat to democracy.
And they’ve been treated accordingly. Ousted from the GOP and ostracized by the very base they once helped rally. It echoes the divide of the Revolutionary War, when Loyalists—those who sided with the British Crown—were cast out, persecuted, and in some cases, forced into exile.
Though these sides are on a different side of right, the modern-day “Patriots”—Trump’s most loyal supporters—see themselves as the true defenders of the nation, yet their actions often erode the very foundations America’s original Patriots fought to build. And like the Loyalists of old, those who refuse to fall in line face the consequences—not from an outside enemy, but from within their own camp.
Elite Ambition, Limited Power
Now Democrats, for all their flaws, aren’t caught in the same spiral. Not because they’re better organized—but because they’re not locked in a high-stakes competition for control. They’re not in a revolution, they’re still in a reform cycle.
That doesn’t mean revolution is off the table. The signs are there: elite breakdown, ambition with no outlet, a public ready to follow anyone who offers certainty. And if the next great shift comes, it won’t come from protests in the streets—it’ll come from the backrooms, the boardrooms, and the green rooms, where former insiders now plot their return as outsiders.
The last time America’s elites turned on each other, they declared independence and drafted a Constitution.
This time, it’s unclear whether they’ll re-write anything at all or just burn what’s already there.
