Author’s Note
Fair warning: this one’s long.
I’ve been working on it since June. It was going to be part of a book…still may be…and I kept telling myself it needed another pass before anybody saw it.
Then I looked at the calendar.
November is close. And the closer it gets…the more I hear people talking like everything comes down to one Tuesday.
It doesn’t. It never has.
That’s what this piece is about. Not this election. What comes after it…and after the one after that.
So I’m publishing it the way it sits. Unpolished in places. Longer than anything I’ve sent you.
If you only have five minutes…skip to the three clocks near the end. That’s the part I’d want you to have.
But…if you’ve got the time…read the whole thing. I think it’s the most useful thing I’ve written this year.
-Jack
Why the Powerful Will Always Seek to Control the Less Powerful
And why understanding that uncomfortable truth changes what we should do about it
The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #1,009: Wednesday, August 26th, 2026
There is a question I keep coming back to.
And…the longer I study what is happening in America…the more important I think the question becomes.
Why is enough never enough?
Why does the billionaire need another billion?
Why does someone with more money than his grandchildren could possibly spend… need another tax advantage?
Why does the corporation posting record profits…still fight workers over wages?
Why does the politician who has already reached the most powerful office in the country…become obsessed with controlling the people and institutions capable of restraining him?
Why do enormously powerful people so often seem to want more?
More money.
More access.
More influence.
More immunity.
More control.
I think we frequently answer this question incorrectly.
We say:
Greed.
Sometimes it certainly is.
We say:
Narcissism.
Sometimes that’s involved too.
We say:
Corruption.
Plenty of that around.
But those explanations aren’t big enough.
Because this pattern existed before Donald Trump.
Before Elon Musk.
Before modern billionaires.
Before corporations.
Before capitalism.
Before the United States.
Go back far enough…and you’ll find kings doing it.
Emperors doing it.
Aristocrats doing it.
Landowners doing it.
Religious authorities doing it.
Colonial powers doing it.
Industrialists doing it.
Political machines doing it.
Dictators doing it.
And…yes…democratically elected governments doing it.
Different century.
Different clothing.
Different technology.
Same basic problem.
And once you understand why, something else becomes clear.
There isn’t going to be one election that fixes this.
There isn’t going to be one law.
One president.
One prosecution.
One tax.
One protest.
One Supreme Court decision.
One heroic politician…who rides into Washington and permanently solves the problem.
I wish there were.
There isn’t.
And…I would rather tell you that uncomfortable truth…than sell you a comforting lie.
Because the real problem is much older than Trump.
The problem…is power itself.
And…more specifically:
What happens when power becomes concentrated…and there isn’t enough power somewhere else to restrain it.
The First Thing We Need to Understand
Here is the mistake people make when talking about powerful people.
They imagine that acquiring power eliminates vulnerability.
It doesn’t.
It creates a new kind of vulnerability.
Because…the moment you acquire something valuable…you acquire something you can lose.
Imagine having nothing.
There isn’t much anybody can take from you.
Now imagine having $10 billion.
You have $10 billion worth of things to protect.
Imagine becoming president.
Suddenly you have an office to protect.
An administration to protect.
Appointments to protect.
A legacy to protect.
Policies to protect.
Political allies to protect.
Possibly yourself to protect.
Imagine controlling a giant corporation.
Now you’ve got market share to protect.
Margins to protect.
Regulatory advantages to protect.
Intellectual property to protect.
Executive compensation to protect.
Your position to protect.
The psychology of power reflects some of this difference.
Research on power has found that elevated power tends to increase attention to rewards, behavioral freedom and disinhibition…while lower power tends to increase attention to threats, punishment, constraints and the interests of other people.
Think about the implications of that for a moment.
The person who needs everyone else…has to pay close attention to everyone else.
The person everyone else needs?
Not…nearly as much.
And…that’s where we arrive at the first rule of this article:
Power reduces dependence.
And reduced dependence…changes behavior.
If I desperately need your cooperation…I have to consider what you want.
If you desperately need mine…I have considerably more freedom to consider what I want.
That’s not a defense of the powerful.
It’s the beginning of understanding the mechanism.
And…understanding the mechanism…matters…because we are never going to solve this by begging powerful people to develop better personalities. That. Would. Never. Work.
The Real Drug Isn’t Acquisition
Here’s where this gets interesting.
