The Juggernaut: Why Power Always Wins… Until It Doesn’t

 

It was 2011, and I was working as a mobile veterinarian in Oregon.

Occupy Wall Street had erupted, and soon Occupy Portland followed.
The excitement was palpable in every liberal-minded home I visited. Conversations buzzed with hope: finally, the time had come.
The great machine of corporate greed was cracking. Change was not only possible—it felt inevitable.

That was then. Now it’s 2025. Corporations are thriving—better than ever.

They have not only survived; they have reshaped the political landscape to suit themselves even more comfortably.
-Agencies once created to protect the environment now step gingerly around polluters.
-"Drill, baby, drill" is back in fashion—cheered on by people who also anoint Elon Musk as their messiah. -Sales of electric vehicles climb steadily in deep-red states; how strange is this world 

So the question becomes unavoidable:

Why?

Why, after so many revolutions, movements, protests, and crises, does power not only endure—but thrive?

The answer is neither simple nor comforting. It is US.

The Architecture of Power

Power does not survive by accident.
It is woven into the deepest parts of our psychology, our institutions, and our fears.

To understand why power persists, we must peel back the surface myths and look at the core drivers:

1. Evolutionary Origins of Power

In the ancient world, status meant survival.

• The powerful ate first.

• The powerful slept safely.

• The powerful chose their mates.

Our craving for recognition, voice, and belonging today is simply a modern echo of those primal survival strategies.
Power persists because, in some deep and ancient way, we still crave what it offers: security, dominance, place.

2. Structural Inertia

Once a hierarchy takes root, it tends to endure.

Institutions, laws, and myths emerge that stabilize inequality:

• Religions anoint kings.

• Schools teach obedience alongside literacy.

• Economies reward accumulation as virtue.

In time, inequality stops feeling like injustice.
It feels like the natural order of things.

Today, the richest 1% owns nearly half of the world’s total wealth — a level of concentration unseen even during medieval empires. (Source: Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2023)

The longer a power structure lasts, the harder it becomes to imagine any other way.

3. Vested Interests

Those who benefit from power do not simply enjoy it passively.
They work—ruthlessly—to maintain it.

• They lobby legislators.

• They flood media channels.

• They fund think tanks.

• They co-opt dissent.

Power evolves. It absorbs opposition. It learns from criticism.
As Orwell observed bitterly, "Revolutions have merely shuffled the furniture."

And they play for the long game:
Since 1980, the bottom 50% of Americans have seen no real income growth—while the top 1% have tripled their wealth. (Source: World Inequality Report 2022)

The system adapts faster than the revolutionaries do.

4. Fear of Chaos

Even the oppressed fear collapse.

Stability—even unjust stability—often feels preferable to the terror of an unknown future.

History shows us again and again:
People will tolerate astonishing cruelty if the alternative seems to be anarchy, hunger, or war.

Power survives not only because it is strong—but because it plays skillfully on our primal fear of chaos.5. Psychological Complicity

Power today doesn’t simply chain the body—it hijacks the mind.

It survives because it teaches people how to think about themselves, about others, about what is and isn't possible.
It doesn't just enforce submission; it manufactures consent.

• Religions have sanctified kings.

• Priests and princes have always been strange bedfellows.

• Empires have renamed conquest as civilization.

• Silicon Valley brands surveillance as service.

Power cloaks itself in virtue or inevitability, depending on what the moment demands.

And those at the top?
They’ve gotten smarter.

No longer do the wealthy blurt out, "Let them eat cake."
After each uprising, each revolt, they learned better.

Today’s powerful class doesn't mock the hungry.
Instead, they offer glittering distractions, emotionally charged slogans, carefully curated outrage.

They have learned to:

• Wrap the public in debates about gun rights and gender identity—

• While quietly defunding education, hollowing out healthcare, and stripping away protections that create real, livable futures.

They have also learned to soften the edge of public outrage:
offering cheap comforts, easier enemies, and mass-produced opinions.

They handed us cheap Coke, Cheetos, and ready-to-swallow opinion pieces—
while slowly starving real journalism, real debate, and real democratic scrutiny.

Since 2004, over 2,100 local newspapers in America have shut down, leaving millions in "news deserts" where critical thought dies and propaganda thrives.
(Source: UNC Hussman School of Journalism)

The machine of power no longer needs overt violence to maintain control.
It simply needs sedation—and distraction—deep enough to keep most people too numbed, too tired, or too divided to resist.

Echoes from History

Revolutions flare.
New systems rise.

And still:

• The Russian Tsars fall—only to be replaced by Stalins.

• The Chinese Emperors collapse—only to see new centralized authorities emerge.

• Occupy Wall Street captures outrage—yet leaves Wall Street's dominance untouched.

New faces, new flags. Same pyramids.

But Even the Juggernaut Is Not Immortal

No system, no matter how monolithic, is eternal.

Even as power appears invincible, it quietly plants the seeds of its own undoing.

Contradictions accumulate.
Rigidities ossify.
Dignity stirs where despair once lay.

The structure of power is a juggernaut—but even juggernauts eventually encounter cracks.

And those cracks—those small, almost invisible beginnings—are where we turn next.

I’d genuinely welcome your thoughts — whether you agree or disagree. But if you feel like sharing, I’m especially interested in your personal reflections… how you navigate these questions, if they matter to you. And if this resonates, feel free to share it with others who think or wonder along similar lines.