What Are You Going to Do After America?

The storm of this administration is getting stronger faster than anyone could have imagined. Well, I guess you ignored the forecast—Project 2025 wasn’t a whisper, it was a warning siren. They blew it in your face, and you ignored it.

This is the worst disaster in history—a typhoon, wrapped in a tsunami, wrapped in a hurricane, birthing severe thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes, splitting the Continental Divide itself with earthquakes that register a 10.0 on the Richter scale.

Apocalyptic.

No corner of this land mass will go untouched. Every town, every farm, every high-rise glass tower will feel it and fall. Some of you will pull a Lt. Dan—legless, strapped to the mast of your imaginary boats, shaking your fists at God while daring the storm to finish you off. Some of you will deny it’s even happening until the water is at your neck, until you are washed away. And when the debris settles, when your house is gone, when your kids are sick, you’ll be told it’s your fault. Don’t expect restitution. Don’t expect a bailout. Don’t expect a hand up. You’ll get blame, excuses, and maybe thoughts and prayers if you’re lucky.

Ninety million of you decided to ride it out, believing all storms are equal.

And while you’re praying, pestilence will ravage the land. Disease will crawl through communities like locusts. The vaccines won’t be available for you—science is stupid, woke. Not the insulin, not Tylenol, not the antibiotics. You’ll die of thirst because the tap water is poison. Others will drown because there is nothing but water and still no FEMA in sight. Some of you love the thrill of the storm—if you don’t take a direct hit. But you will.

And after it’s decimated, then what? You’ll point fingers, shout across collapsed bridges, and scream that your god had his hand in it—or that his absence caused it. But the rubble will stay. The storm won’t care about your scripture.

Jimmy Nothing never went to school
They made him pledge allegiance
He said it wasn’t cool
Nothing made Jimmy proud
Now, Jimmy lives on a mushroom cloud
.

—Prince and the Revolution, 1985

Who’s going to clean up? The “illegals” you hated, the ones you shipped away like cargo to countries they’ve never seen—criminals, rapists, you called them—aren’t coming back. You stripped them of their humanity at schools, Home Depot parking lots, and Walgreens. They picked your produce, defeathered your chickens, gutted your fish, processed your meat. They bent their backs in the fields and slaughterhouses so you could fill your grocery carts. And you laughed at them while you cashed in on their labor. Americans don’t know the first thing about that kind of work. You don’t have the callouses, the stamina, or the skills.

Oh, but you think those are the Black jobs.

And let’s be clear—the enslaved already did the building. Stone by stone, brick by brick, field by field. We raised your plantations, railroads, and the Capitol dome itself. That was stolen labor, blood labor, the foundation of your so-called greatness.

Your guns will not be met with spears this time…

You brag about “self-reliance” and “bootstraps,” but when the storm tears the boots off your feet, you’ll learn what it’s like to trudge miles shoeless.

The myth of your independence was always propped up by someone else’s labor, someone else’s sacrifice. When that labor is gone, when that sacrifice ends, you’ll find out just how fragile your empire really was.

And don’t forget the first people—the Indigenous nations whose land you stole. They will not be erased this time. They will reclaim what was always theirs. The rivers will swell for them, the forests will rise for them, the plains will open wide for them. The land remembers its caretakers. The Trail of Tears will not be theirs to walk again. It will be yours—through flood and fire, drought and quake. This time, the land itself will spit you out.

Japan and China will knock at the door, contracts in hand. You owe them $1.13 trillion and $784 billion. Run us our money. And when America can’t? The repo men will be global superpowers. China already owns more of this country than you admit to yourselves. Qatar was just granted the opportunity to set up shop with a new military base in Idaho. You thought you were the landlord of the world, but you’re about to find out you’ve been the tenant.

The Koreans? Remember those raids? They were just the drizzle, the practice round. Why would they return to help rebuild when they know what your storms look like? Americans don’t have the “so-called” American ingenuity that you brag about—you sneered at labor, you sold off the trade schools. Now you’ll find yourself holding a hammer like it’s a relic in a museum.

And while you fumble, Russia will seed the clouds to make the storm stronger. Don’t look to the military for salvation, the gaps are already there, carved out by WEI. Too busy playing soldier cosplay in the suburbs, too hollow to hold the line. Your enemies will walk right in the back door while your leaders argue in a Signal chat.

Meanwhile, Musk and Bezos are building rockets, hoping to launch themselves into a new empire on Mars—Muskatamia and Bezostan. They’re planning colonies while you’re still trying to get cell service. You won’t be invited. You’re not on the manifest.

Maybe you think Canada or Mexico will open their borders, but why would they? You’ve caged their people, mocked their governments, built walls to keep them out. When it’s your turn to be the refugees, when you’re the one begging at the gates, those gates will be locked. That’s irony—poetic, bitter irony.

Maybe we’ll take those cruise ships you love so much. Commandeer them. The ride back home will be luxurious and festive, champagne flutes on the Lido deck instead of chains in the holds.

So, what are you going to do after America?

Because the storm is coming. The storm is here.

And when the flood recedes, when the empire lies broken in mud and ruin, you will finally see what the rest of the world already knows: empires die. Yours is next.

Published by Tracey Wallace