n election night, 2008, Kali Akuno and Sacajawea Hall were at the CNN building in Atlanta watching the results. Akuno remembers walking back to where they were staying in a quasi-fugue state brought on by the political shock of his life. 

“America done actually let a Negro win the election,” he said. “I never thought I’d see the day. Okay, well, we said ‘Never’ and never is now happening.”

Suddenly a truck rolled up on them.

“A white boy drives up and says, ‘Niggers go home!’ and I thought, ‘I’m still in America,’” he explained with a soft laugh. 

In the weeks that followed, Akuno had an eye on the dramatic spike in gun sales around the country between election night and inauguration day. “That’s when I started blogging at Navigating the Storm and telling people, ‘There’s going to be a reaction. Certain forces are not going to let this stand.’”

Fast forward to our current political season of ravenous, cutthroat gerrymandering and precedent-gutting Supreme Court decisions paving the way for permanent minority rule. Akuno, still watching, still writing, recently published two essays on the future before us: “Shifting Focus: Organizing for Revolution, Not Crisis Avoidance” (with co-authors Brian Drolet and Doug Norberg), and “Some Thoughts on What Can Be Done to withstand the Neo-Confederate/Neo-Fascist Conquest of Power.”

In the second piece, Akuno not only warns of imminent authoritarian control in the US, but predicts it will happen by January 2025.

Read and watch the full interview on The Real News Network