We assume powerful people are constantly thinking:
How can I get more?
But once somebody has accumulated enormous power…another question becomes just as important:
How do I keep what I’ve got?
That’s the pivot.
And…once you see it…a tremendous amount of behavior that looks irrational…starts making sense.
The powerless frequently experience power as opportunity.
The powerful increasingly experience power as something that can be taken away.
A billionaire can be taxed.
A corporation can be regulated.
A monopoly can be broken apart.
A president can lose an election.
A politician can be prosecuted.
A CEO can be removed.
Workers can unionize.
Consumers can revolt.
Journalists can expose wrongdoing.
Prosecutors can investigate.
Courts can intervene.
Voters can replace governments.
Competitors can take market share.
Suddenly…the person who appears incredibly secure…has a long list of potential threats.
So what does power naturally seek?
Predictability.
And…what produces predictability?
Control.
There it is.
That’s the machinery.
Power → something worth protecting → vulnerability to loss → desire for predictability → greater control → greater protection of power.
And when greater control produces even more power?
The cycle starts feeding itself.
This Is Why “They’re Just Greedy” Doesn’t Go Far Enough
Suppose I told you a chemical company could save $40 million by dumping toxic waste into a river.
You wouldn’t say:
“Well, now that I understand the economic incentive…I suppose we should sympathize with them.”
Of course not.
You’d say:
Then we’d better have a law preventing them from doing it.
That’s precisely how I want us to think about concentrated power.
Explaining an incentive…is not excusing the behavior it produces.
Quite the opposite.
If an incentive predictably produces harmful behavior, understanding the incentive…tells us where restraints need to exist.
This is one reason I’m not interested in arguments about whether billionaires are individually good or bad people.
Some are probably lovely.
Some probably aren’t.
Regarding this issue of Jack Hopkins Now…that’s beside the point.
A democratic society shouldn’t require billionaires to be saints.
It should have systems…robust enough…that whether they’re saints doesn’t matter very much.
That is an entirely different way of thinking about the problem.
Money Eventually Becomes Something Other Than Money
This is especially important for those of us who believe extreme concentrations of wealth should be taxed much more aggressively.
The weakest argument for doing that is:
They have more than they need.
I understand the sentiment.I do.
But…there’s a much stronger argument.
At enormous scale…money stops functioning merely as money.
It becomes power.
Think about what vast wealth can purchase.
Lawyers.
Lobbyists.
Consultants.
Political access.
Advertising.
Media ownership.
Organizations.
Research.
Campaign spending.
Public relations.
Years of litigation.
Experts.
Security.
Time.
Influence.
And…something ordinary people rarely possess:
The ability to withstand a fight…longer than the person fighting you can afford to continue it.
A working person with $4,000 in the bank…and a billionaire…technically possess the same constitutional rights.
But…they do not possess the same practical ability to exercise power.
That’s the distinction we don’t discuss enough.
Formal equality is not the same thing as practical equality of power.
One person.
One vote.
But not:
One lobbyist.
One television network.
One political action committee.
One corporate legal department.
One hundred million dollars of political spending.
One meeting with a senator.
One ability to keep a case tied up in litigation for years.
Political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page…famously examined 1,779 policy outcomes…and found that economic elites and organized business interests…had substantial independent relationships with American policy outcomes…while average citizens…had little or no independent influence once the preferences of the different groups were considered together.
That study has been debated…and it shouldn’t be turned into the cartoonish claim…that ordinary voters never matter.
They clearly do.
But…the larger point is difficult to escape:
Political rights can be equal…while political influence remains profoundly unequal.
And that means progressive taxation has a democratic argument behind it that goes beyond revenue.
At some level of concentration, the distribution of wealth becomes inseparable from the distribution of power.
That’s the conversation we ought to be having.
And Power Doesn’t Stay in Its Lane
Here’s another mistake we make.
We put power into separate boxes.
Economic power over here.
Political power over there.
Information power over there.
Institutional power somewhere else.
It doesn’t work that way.
Power converts.
Economic power can purchase political influence.
Political influence can produce favorable economic rules.
Those favorable rules can create additional wealth.
Additional wealth purchases additional influence.
