It’s over. We’ve won. All that’s keeping us from changing everything now is an undefined amount of time.

Returning to the present, the one-year anniversary of the oligarchical coup that took place with the death of the Sanders campaign is coming up, and the ruminations are gut-wrenching; democracy, along with the dreams of tens of millions, was killed in 2016 through a media-veiled coup of voter suppression, electoral fraud and propaganda. And those who seem hurt the most by what the “Democratic” party did are the ones that have made themselves the least equipped to work towards solutions, having largely given up on politics or taken to counterproductively scapegoating Sanders himself.

But there I go, routinely reflecting on what happened in 2016 like everyone else continues to do. The 2016 election mindset, which has survived in the general consciousness by migrating to new avenues of thought, is soon to finally depart from our collective focus-at the cost of being replaced by an air of constant, wild combat. I predicted at the beginning of the year that 2017 would be when a new Great Depression, a Fourth Reich, and World War Three all started, and events are looking to vindicate me. Pretty much everyone paying close attention to the financial dynamics at work agree something is very close to reaching a breaking point in this area; the geopolitical upset that would give the Trump regime autocratic authority remains as imminent as Kim Jong Un’s next crazy statement about nuclear weapons; and we all know what’s been going on between the U.S. and Russia.

Sure, we won’t be subjected to the inanities of 2016 or the rest of the current era after these things happen. But we’ll be buried under the hubristic rubble that’s been piling up over our heads for centuries. For the average American, I suspect, life a year from now will be one of navigating an even more visible level of poverty than now, while being constantly bombarded with repressive new measures from the corporate state and news of wildly escalating wars.

This environment may be a potent inspirer of political involvement among the population, but as we’ve seen, desire for change doesn’t necessarily lead to constructive action. If recent history is any sign, many will respond to the crisis by blaming the wrong people and aligning themselves with the regime’s insane but appealingly revolutionary agenda. This will continue for some years before the institutions holding the gutted country under one symbolic roof fall away with some new collapse. What, like you expected it to end any other way?

It’s inherently fun to speculate about doomsday scenarios (to see why, read up on what Freud called the death instinct). But seriously, how are we going to beat this? How will we keep up our insurgency into the government when the pretense of democracy is perhaps completely dismantled? How will we continue our influence over the policy conversation when all dissenting speech is outlawed? How will any sort of movement in a constructive direction be possible when world war, an authoritarian spasm, and looming collapse are clouding every part of society?

Anyone who’s learned the right lessons from the repression we’ve endured so far can spot the solution easily: stop looking to any kind of authority for that solution.

Bernie’s lines during the campaign about real change always coming from the bottom up weren’t just slogans; they were instructions to get involved, leader or not, beyond his presidential run. A year after we were forced to heed that advice, the power of organizing outside any one election has I think impressively shown itself, with Berners having taken over many state Democratic parties, forced the sitting Democratic leaders towards much of our agenda, and overall transformed the country.

But much of these gains have involved major leaders and institutions related to Bernie’s movement, and in the autocracy to come, such revolutionary power centers will doubtless be disbarred or forced to go underground. We’re about to be confronted with a harsher version of the repression this movement went through last year, wherein not just our presidential campaign but all our leaders and organizations are taken away by the corporate state. When this repression comes, our job will be to continue doing all we can, despite the lack of movement leaders, to help the movement.

Yep, it’s that simple. The nature of our work will change after the oligarchy makes its big play, but our work will still be there. Which brings to mind the charge from some that Bernie Sanders killed the revolution by ending his campaign; the revolution can’t be killed, anymore than the inherent urge its members have to make our world more compassionate and sane can.