The American populace has latched onto a cryptic, macabre expression of hope: “the day it happens.” If your social media algorithm is tuned just right, you might scroll past people speculating on what they’ll do “the day they see the headline” or debating who “should be the one to do it.”

A TikTok video with 9.7 million views shows a user sitting in bed. “I’m not saying somebody should… that’s not what I’m saying.” They continue, “…But if someone was going to—I’m kidding. Don’t.” Some of the top-liked comments echo sentiments like “Someone with good aim, please.” and “I was promised copycats. Just saying.”

This isn’t an isolated incident. A video with 170,000 views features a montage styled like an early 2000s rom-com, showing the user waking up and going about their day with a smile. The caption reads, “Making a playlist for the day it happens,” underscored by Perfect Day by Fuschia Boom Band (from the Legally Blonde soundtrack). A similar video, with 191,000 views, is captioned, “When you think about the fact that it’s for sure going to happen at some time relatively soon.”

A movement like this doesn’t emerge from nowhere. You don’t wake up to find millions of people openly and fearlessly joking about something like this unless the ground has already shifted beneath their feet.

At the time of writing, Donald Trump has been in office for 51 days. He has wasted no time wielding his power to reshape the country in his image. His administration has dismantled the Department of Education and USAID, imposed a freeze on foreign aid, and enacted executive orders restricting gender-affirming care, among other sweeping changes.

Trump is setting records. One of these records is the lowest approval rating for a sitting U.S. president within their first 30 days, surpassing his own record from his first term.

How did we get here? Have we ever seen something like this before? This surge in public opposition to the American government echoes the French Revolution, where urban citizens engaged in protests, mass demonstrations, and even violent riots and massacres.

Even then, resistance wasn’t universal. Rural French citizens were more conservative, sometimes supporting counter-revolutionary movements. There have always been, and will always be, people who want nothing more than to maintain the status quo, no matter how demoralizing or predatory it is.

History is filled with hushed whispers of revolution. But this one isn’t being coordinated in a shadowy basement by conspirators with corkboards and red string. It’s unfolding in real time—on the For You page.

It begs the question: Is this a genuine act of resistance or just another fleeting trend in an era where nothing feels real anymore? When institutions crumble and power consolidates beyond reach, does rebellion now take the form of an ominous… meme? And what happens if this stops being an abstraction and turns into an actual day on the calendar?

The answer lies not just in the turbulence of American politics but in something older, something fundamental. Humanity has always sought escape in the absurd, the grotesque, the spectacle of imagined retribution. When the walls close in and the levers of power remain unreachable, the powerless find solace in symbols—a whisper of inevitability in a world where change feels impossible.