Watch the loop:
WEALTH
↓
ACCESS
↓
INFLUENCE
↓
FAVORABLE RULES
↓
MORE WEALTH
↓
MORE ACCESS
↓
MORE INFLUENCE
Now…imagine that cycle operating for 30 years.
Or 50.
This is why quick solutions are so difficult.
You aren’t changing one thing.
You’re trying to interrupt a feedback loop.
And…the people benefiting from that feedback loop…frequently possess disproportionate resources with which to resist changing it.
That is the trap.
Five Ways Power Protects Itself
Once power reaches sufficient scale, I think it tends to seek protection through five increasingly sophisticated forms of control.
1. Control the resources.
This is the oldest one.
Land.
Money.
Employment.
Food.
Credit.
Housing.
Contracts.
Access.
You don’t have to order someone around when you control something they cannot afford to lose.
Dependence does much of the work for you.
2. Control the institutions.
This is considerably more powerful.
If an institution can restrain you…there is an incentive to influence that institution.
The regulator.
The legislature.
The political party.
The board.
The court.
The prosecutor.
The bureaucracy.
The police.
The rules.
This doesn’t require every institution to become corrupt.
It requires enough influence…over enough pressure points…to make accountability increasingly difficult.
3. Control information.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
If I control what information reaches you…I don’t necessarily have to control the decision you make afterward.
I have influenced the ingredients…from which you make it.
What gets emphasized?
What disappears?
What becomes scandalous?
What becomes normal?
What questions are asked?
More importantly:
What questions never get asked?
Political theorist Steven Lukes made an enormously important contribution here. Power isn’t merely the ability to win a visible conflict.
Power can also involve…controlling the agenda on which conflicts occur.
And…at its deepest level…power can shape what people regard as normal…desirable or even possible.
That’s a much more sophisticated form of control…than putting a soldier outside someone’s door.
4. Control the story.
Every durable hierarchy develops a story explaining why the hierarchy is legitimate.
Kings weren’t merely powerful.
God supposedly wanted them there.
Aristocrats weren’t simply wealthy.
They were supposedly naturally superior.
Colonialism wasn’t merely extraction.
It was packaged as civilization.
Modern concentrations of wealth…aren’t merely concentrations of wealth.
They’re frequently described…entirely…as the natural result of merit…genius…work ethic or market forces.
Sometimes…those things certainly contribute.
But…notice what the narrative does.
It transforms:
“This person has vastly more power than you”
into:
“This person deserves vastly more power than you.”
Those are two very different claims.
5. Control what people believe can change.
This may be the most powerful form of all.
You hear it constantly.
“That’s just how things work.”
“You can’t fight City Hall.”
“Money has always controlled politics.”
“Politicians are all the same.”
“Nothing is going to change.”
“The rich always win.”
Watch what happens there.
Nobody has to stop you from demanding change.
You’ve stopped yourself.
A system has achieved something extraordinary…when people living inside it…can no longer imagine a realistic alternative to it.
Read that again.
Here’s Where Conspiracy Gets Interesting
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because of Donald Trump.
How does someone survive one thing after another…after another…for a decade …without some enormous conspiracy protecting him?
Maybe we’re asking the wrong question.
Specific conspiracies certainly can exist. Specific acts of corruption can exist. Specific people can coordinate to protect one another.
Those things should be investigated wherever evidence warrants it.
But…here’s the more disturbing possibility:
A master conspiracy isn’t necessary.
Imagine 100 people surrounding a center of power.
One wants lower taxes.
One wants deregulation.
One wants access.
One wants a government contract.
One wants an appointment.
One wants ratings.
One wants influence.
One wants protection.
One wants a pardon.
One wants to keep his job.
One wants to become more famous.
One wants his company left alone.
One simply doesn’t want to be kicked out of the tribe.
Do those 100 people need to gather in a basement and coordinate everything?
No.
Their incentives can do some of the coordinating for them.
That’s what makes systems of power so durable.
A politician protects his reelection.
A donor protects his investment.
A lawyer protects his client.
A bureaucrat protects a career.
A business owner protects profit.
A media personality protects an audience.
A voter protects an identity.
A political party protects its coalition.
Each actor…can be pursuing his or her own interest.
And…yet…the combined effect…can look astonishingly coordinated.
That’s why I keep coming back to this:
The most durable systems of power don’t always require conspiracies. They make self-interest do the coordinating.
