When It Doesn't Feel Like 'There Are More Of Us'

Are you fighting for the majority? Does it matter?

Hi everyone, sorry for the radio silence. It’s been almost a week and a half since I’ve published, so I hope you won’t mind if I share, perhaps, an incomplete thought, with all of you, as I think about Star Wars and how it relates to the world I see outside my window.

One of the most inspiring, and oft-quoted, moments in The Rise of Skywalker felt like it was speaking directly to the political moment in 2019: “They win by making us feel like we’re alone. We’re not alone. There are more of us.”

In 2019, we were in the middle of Trump’s first presidency, just before Covid trampled the modern world. It was a presidency he had won while losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. He was historically unpopular. He and his trumpeters spoke and acted like he represented the country, but the numbers bore out the truth: he had won a squeaker, largely due to the quirks (or design) of the anti-democratic Electoral College. So it was a comfort for all of us in the #Resistance to hear “there are more of us” spoken to the new leader of the, well, Resistance.

Now, in 2025, somehow Palpatine has returned. And this time, that same self-obsessed racist won the popular vote (by a mere 1.5% percent, another squeaker, but don’t let facts get in the way of feelings, apparently). Whether he won because of a national vibe shift, or the Democrats misplaying their hand, or because people really do dislike immigrants this much, or just post-Covid inflation throwing out the incumbent party, it’s hard to say. But there’s one thing it’s harder to assert this time: that there are more of us.

Yes, there are caveats. Of the 245 million Americans eligible to vote, only 64% of them actually did. Which means nearly 90 million people didn’t express themselves either way, leaving the actual majority view in question. What a true majority in a country where we have no idea what most people think?

But still, there’s some evidence that this time out, Americans really did select a monster as a leader. Polls, at least for now, show his clumsy and xenophobic immigration edicts are popular with the public in the US. And even if his majority is slim, that it existed at all leaves a guy like me, who believes in the overall goodness of people, shaken.

Which brings me to this question: how important is it to feel like you are in the majority? What comfort does it bring, and what illusions does it sometimes create? Does it make the Rebel Alliance any less righteous if they are a small band of freedom fighters? Does it make the Resistance cause stronger if they know they represent the consensus of a frightened galaxy? Or is a few hundred people who refuse to quit enough to inspire a spark of hope?

When I was younger, growing up in the 80s and 90s, as a skinny weirdo who had glasses, I quickly mapped my identity around opposition to the “popular.” Popularity was the subject of a lot of 80s movies (“the popular crowd”), which even then was a misnomer. There were a small group of people who were considered normative, attractive, and baseline acceptable. Cheerleaders and baseball players. America’s favorite types of people, we were told. But of course, there weren’t that many of them, and it was easy to find a crowd who thought they all sucked, and were sellouts, and that their music was terrible, and that they were the worst.

Somewhere along the line, the script got flipped. The majority realized there was a kind of power in the outsider posture, and laid claim to it. People like Taylor Swift, who looks about as conventionally attractive as is humanly possible, wrote songs about being misunderstood and awkward. White Christian Male Grievance became a kind of rebellious position, even though it represents, by any real measure, the majority position in the US for its entire history, and most of the countries wealth. Less than a decade of not being cultural centered was something this majority could not abide, and it decided to take on the posture of victimhood. “We will not be silenced,” says a group of people who, let’s face it, no one can seem to shut up. It’s a majority that acts like an oppressed minority.

But even beyond that, we are now living in a culture that rewards being liked. We’re all Willy Loman now. Likes, follows, retweets: it’s all social affirmation, saying something that is going to get cheers and applause and ‘shared’ becomes a goal unto itself. Popularity, again, sitting at the cool kids table, permeates every aspect of our lives.

And we imagine it gives us a kind of backup to represent some popular, agreed-upon view. Any comments section or thread about any Star Wars subject will find a poster or user claiming to speak for fans, the majority, and not himself or herself. “We all just think Kathleen Kennedy should,” or “Everyone hated that show!” This belies a destructive belief that in order to have a view that must be taken seriously, that view must be backed up by what we imagine is a consensus, no matter how illusory. Speaking just for oneself, it appears, has fallen out of fashion.

And yet, and yet, there was a comfort in the idea that there were “more of us,” wasn’t there? This notion that even if the worst were fully of fiery intensity, the best of us did not yet lack all conviction. That if we all came together, as one, one cackling Emperor would be no match for the Citizens’ Fleet.

So how do we reconcile ourselves to the idea that, in fact, we may not outnumber the people that either don’t care or care a great deal about doing great harm? What drives an unpopular movement? Here’s where I wind up, at least today.

First, remember that your true north is what you believe is right, regardless of how many people believe otherwise. History is filled with unpopular ideas that became widely accepted through the power and persistence of a minority that refused to accept immorality as immovable. People get fooled, lied to, or grow up with bad ideas. Palpatine didn’t take his power by conquering planets: he created a war, a threat, and then used that false threat to declare an emergency. He duped the Galactic Senate into confirming those powers and essentially handing him an Empire by popular decree. By the time he became Emperor, evil to the core, he was popular.

Second, remember to focus on what “us” means in “there are more of us.” One of the ways a minority of powerful people convinced us to vote against one is creating false division. They divide us by race, by gender: they try to turn white people against black people, mothers against vaccines, athletes against transgender people. But, the truth is, the vanishingly small number of people who control that vast wealth in the US, and abroad, are not one of us. A Black person and a white person who both work at Walmart, and have to supplement minimum wage with SNAP benefits, have more in common with each other than either of them have in common with Elon Musk. A transgender soldier in the US military has more in common with a fellow cisgender soldier than they do with Pete Hegseth, Fox News host and celebrity. Even when many of us are voting against our own interests, we’re still each other’s best hope for survival. We should fight to protect Medicaid for White Christians in Kentucky, even if they were somehow convinced not to fight for themselves.

And finally, I think all movements have to be driven by hope. You can’t live in the now, you have to look, always, to what could be.

In The Last Jedi, the Resistance faces down the idea that it’s alone. It’s running on fumes, it’s been chopped down piece by piece, chased from its base, unable to escape, just a few hundred people left. By the time they get to Crait, to hide, they’re fighting with flying lawnmowers. Their last best hope, they believe, is a distress signal for help, using Leia’s personal code. People believe in Leia, they know, and will come to help.

And then, the unthinkable. No one responds. The galaxy is too afraid to stand up to the First Order. Even Leia, indomitable, believes the spark is out.

And then, a great illusion appears. One man, not even really there, shows up to embody what fighting against all odds looks like. He appears to stand alone against a vast force, and that appearance, that story of bravery, helps the tiny band live to fight another day. And, more than that, reminds the galaxy to be brave.

That’s how this…

sparks a frightened majority, that is too tired to fight, that wouldn’t heed the call, to become this…

So, however dire it is right now.

It will get better.

I have to hope for that. I hope that for all of us. Whether I’m alone, or if I’m standing shoulder to shoulder with all the other Rebels.

Thanks for being the hope you want to see in the world.