Robespierre Was Right—And Time Is Running Out

Robespierre once said,

“The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.”

And here we are.

We are living through an era in the United States where ignorance isn’t just thriving—it’s being weaponized. Critical thinking is out. Expertise is suspect. Science is optional. We deny climate change while the seas rise at our feet. We shun proven medicine in favor of conspiracies and quackery because it’s easier to believe in magic than to confront reality. We trade thoughtful discourse for viral soundbites and headlines designed to inflame, not inform.

This is no accident. Robespierre called it plainly: tyranny survives on ignorance. And right now, ignorance is being mass-produced, packaged, and sold as patriotism.

We’ve handed the keys of democracy to billionaires who promise they’re here for the “forgotten man,” only to rob him blind. They smile for the cameras while dismantling the very systems that once protected the vulnerable. Behind the scenes, unelected powerbrokers carve up the government for parts, gutting the institutions they were entrusted to lead—all for personal profit.

And what happens to a nation in this state? Robespierre warned us there, too:

“A nation is truly corrupted when having...lost its character and its liberty, it passes from democracy to aristocracy or to monarchy. That is the decrepitude and death of the body politic.”

Sound familiar? We are watching, in real-time, the erosion of the very ideals that once defined the American experiment. We are transitioning from a government by and for the people to one serving a gilded class of oligarchs and opportunists.

We like to tell ourselves that history moves forward, that progress is inevitable. But history also repeats, and right now, we are circling back to lessons we failed to learn the first time.

So what do we do?

We push back—hard. We dig deeper than the headline. We call out the lies. We confront the manipulation. We demand truth from those who profit off our silence and confusion. We teach our kids—and ourselves—that critical thinking isn’t optional; it’s survival. We support independent journalism. We show up at the polls like our future depends on it, because it absolutely does.

There is no rescue mission coming. No safety net. No second act where someone else steps in to fix this.

It’s us. Or no one.

And if we don’t fight—loudly, relentlessly, together—democracy doesn’t just slip away. It is ripped from us by the very people we refused to stand up to.

History is watching.

The clock is running out.

The choice is simple:

Resist. Or lose everything.