Why Revolutions Start Long Before They Begin

The next post in The Revolution Will Be Televised series

[Please note: My recent documentary feature film, How to Save Democracy, is the precursor for this series, The Revolution Will Be Televised. Learn more about the film and how you and/or your organization can host a screening at the film’s website, https://savingdemocracyfilm.com/]

“The revolution will not be televised,” Gil Scott-Heron warned in 1970. He meant it wouldn’t be brought to you by the networks, sanitized with commercials, or served as a safe spectacle you could consume from your couch.

Fifty years later, he’s both right and wrong. The revolution will be televised — and livestreamed, and clipped for TikTok, and reframed in real time. But that doesn’t mean we’ll recognize it when it begins.

And here’s the truth we have to face: in the United States, we are in urgent need of a nonviolent revolution right now. The threat isn’t distant. At first, it was a slow-motion breakdown of democracy, but no longer is it slow-motion: the potential for systemic collapse is real. If we do nothing, the rupture that comes may not be toward greater freedom — it could cement authoritarian rule for a generation or more to come.

[For the first two essays in this series, go to The Revolution Will Be Televised, and What Kind of System Do We Want?]

Revolutions don’t start when the cameras arrive. They start years before, in places no broadcast ever shows. And if we want this one to be democratic, just, and humane, the work must begin — and deepen — now.

The Illusion of Suddenness

One day, a dictator flees. The next, a statue falls. Crowds flood the streets, news anchors scramble to keep up, and headlines declare “shock uprisings.” As if millions of people woke up one morning, rubbed their eyes, and decided over coffee to change history.

But ask the people who lived it — who stood in the cold, passed leaflets under doors, built networks one whispered conversation at a time — and you’ll hear the same thing: this began years ago. Sometimes decades.

Revolutions are like earthquakes. The rupture is instant, but the pressure has been building invisibly for years. Fault lines shift. Cracks spread slowly. And then, suddenly, the ground moves.

The Myth of the Spark

The “spark” metaphor is seductive because it’s simple. We imagine one dramatic moment — a bread riot in Petrograd, a fruit seller’s protest in Tunisia, a single gunshot in Sarajevo — igniting a chain reaction. Sparks matter. But without the dry kindling of social discontent, organization, and imagination, sparks fizzle in the dark.

History is full of moments that could have been revolutions but weren’t, because the groundwork wasn’t there. A spark in wet wood just hisses.

The Long, Hidden Work

Study the great uprisings of history, and a pattern emerges: long before the first march, the first barricade, the first viral tweet, there’s quiet, patient work.

In Eastern Europe during the 1980s, much of that work happened in living rooms, church basements, and underground printing presses. In Czechoslovakia, dissidents like Václav Havel built “parallel polis” — networks of culture, education, and information that existed outside state control. By the time the Velvet Revolution erupted in 1989, these structures had already built the trust and shared purpose the movement needed.

In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement seemed, to many white Americans in 1963, like it had erupted overnight. But the Montgomery Bus Boycott was the fruit of decades of NAACP legal work, grassroots organizing by Black churches, and citizenship schools in the South. Rosa Parks had been training and organizing for years before her famous refusal to sit in the back of the bus.

In India, the 1942 Quit India movement appeared as a sudden national uprising — but it was built on decades of noncooperation campaigns, local strikes, and Gandhian experiments in village self-rule. These efforts created both the moral authority and the infrastructure for mass resistance.

The “moment” we remember is always preceded by years of invisible preparation.

The Preconditions for Change

So if it’s not just anger that sparks a revolution, what does create the conditions? Across history, three elements appear again and again.

1. The Old Story Collapses

Every system of power rests on a story about itself — a myth of legitimacy. When that story no longer feels real, even to its supporters, it starts to crumble. In late-1980s East Germany, official claims of prosperity became laughable in the face of empty shelves and crumbling infrastructure. The disbelief spread quietly at first, then became a shared truth.

In the U.S., the myth of legitimacy is that it’s a full democracy. The U.S. is not a full democracy—it’s a flawed democracy, as rated by the Democracy Index; it’s also an oligarchy, kleptocracy, and authoritarian state.

2. Networks of Trust Exist

Mass action isn’t just about numbers — it’s about coordination and courage. People are far more willing to take risks when they know exactly who will stand beside them when the police arrive. These networks can be unions, religious communities, activist collectives, or even tight social circles. Without them, fear wins.

3. A New Vision Emerges

Anger topples the old order; vision builds the new one. That vision doesn’t need to be a fully drafted constitution — but it must be enough to keep people from retreating into despair or nostalgia. In Poland, the Solidarity movement didn’t just oppose the regime; it modeled an alternative society through its internal democracy, social services, and cultural life.

Without all three — collapse of the old story, networks of trust, and an emerging vision — movements flare and fade. With them, even a small spark can ignite something unstoppable.

