There is a concept in behavioral economics called the sunken cost fallacy. It describes a simple psychological pattern in which people continue investing in something because they have already invested so much in it.
The previous investment becomes the reason they stay.
Years of work. Decades of organizing. Communities built around struggle. Institutions created through hope and sacrifice. When that much life has been poured into something, stepping away can feel like betrayal. It can feel like abandoning the cause, the thing we have sacrificed so much for or the people who need it most.
Who are we now if we stop doing what has defined us?
The hardest part about analyzing sunken costs is that they do not tell us what we should do next. They only tell us what we have already done and leave the questions about the future unanswered.
The questions we have to ask ourselves are: Will continuing the effort produce meaningful change, is there political and financial will to keep going? Do I have the external and internal resources to continue?
This question has become increasingly difficult to avoid in the United States.
Over the past decade many people have watched activists, organizers, and community leaders burn themselves to the ground trying to keep pushing systems that appear structurally resistant to change. Talented and committed people have lost their health, their careers, and their financial stability while attempting to hold the line against institutions that were never designed to respond to them. Many powerful community leaders have lost their lives in the pursuit of a just world.
These people are often deeply committed to justice. They are also exhausted.
Increasingly, many are asking a question that movement spaces do not always allow people to ask openly.
What happens when the fight you have been fighting for years no longer appears capable of producing the outcome you hoped for?
For many decades activism in the United States operated on the assumption that institutions could be pressured toward justice. We all believed the courts could be moved, that politicians could be pushed, that universities could be influenced and that public opinion could shift.
Those assumptions were not entirely wrong. Many meaningful gains occurred through sustained pressure and collective action. However, systems evolve, or in this case, devolve. Power adapts and institutions that once appeared responsive have now become structures that are hell bent on protecting themselves.
It’s all about the benjamins, baby. You can’t push politicians who are bought and paid for by millionaires. You can’t shift systems that serve the god of money. You can call your representatives all you want but as long as they are beholden to their corporate overlords, there’s no way they are going to truly listen.
The proof is in the pudding; many US citizens are against the genocide in Gaza but the politicans reiterate their unwavering support for Israel. The vast majority are against war in Iran but the government did it anyway. Most people want universal healthcare but it’s rarely even discussed among politicians anymore.
The US is no longer for the people, by the people. It’s for the corporations.
When this shift started, activists often responded by pushing harder, working longer hours,and taking greater risks. They sacrificed more of their own lives in order to sustain the effort. What was previously community investment became sweat equity, taking more from the people with the least to give.
This is where the sunken cost fallacy begins to appear. The deeper the investment becomes, the harder it becomes to step back and ask whether the terrain itself has changed.
Imagine the United States as Godzilla.
For decades the creature has absorbed massive damage. Economic crises, ecological strain, political polarization, and cultural fragmentation have accumulated over time. The creature continues moving, but it has amassed major damage.
In many Godzilla films there is a moment when the creature finally begins to fall.
Buildings collapse as the city fractures under the weight of something enormous losing its balance.
The people on the ground face a very specific problem.
They are standing underneath something huge that is about to collapse.
Continuing to fight the monster head-on when it is unsteady, wobbling and will destroy everything it falls on becomes increasingly dangerous.
The people who survive in those scenes begin doing something else rather than fighting. They run. They grab whoever they can and move. They get out of the blast radius. They look for higher ground. They regroup somewhere the creature cannot crush them when it finally hits the ground.
Activist culture often carries an expectation of martyrdom. People are praised for sacrificing everything for the cause. Burnout becomes normalized. Losing careers or health is often framed as the inevitable cost of doing the work.
The problem with this framework is straightforward. Movements cannot sustain themselves if their participants destroy themselves in the process. We are no good to anyone if we’re sick, exhausted, broke, busted or dead.
Exhausted activists cannot mentor the next generation. Organizers who lose their financial stability cannot maintain long-term projects. Communities that require self-sacrifice as a condition of belonging eventually collapse under that expectation.
Martyrdom can appear morally admirable but it is rarely an effective long-term strategy.
Across the United States many people who have spent years in activism are quietly reassessing how they engage.
Some are choosing to stay and fight. They believe that pressure within U.S. institutions can still produce meaningful change. These individuals continue organizing, litigating, advocating, and building coalitions. Their challenge lies in sustaining the work without sacrificing their own well-being.
Others are choosing to retreat and rebuild. They are stepping away from direct confrontation with existing institutions and investing instead in alternative structures. These efforts include mutual aid networks, cooperative economic models, community-based resilience projects, and relocation to regions where organizing conditions are more viable.
Retreat is often misunderstood as abandonment but in many cases it represents a strategic repositioning.
A third group is changing the terrain entirely. Some activists are shifting their work into cultural production, education, community healing, or transnational networks. Others are focusing on family systems, local food networks, or forms of organizing that do not depend on recognition from institutions that have already demonstrated their limits.
The sunken cost fallacy encourages people to remain in dangerous positions because they have already invested so much.
Strategic thinking requires asking a different question.
What actions today actually protect life and increase the possibility of justice in the future?
Sometimes the answer will involve continuing to fight where you are.
Sometimes the answer will involve moving somewhere else.
Sometimes the answer will involve building entirely new systems while the old ones collapse under their own weight.
There is no right or wrong answer, just the one that is most true to you.
Let’s go back to Godzilla.
Imagine the creature finally losing its balance. The ground shakes. The skyline fractures. Sirens fill the air as people try to understand what is happening.
The people who survive are not the ones who insisted on standing directly beneath the monster as it fell.
The people who survived recognized the scale of the danger and moved. They helped others move as well. They regrouped somewhere safer and began the difficult process of deciding what comes next.
For activists and community leaders in the United States right now, the question may not be whether we care enough to fight.
The question may be whether we care enough about each other to step out from under something that may already be falling, and whether we are willing to build something new once the dust settles.
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