And…once you understand that…you stop looking exclusively for the secret meeting.
You start examining the incentives.
Now Look at Trump Again
This is why I don’t think Trump should be analyzed exclusively as an unusual personality.
He is an unusual personality.
But…that explanation only gets us so far.
Look instead at the direction of travel.
Loyalty…becomes increasingly valuable.
Independent restraints…become increasingly irritating.
Officials capable of saying no…become problems.
Investigations become threats.
Adversarial journalism becomes an enemy.
Institutional independence…becomes an obstacle.
Critics become disloyal.
Personal allies become increasingly valuable.
Executive authority becomes something to expand.
And…this isn’t merely theoretical in Trump’s second administration. In June 2026, the Supreme Court further strengthened presidential removal authority over agencies historically treated as independent.
More recently…Trump’s Justice Department issued an opinion…arguing for a broad conception of executive privilege…extending to communications with private outside advisers; an interpretation that could matter enormously in future congressional investigations.
Former national security officials have also publicly warned about weakening institutional guardrails, politicization, and loyalty-driven government.
Those are their assessments…not proof that every disputed action is unlawful…or part of some master plan. But…the institutional direction is precisely why independent centers of power matter.
The useful question therefore isn’t simply:
“Why does Trump want more power?”
It’s:
Why would we ever design a political system…whose safety depends upon a powerful person…deciding voluntarily that he has enough?
We shouldn’t.
And…historically…we didn’t.
America’s Founders Understood Something We Keep Forgetting
Whatever else you think of the men who designed the American constitutional…
…system–and there is plenty to criticize–they understood one profoundly important thing:
Don’t count on virtue.
Build restraints.
Separate powers.
Make institutions compete.
Give different actors different interests.
Create obstacles.
Require agreement.
Make one branch capable of restraining another.
Checks and balances…aren’t evidence of faith in government.
They’re evidence…of distrust of concentrated power.
And that…points us toward the real solution.
Stop Trying to Eliminate Power
This is where I may lose some people.
But…stay with me.
We are never going to create a society without powerful people.
We never have.
Power will exist.
Government…itself is power.
Labor unions possess power.
Corporations possess power.
Courts possess power.
Voters possess power.
Journalists possess power.
Wealth possesses power.
Political movements possess power.
The problem isn’t the existence of power.
The problem…is power without sufficient counter-power.
This idea has a name:
Countervailing power.
A corporation has enormous bargaining power.
Workers organize.
Now…management encounters organized labor.
A president has executive power.
Congress has legislative and oversight power.
Courts possess judicial power.
Government can conceal information.
Journalists investigate.
Freedom-of-information laws force disclosure.
Companies consolidate markets.
Antitrust law creates a mechanism…for breaking or restraining concentrated market power.
Private fortunes become enormous.
Progressive taxation redistributes part of the economic claim.
Majorities can abuse minorities.
Constitutional rights restrain the majority.
Power meets power.
That’s the solution humanity has repeatedly discovered.
Not:
“Please behave.”
Not:
“Be less greedy.”
Not:
“You already have enough.”
But:
No.
A meaningful…institutional…enforceable NO.
This Is Why Labor Matters So Much
Consider organized labor.
Before the National Labor Relations Act in 1935…union density had generally remained relatively low. Congressional Research Service historical estimates put it at 12.8% in 1935.
By 1945?
34.2%.
That didn’t happen…because American industrialists…suddenly woke up one morning and decided workers deserved substantially greater bargaining power.
The institutional environment changed.
Workers organized.
Law changed.
Power encountered counter-power.
This doesn’t mean every union is good.
It doesn’t mean every union demand is sensible.
Again…that’s missing the structural point.
The reason organized labor matters in a capitalist democracy…is that an individual worker…negotiating with a giant corporation…doesn’t possess remotely comparable bargaining power.
Ten thousand workers acting together?
Now there is another center of power in the room.
That’s the principle.
And This Is Why Campaign-Finance Reform Is So Damn Difficult
People say:
Get money out of politics.
I agree with the direction.
But…there’s an enormous difference between a destination…and a strategy.
Federal campaign-finance regulation has been built…challenged….revised and partially dismantled across decades. Congress strengthened federal campaign-finance law after Watergate.