This is why it’s important to know, What Kind of System Do We Want?

False Starts and Failed Uprisings

History is also littered with uprisings that faltered. The 1905 Russian Revolution shook the empire but didn’t topple it — the networks weren’t deep enough, the army didn’t defect, and the new vision was fragmented. In Egypt, the initial victory of the Arab Spring gave way to authoritarian retrenchment, partly because the movement lacked a unified post-victory plan.

Failure teaches that the public moment of uprising is the shortest and most fragile part of the process. What matters most happens before and after.

The U.S. in a Pre-Revolutionary Moment?

On paper, the United States still has elections, courts, and a free press. But look closer, and the fault lines are widening.

Authoritarian drift: One of the two major parties embraces tactics once unthinkable — purging voter rolls, refusing to accept election results, rewriting laws to entrench minority rule. And Donald Trump has smashed through the guardrails of democracy to set himself up to rule as a strongman.

Institutional capture: State legislatures gerrymander themselves into near-permanent control. Courts, particularly the Supreme Court, are stacked with ideologues who rewrite the rules to serve the powerful.

Oligarchic Control: The U.S. is reliving the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, but this time the level of wealth inequality is worse. There are 800 billionaires in the U.S. and they have a combined $6.22 trillion in wealth, which is more than the bottom 50% of all Americans. With their money, billionaires use it to control the levers of power, leading to laws passed and judicial rulings made that favor the wealthiest.

Erasing History: States are banning curriculum and books that teach the dark side of American history: the slavery and genocide of Native Americans. And the Trump administration wants this history to be removed from museums and college curricula also.

Corruption: The level of corruption in the Trump administration, and especially Donald Trump, is mind-boggling. Trump is using the office of the presidency to enrich himself in the manner of any kleptocratic leader. His administration is a powder keg of corruption scandals, influence-peddling, and profiteering from public service.

Political violence as a tool: From the January 6th insurrection to the weaponization of ICE and the National Guard, to armed intimidation at polling places, violence — or the threat of it — is becoming normalized.

Information warfare: Disinformation spreads faster than fact-checkers can respond, eroding the possibility of shared reality.

These aren’t isolated trends — they are textbook signs of democratic backsliding. And the danger isn’t just gradual erosion; it’s that the breaking point, when it comes, could be decisive and irreversible.

The “old story” — that America is a stable, self-correcting democracy — is collapsing for millions. But collapse alone doesn’t guarantee a democratic replacement. It can just as easily pave the way for authoritarian consolidation.

Today’s Kindling

And yet, the other preconditions are visible, too — if you know where to look.

Labor is stirring. From Starbucks baristas to Amazon warehouse workers, employees in some of the toughest industries to organize are challenging corporate giants — and winning. Union drives once considered impossible are now spreading, rebuilding networks of solidarity across industries and regions.

Youth are rejecting the script. From climate strikers to student debt activists, young people refuse the “wait your turn” politics of gradual reform.

Progressive candidates for political office are winning and sharing their vision for a more just America.

New political imaginations are emerging. Indigenous land defenders, cooperative economics advocates, pro-democracy reformers, environmental activists, and others are sketching out visions of a society not built on extraction and exploitation.

This is the quiet stacking of kindling.

The Patience of the Future

The late Gene Sharp, who was considered the world’s leading expert on nonviolent revolution, once said: “You can’t blow up a bridge until you know how to build one.” The same goes for revolutions. The tearing down is brief; the building — of trust, vision, and skill — is slow and stubborn.

Movements that succeed resist the lure of premature confrontation. They focus on readiness: training people, forging alliances, creating parallel systems that can fill the vacuum when the old order collapses.

What to Watch For

If you want to know whether we’re close to a real rupture, don’t just watch for mass protests. Watch for:

• Defections from pillars of power — police, military, media, business elites.

• Ordinary people publicly defying unjust rules without fear.

• Jokes, art, and music that mock authority so effectively they can’t be suppressed.

• Alliances forming between movements that once saw each other as unrelated.

These are the tremors before the quake.

The Real Beginning

So when will the revolution begin?

It already has.

• It began the first time someone told the truth in a place where lies were the currency.

• It began when people and institutions stood up against and resisted the injustices being perpetrated.

• It began when neighbors helped each other without waiting for permission.

• It began when people stopped believing the story that nothing can change.

The rest of the world will only call it a revolution once the statues fall. But by then, the work will have been underway for years — and those who built it will know the true beginning was long before the cameras arrived.

And this is what is going to happen in the U.S. A nonviolent revolution is brewing, one that will change the story from a nation captured by the wealthy and authoritarians to one that allows everyone to flourish.

I’ll be back in two weeks with the next installment, Reclaiming Democracy: The Case for Direct and Participatory Democracy.