The Atlantic huh? Alright then, The Atlantic, I'll remember your name and that you published a piece concluding people are powerless to affect change.

Now (steelman) can I square this with the sentiment from Propaghandi's "A People's History of the World":

...we'll have to teach ourselves to analyze and understand
the systems of thought-control.
And share it with each other,
never sayed by brass rings or the threat of penalty.
I'll promise you- you promise me- not to sell each
other out to murderers, to thieves.
. who've manufactured our delusion that you and me
participate meaningfully in the process of running
our own lives. Yeah, you can vote however the fuck
you want, but power still calls all the shots.
And believe it or not, even if
(real) democracy broke loose,
power could/would just "make the economy scream" until we vote responsibly.

...

Does this apply here? The song is talking about ballot boxes and corporate explotation on a nation-state imperialist. The topic at hand is to do with the corporate exploitation on a worldwide colonization-of-attention level.

So i think the way I best square this question, do we have the ability to do something about it, is this:

Yes. You can do something. Not in the way that popular media depicts the french revolution. Revolution will instead be boring. In fact, IS: Change minds. Change your own mind about whatever forms of domination you have accepted as just. Demand to know who made OpenAI king. While you're at it, demand to know why it was just for Imperialist campaigns by "superpowers" justified The Contras. It's a history lesson we can learn from, believe it or not.

Will you stay down on your knees, or does power still call all the shots?