Courts subsequently struck down portions of those restrictions. The 2010 Citizens United decision invalidated restrictions on independent corporate and union electoral spending…and other rulings helped shape the legal architecture under which super PACs operate.
So “get money out of politics” isn’t a bill somebody writes Tuesday afternoon.
It’s a multilevel institutional fight involving:
Congress.
Courts.
Constitutional doctrine.
Regulators.
Political parties.
Campaigns.
Donors.
States.
Voters.
And…years.
Possibly decades.
That doesn’t mean don’t fight it.
It means:
Know what kind of fight you’re entering.
The Powerful Have One Gigantic Advantage
And this is the part reformers consistently underestimate.
They’re defending something that already exists.
We’re trying to build something that doesn’t.
Think about that.
If I benefit from the current tax code…I don’t need to invent a replacement tax system.
I need to stop you from changing this one.
If my company dominates a market…I don’t need to create dominance.
I need to preserve it.
If existing campaign-finance rules benefit me…I don’t have to redesign political finance.
I need to stop your reform.
If institutional arrangements give me extraordinary power…I don’t have to build them.
They’re already there.
You have to organize.
Persuade.
Elect.
Legislate.
Defend the legislation.
Win the court challenge.
Enforce the law.
Survive the next election.
And…prevent the next administration…from dismantling it.
The status quo gets to start the race 50 yards ahead.
That is one reason…there are no quick solutions.
Which Brings Me to Something I Think We Need to Hear
Americans have become addicted to political immediacy.
We want everything resolved by the next election.
November is coming!
This election changes everything!
Elect this person!
Defeat that person!
Pass this bill!
Stop this nominee!
And…elections absolutely matter.
Enormously.
But…one election rarely changes a political equilibrium built over decades.
We need to start thinking on three different clocks.
CLOCK ONE: 1–4 YEARS
This is where meaningful victories can happen relatively quickly.
Not the final victory.
Directional victories.
Tax provisions can change.
Enforcement priorities can change.
Regulatory appointments can change.
Antitrust cases can begin.
Disclosure requirements can be strengthened where legally permissible.
Labor protections can be strengthened.
Enforcement budgets can increase.
State governments can experiment with reforms.
Ethics requirements can change.
Procurement rules can change.
Investigative capacity can be rebuilt.
Appointments can alter institutional behavior.
These aren’t trivial.
But…don’t confuse them with the destination.
They’re changes in the direction power is moving.
And that…matters tremendously.
CLOCK TWO: 5–15 YEARS
Now we’re talking about rebuilding counter-power.
This is harder.
Stronger labor organization.
Durable antitrust enforcement.
Campaign-finance reforms capable of surviving judicial review.
More durable progressive taxation.
Independent civic institutions.
A stronger independent press.
Political organizations that survive individual politicians.
State-level reform experiments that spread elsewhere.
New generations of judges.
New generations of prosecutors.
Political coalitions capable of winning repeatedly.
And…there’s the phrase nobody wants to hear:
Winning repeatedly.
One presidential election won’t do it.
Imagine winning the White House but losing Congress.
Or winning Congress but losing state governments.
Or passing legislation that courts invalidate.
Or changing federal policy that a subsequent administration reverses.
Durable reform requires victories in different institutions at different times.
Again and again and again.
That’s how political power actually moves.
CLOCK THREE: 15–30+ YEARS
This is the clock nobody campaigns on.
Because “Vote for me and maybe your grandchildren will benefit” doesn’t fit particularly well on a bumper sticker.
But…this is where political civilizations change.
This is where something that once sounded radical…becomes normal.
This is where institutions are rebuilt.
Where new political expectations form.
Where new legal doctrines develop.
Where economic relationships change.
Where cultural assumptions change.
Where entire generations begin regarding yesterday’s unacceptable idea as today’s obvious one.
Major transformations in labor rights…civil rights…Social Security…environmental regulation…consumer protection…and political equality…did not appear fully formed during one election cycle.
They came from organizing.
Litigation.
Journalism.
Elections.
Setbacks.
Legislation.
Court battles.
More elections.
More organizing.
Coalition building.
And time.
Lots of it.
“But I Don’t Have 30 Years”
I know.
Somebody reading this is 70.
Somebody is 60.
Somebody has spent his or her entire adult life…waiting for some of these problems to improve.
Telling that person that meaningful structural change may take another generation… isn’t satisfying.
