Most alcoholics find their turning points when they wake up on the floor - theirs or somebody else’s. It takes that unique form of humiliation to vow to never allow one’s self to sink so low again. Change cannot be gradual. Only if it is done with conviction and unrelenting diligence can deep-rooted self-destruction be reversed.

Well, America, we’re on the floor. We’ve allowed hate, misogyny, racism, and xenophobia - all tethered to pride - be the blinders that have kept a third of the nation from noticing that the GOP is stealing our future and moving us towards #RepubloFascism. Billionaires grow their wealth exponentially while that curve for most of us is flat or worse. Social safety nets are cut, essentially saying to many, “Let them eat bootstraps!” Is this what a Christian nation looks like, void of “Live and Let Live” while turning our backs on the poor and infirm?

No. Only weaponized hypocrisy, lies by a complicit media, and lockstep devotion throughout the GOP have framed our current status quo as the new normal and not something repugnant and un-American. Despair on one side, hate and division on the other, are the two brands of bourbon that have poisoned us while oligarchs turn everything around us into Biff World from Back to the Future II.

But something is happening in us. The #MeToo and #TimesUp voices are not only being heard, they’re being understood. At the Golden Globes all women wore black in solidarity with those who’ve experienced sexual harassment and/or abuse. Their acceptance speeches generated inspiration, showing the way society will rise from it’s own rock-bottom moment of realization akin to what alcoholics have to confront when they are forced to pivot on their lifestyles or die.

Behaviors have to change, and as a society we are on the cusp of evolving.

What men and women felt when love filled the Globes theater was American society taking that first knee, getting off the floor. But the energy to rise has been building all year. The arms that pushed us up to that point are the millions that have filled Republican offices in D.C. and in home districts, protesting GOP bills that only help CEOs not average Joes. They are the thousands who stand outside courthouses when officers are acquitted from murdering unarmed African American men.

People are being “woke” right now on so many levels about gender, race, and inequality of all kinds. We have begun to allow ourselves to open up enough to see each other as individuals, not fall into the lazy pattern of judgement which is just what the GOP is cultivating for its lockstep support.

And to get that second knee underneath us, it will take exposing the mechanisms that have promoted that judgement, and thus the underbelly of today’s GOP.

They are not conservatives. They are #CORPservatives, in service to corporations. They use rhetoric to entice true conservatives, whom I respectfully call #TrueCons, but the GOP’s cavalier actions continually harm their base. For instance, deregulating disposal of coal ash, allowing open pits close to rivers that feed the water table, is not conservative. Deregulation of this kind only helps shed a normal cost of doing business, thus creating extra profit specifically at the cost of the health of those around their plants.

If you filter out the hate and division, CORPservatives have nothing to offer people who care about those around them. You can’t claim “family values” when your legislation and budgeting proves that you don’t value families. In dozens of ways, CORPservatives cost families safety, stability, opportunity, and equality. On most issues, the GOP motivation comes down to what I call the donor class/GOP Prime Directive: “Move all the money to us!” Unless someone with GOP ties will be significantly enriched, the budget purse will stay shut. No jobs created unless they are payback.

TrueCons and progressives thus have a common foe: the CORPservatives that have stolen the Republican Party. And oddly enough, with Citizens United and lax superPAC regulations, the only way for TrueCons to take back their party is by joining in the #BlueTsunami2018 so that Democratic election and campaign finance reforms will give them a fighting chance in upcoming primaries.

Taking that second knee will require America to purge the CORPservatives and thus derail the billionaire path to power. Instead it will be Democrats who rule in the coming decade, and many of the Trump travesties will be overturned. The sigh of relief will be thunderous around the globe. Democrats will eliminate the threats of medical and educational debt while returning taxation of the rich to levels that helped build the middle class in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

That’s when America will be able to put an elbow on the table and stand up again. The only remaining Republicans in Congress will be TrueCons, and they’ll be willing to negotiate because we earned their trust by helping them overcome the CORPservatives. We will no longer be a country in paralysis, instead moving forward swiftly and tackling climate challenges head on.

And as a country, we’ll never take a drink of hate again. Perhaps the 2018 Golden Globes will be seen as a watershed moment. When enough became truly enough. When equality became the only path with integrity. When centuries of oppression became a distasteful relic of a past outgrown.

GOP leaders are jumping from this sinking ship even as we speak, The handwriting for lasting change is on the wall, and it’s in lipstick. And it makes all of us smile. Change will not be easy for some, but in time it will only be resisted by those choosing to be left behind.