Americans’ perpetual consumerism leads to insecurity and then fascism

2025-08-13

One of the problems of America is it’s culture of hyper-consumerism. We’ve come to find ourselves in a culture of never happy because we always want the next thing that we think will fill the void but it never does. It’s a permanent state of wanting more which leads to a permanent state of servitude to our stuff.

The things you own end up owning you. - Tyler Durden, Fight Club

In building lives based on convenience and consumption we built our lives on insecurity and dependence. Or to put it another way, we built our lives on self-subjugation. We cannot live in freedom if we live in constant insecurity and dependance. We cannot live in freedom if we are ever fearful of loss. Not only can we not live in freedom, we cannot defend against facism because that requires risk.

Real, meaningful democracy requires a process of active, daily citizenship. And I’m not talking about voting every 2 or 4 years. Far from it. That’s the bare minimum. No, I mean actual, daily interest and engagement in our neighborhoods, our community, our town, our city. I mean active involvement in the the collective exercise of self management and mutual care. Decades ago, we went in another direction but exploring all that requires far more than the scope of this post.

My specific point is that America allowed itself to be diverted from democracy, choosing instead “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the form of nice houses full of nice stuff and nice cars all paid for by wages always decreasing in value or threatening to decrease. If our thinking is always on the next purchase, a never-ending promise of happiness that never manifests in that shiny new thing, how can we possibly be caring about our community? How can we be engaged in our collective well being?

We can’t. What America of the Past 75 years seems to show is that it’s citizens were not actually interested in even minimal responsibilities. And guess who stepped in to fill the space in our absence. Corporate America, that’s who. Our neglect created a space for capitalism to creep ever inward. The white aristocracy of men have always had control but any bits of progress since the founding needed to be expanded and defended. But we failed to do that because we were too busy with our shiny distractions.

So we find ourselves, after decades of inattention in a nation of people that lie to themselves daily, telling themselves that there’s nothing they can do. We put our heads down and go to work. And as we are led into fascism some of us offer meager protest and I don’t mean to undervalue the effort gone into the protesting of 2025 or the resistance being offered to ICE. All important. But fascists are not interested in elections or the previous norms. Capitalists are happy as long as the profits increase and consumption continues. They will continue removing rights. They will continue to intimidate and remove any sense of personal and community stability, safety and security. Fascism wins if we refuse to fight and fully resist. They depend on our willingness to self-subjugate, to put our heads down, work, obey, and hope for the best so that we might hang on to what we have. They depend on our desire for convenience and comfort.

We have already passed into this new America. They will continue to push and pull to take us further into subjugation. We can go along with that subjugation or we can resist. But if we are to resist it means we have to stop with the pretending that we are powerless. We have to stop pretending that everything will be okay if we just give it time. We have to stop pretending that the next purchase of the shiny thing will make it better. Stop pretending the someone will save us.

A list because we all like lists, right?

Stop buying unneccesary stuff. You don’t need the new shiny Apple product. Put new purchases on indefinite hold. Okay, buy food, yes. But anything else that is not a neccessity? No. Save your money.
Along the same lines, evaluate what is neccesary. If something you’re used to having breaks don’t assume it has to be replaced. It likely wasn’t something you actually needed. Do without. You’ll live. That’s the point of this. We bought a lot of shit we never needed.
Prepare for increasing instability: social, economic, climate, everything. Our future is less stable. Accept that and prepare for it.
Develop family and community resillience as an adaption to a less stable world.
As you’re no longer focused on the next purchase, turn your attention to your neighbors. Spend time with your neighbors. Volunteer in your community. Join a project or start one. Share your knowledge, skills, expertise or interests in a project.
Develop a plan for working less, making less, helping more.
Strategize with your family and neighbors for making ends meet together. Share time, meals, tools, feelings, thoughts, ideas. Learn to work as a team, as a collective.
If and where possible transition to simpler technology that you can control and repair. If your community doesn’t have some sort of shared maker space consider starting one. It can be in one building or several. Turn your garage into a maker space. Imagine a neighborhood where various neighbors shared garage space with one another. Shared tools, resources, expertise.
Support your local library. Volunteer there. If they offer classes, offer to teach one. Help them build as a center of not just learning but mutual aid.
Along with the switch to simpler technology, get a better handle on your computing. Authoritarian regimes, dictatorships, etc do not tolerate dissent. Remember that new truth and act on it. Take control of it. Stop relying and trusting in corporate cloud services. Get all of your data out of those clouds and make it local where it can be private, safe and secure. Take a long, hard look at your mobile devices. Tablets and smart phones should get special scrutiny. Make an effort to learn about and understand how your mobile devices are leaking your data and how this might be used against you. Apps and services should be assumed to be insecure. Question whether you need them in the first place and then take the time to verify that they secure before further use. Encourage others to do the same.
Along the same lines as the above, consider how your security or lack of can affect others. What you do online can cause problems for others. Where and what you post, the services you use, etc may not be private. Your location may not be secure. As you visit people IRL remember that.

That’s just a start. There’s much more than could be added. We can all be doing more to shift our focus in this new reality. Living in under a fascist regime requires it.

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