But…reality doesn’t owe us a satisfying timetable.
And I refuse to tell you:
Just win the midterms and everything will be okay.
Or:
Just elect the right president.
Or:
Just tax the billionaires.
Or:
Just reform the Court.
Or:
Just pass campaign-finance reform.
Those may all be pieces of a solution.
None is the solution.
Because concentrated power is not a single law.
It’s an ecosystem.
And ecosystems…aren’t transformed by pulling one weed.
So Yes. Tax the Hell Out of Extreme Concentrations of Wealth.
I know many of you reading this already believe wealthy Americans should pay substantially more.
I am not going to spend 4,000 words explaining concentrated power…and then suddenly develop delicate feelings about enormous fortunes.
But…I want us to understand why taxation matters beyond the bumper sticker.
Tax policy can fund public goods.
It can alter incentives.
It can reduce extreme after-tax concentration.
But there’s another reason we should be willing to discuss it:
Extreme wealth can become extreme power.
And…if we care about democracy…the concentration of power is inherently a democratic concern.
That does not mean success should be punished.
It does not mean everybody should have the same income.
It does not mean entrepreneurs shouldn’t become wealthy.
Those are distractions from the actual argument.
The question is:
At what point does economic concentration…become powerful enough to distort political equality?
That’s the discussion worth having.
Because if one citizen can spend sums influencing the political environment…that millions of ordinary citizens could never collectively match…without extraordinary organization…we’re no longer talking merely about somebody buying a bigger yacht.
We’re talking about power.
And…democratic societies have every right to debate how much concentrated private power they are willing to tolerate.
But Taxation Alone Won’t Save Us Either
This matters.
Suppose tomorrow morning…Congress imposed substantially higher taxes on enormous fortunes.
Problem solved?
No.
Because political power remains.
Institutional power remains.
Information power remains.
Corporate concentration remains.
Lobbying remains.
Unequal access remains.
Weak labor power remains.
Media concentration remains.
And…whatever reform you pass…immediately creates incentives…for people affected by it…to weaken…evade or repeal it.
Remember our original rule.
Power protects itself.
Therefore…reform has to protect itself too.
That’s why durable solutions require institutions.
Not slogans.
The Most Dangerous Moment
Here’s what concerns me most.
It’s not simply when somebody becomes powerful.
It’s when different forms of power…begin merging.
Economic power.
Political power.
Information power.
Institutional power.
Legal power.
Coercive power.
Imagine those remaining separate.
A president wants something.
A court says no.
A corporation wants something.
A regulator says no.
Government conceals something.
Journalists expose it.
A billionaire wants something.
Voters organize against it.
Management wants something.
Organized workers resist.
That’s friction.
And friction frustrates powerful people.
Good.
It’s supposed to.
The dangerous moment arrives…when fewer independent institutions remain capable of saying no.
Because then something can retain all the outward architecture of democracy…
elections,
courts,
legislatures,
news organizations,
political parties…
while the practical distribution of power…underneath those institutions…becomes increasingly unequal.
That’s the thing to watch.
Not merely:
Who is powerful?
But:
Who remains independent enough to tell the powerful NO?
There Is No Final Victory
This may be the most important thing I can tell you.
Suppose everything goes our way.
Trump eventually leaves politics.
Democrats win.
Taxes on enormous fortunes rise.
Labor becomes stronger.
Antitrust enforcement improves.
Institutions regain independence.
Campaign-finance rules improve.
Wonderful.
Then what?
You defend those gains.
Because the incentives haven’t disappeared.
There will be another billionaire.
Another corporation.
Another ambitious politician.
Another political movement.
Another technological revolution.
Another attempt to concentrate authority.
Another clever method for turning money into influence.
Another legal theory.
Another loophole.
Another crisis someone believes shouldn’t be wasted.
The struggle between concentrated power…and countervailing power…isn’t a political emergency we eventually finish. It’s just not. That’s always been a myth.
It’s maintenance.
Democracy is maintenance.
That’s Why There Are No Quick Solutions
I don’t say that to discourage you.
I say it…because false expectations…create exhausted citizens.
If someone tells you one election will save democracy…and you win that election…but democracy remains messy and threatened…what happens?
You think the victory failed.
If somebody tells you one tax bill will fix inequality…and inequality remains…you think reform doesn’t work.
If somebody tells you one prosecution will restore accountability…and powerful people continue escaping consequences…you conclude the system is hopeless.
Maybe the problem wasn’t the action.
Maybe the problem…was the time horizon.
We keep measuring generational projects…with quarterly expectations. (A recipe for disaster)
And then wondering why we’re disappointed.
I Want You to Replace Optimism With Something Better
I’m not asking you to believe everything will work out.
I don’t know that.
Nobody does.
I want something much more useful.
Agency.
Optimism says:
Everything is going to be okay.
Agency says:
I understand where leverage exists.
Those are not the same thing.
Once you understand power…you stop waiting for powerful people to voluntarily surrender it.
You stop expecting billionaires to collectively decide they have enough.
You stop expecting corporations to voluntarily abandon profitable advantages.
You stop expecting presidents to voluntarily preserve restraints they find inconvenient.
You stop looking for one heroic politician…to fix a structural problem.
And…you stop believing every setback means nothing can change.
Instead, you ask:
Where is counter-power weak?
Where can it be strengthened?
What can change in four years?
What requires ten?
What are we building that can survive twenty?
What institution can say no?
Who protects that institution?
Who finances it?
Who staffs it?
Who defends it when it comes under attack?
And who will still be there doing that work when today’s political celebrities have disappeared?
Those are grown-up questions about power.
One Last Thing
For thousands of years…human beings have experimented with different answers to concentrated power.
Kings.
Constitutions.
Parliaments.
Courts.
Elections.
Unions.
Regulators.
Rights.
A free press.
Political parties.
Civil society.
Antitrust law.
Progressive taxation.
Separation of powers.
None is perfect.
Every one can be corrupted.
Every one can fail.
But underneath many of them is the same ancient realization:
Power rarely limits itself.
Something else has to limit it.
Kings got parliaments.
Presidents got Congress.
Governments got courts.
Employers got unions.
Monopolies got antitrust laws.
Majorities got constitutional restraints.
Government secrecy got journalists.
And…citizens got the vote.
Not…because human beings finally figured out how to make powerful people nicer.
Because eventually…we figured out something considerably more useful.
Don’t depend on nice. DO NOT.
Build counter-power.
Protect it.
Strengthen it.
Institutionalize it.
Pass it forward.
And…when somebody tells you that one election…one politician…or one piece of legislation…is going to permanently fix a problem as old as organized civilization… remember what you’re actually looking at.
Power.
Power protecting itself.
Power seeking more control so that it can protect itself more effectively.
And other human beings trying…generation after generation…to construct enough counter-power to stop it.
That isn’t hopeless.
It’s the opposite.
Because now we know what the job actually is.
The goal was never to create a world without powerful people.
No such world has ever existed.
The goal is much more practical.
And much more urgent.
Build a society in which nobody becomes so powerful that everybody else becomes powerless.
And then understand…the final…uncomfortable truth:
Even if we succeed…
we will have to keep it that way.
#HoldFast
Back soon.
-Jack
Jack Hopkins
P.S. I almost held this one back until after November. Seemed like bad timing… nobody wants to hear “this takes thirty years” eight weeks before an election.
Then it hit me…that’s exactly backward.
The people who burn out in December… are the ones who were told that November would settle it.
I’d rather you go into this one knowing what it is. And still go.
Sources & Further Reading
Everything referenced in this piece, plus the underlying research for readers who want to go deeper. Where a study has been contested, I’ve linked the criticism too.
The Psychology of Power
Why power changes behavior — the approach/inhibition finding Dacher Keltner, Deborah Gruenfeld & Cameron Anderson, “Power, Approach, and Inhibition,” Psychological Review 110(2), 2003. Full text (PDF, free) · Overview This is the source for the claim that elevated power increases attention to rewards and disinhibition, while reduced power increases attention to threat, punishment, and the interests of others.
A 16-year follow-up on what held up Keltner et al., “Power, Approach, and Inhibition: Empirical Advances of a Theory,” Current Opinion in Psychology, 2019. Abstract
Why power reduces dependence Richard M. Emerson, “Power-Dependence Relations,” American Sociological Review27(1), 1962. DOI (paywalled; widely available through libraries) The foundational statement of the idea that power is the inverse of dependence — if I need your cooperation, I must consider what you want.
Why losing something hurts more than gaining it Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica 47(2), 1979. DOI Loss aversion is the mechanism underneath the article’s central pivot: once you have something, protecting it becomes psychologically weightier than acquiring more.
Why the status quo has a built-in advantage William Samuelson & Richard Zeckhauser, “Status Quo Bias in Decision Making,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 1, 1988. DOI Relevant to the section on why reformers start fifty yards behind.
Why people defend systems that disadvantage them John T. Jost & Mahzarin R. Banaji, “The Role of Stereotyping in System-Justification and the Production of False Consciousness,” British Journal of Social Psychology 33, 1994. DOI The research literature behind “control the story” — how hierarchies come to be experienced as legitimate rather than merely real.
Why people stop trying Martin Seligman & Steven Maier, “Failure to Escape Traumatic Shock,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 74(1), 1967. DOI The origin of learned helplessness — relevant to “control what people believe can change.”
Theories of Power
The three faces of power Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (Macmillan, 1974; expanded 2nd ed. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Overview Source for the argument that power operates not only in visible conflict, but in controlling the agenda and shaping what people regard as normal or possible.
Agenda control as power Peter Bachrach & Morton Baratz, “Two Faces of Power,” American Political Science Review56(4), 1962. DOI The “second face” — the power to keep issues from being raised at all.
Countervailing power John Kenneth Galbraith, American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power (Houghton Mifflin, 1952). Overview The origin of the term this article’s solution section is built on.
The Empirical Case on Influence
The 1,779-policy study Martin Gilens & Benjamin I. Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” Perspectives on Politics 12(3), 2014. Cambridge (full article) · PDF
And the strongest criticism of it Omar S. Bashir, “Testing Inferences about American Politics: A Review of the ‘Oligarchy’ Result,” Research & Politics, 2015. Full text (free) Bashir argues the model may substantially understate the influence of median-income citizens. Readers should weigh both.
Labor and Countervailing Power
Union density before and after the NLRA Congressional Research Service, “A Brief Examination of Union Membership Data,” R47596, June 2023. Congress.gov · PDF Source for 12.8% density in 1935 rising to a 34.2% peak in 1945. Note: pre-1983 figures are standardized historical estimates compiled from six sources by economist Richard Freeman, not direct federal counts.
The law that changed the environment National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Full text (NLRB)
Campaign Finance
Post-Watergate reform and what happened to it Federal Election Commission, mission and history. FEC.gov
Buckley v. Valeo (1976) — struck down portions of the post-Watergate spending limits. Oyez
Citizens United v. FEC (2010) — invalidated restrictions on independent corporate and union electoral spending.Opinion (PDF) · Oyez summary
Current Developments Referenced
The June 2026 removal-power decision Trump v. Slaughter, No. 25-332, decided June 29, 2026 (6–3, Roberts). Overruled Humphrey’s Executor (1935), ending for-cause removal protection for FTC commissioners and, by extension, most independent regulatory agencies. A companion case, Trump v. Cook, preserved Federal Reserve independence as an exception. CRS analysis · NPR · Legal summary · Background on the overruled precedent
The August 2026 executive privilege opinion DOJ Office of Legal Counsel, “Applicability of Executive Privilege to Presidential Communications with Private Advisers,” August 10, 2026, signed by Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser. The opinion defines “private advisers” to include anyone the President consults outside the Executive Branch.CBS News · Axios · Legal analysis · Skeptical analysis from former OLC lawyers
On Building Restraints Instead of Trusting Virtue
Federalist No. 51 — James Madison, 1788. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” Full text (Avalon Project, Yale Law School)
Links verified August 26, 2026. Items marked DOI may be paywalled but are available through most public and university library systems.
Having grown up in a family of control freaks (my father was very good at it; on his deathbed, he did acknowledge that he wasn’t a good father, which I said to myself that it was a bit too late to admit it), I have come to the conclusion that control freaks attempt to control others because they are so out of control themselves.
Since I had such an upbringing, I am not uncomfortable around control freaks. I just get out of the way, as I have a very good sense of, and ability of, anticipating what is going to happen. It’s like the elephants in the tsunami in Indonesia some 25 years ago, who felt the tsunami coming by their feet in the ground. The humans didn’t, but if they noticed the elephants going to higher ground, many of those humans would have saved their lives.
Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely..