NGL memes like this just read like Doomer Cope and Fascist propaganda.
Oh, that’s because that’s exactly what it is
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Check again
“Me” is also one of the “grey NPCs” sooo
Why ankles when it could be necks?
Morbid jokes aside. I agree, nothing will change without intense and painful protest or revolution. Peaceful protest only works when your opposition has a conscience.
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Yeah that’s fair. Not normally a fan of tradition, but I’d be happy make an exception here.
I’ve got a solution, get rid of Facebook and Fox News in your Maga people’s lives. Put parental controls on their TVs if you can and try to convince them that Fox News was bought out or something. It’s the constant deluge of bullshit that’s causing this.
MAX FISHER: The places where Facebook usage - not general internet usage, but specifically Facebook usage - was significantly above the average for Germany, the number of attacks on refugees was also well above the average.
SHAPIRO: That’s author Max Fisher, who writes about this research in his new book, “The Chaos Machine.” It’s not just that violence against refugees went up in places where people used Facebook a lot. The researchers also looked at outages - Facebook disruptions - and they found that when the platform went offline in a specific place, attacks against refugees in that community dropped.
FISHER: Extended time on social media is addictive, and it changes your behavior, and it changes the way that your mind works. And it does that in a consistent direction towards more outrage, more extreme ideas and a greater hatred of us versus them.
You could wipe every reactionary television station, radio station, magazine, social media, and newspaper off the face of the earth, but capitalism’s internal contradictions would make their resurgence inevitable.
So long as wages are suppressed, social safety nets withered, wealth inequality balloons, education decays, retirement age grows, and healthcare becomes unattainable, the backside into fascism is inevitable.
How do you think fascism took hold in Germany, and how was it mitigated?
Your analysis falls into the same trap as other liberal analysis - that our means of changing our politics is a function of “changing people’s minds” in “the marketplace of ideas”. Liberal analysis champions the notion that “ideas” are what turn the wheels of history. In reality, it was Soviet T34s blasting Nazis into mist that mitigated German fascism - not some completely unachievable and unpragmatic scheme to break into retirement homes across the country and put parental controls on grandpa’s favorite flavor of right wing pundit TV.
Ooh, anti-democracy propaganda started early this cycle. I guess cons aren’t so sure about this one so they had to start this voting supression psyop this time of the year.
I’ll vote blue out of harm reduction, not out of hope.
IF there’s another real election, and IF the Neoliberals win, they’ll do NOTHING to reign in the capitalists that fund the fascists because they’re bribed to protect the “free market,” just as the Fascists are.
All them winning in 2028 might do is buy a little time before the Fascists are on the march the following cycle. That’s why it’s ignorant when people claim the only reason we’re collapsing is Trump. Reagan set the table for fascism and every president since has furthered that outcome. Whether this happened in 2020,2024, 2028, this was happening.
So vote for the Neoliberals all you want. I do it out of the starfish parable, to one delayed fascist action, it matters, but we’re still in a capitalist fascist hell, and until we have something to vote or riot for that will bring the capital markets to cinder, nothing can improve. You should feel like throwing up after voting here.
When you vote neoliberal democratic party, nothing fundamentally changes, and shit system isn’t fixed. When you don’t, armed vans are roaming around the cities putting non-white people in concentration camps somewhere abroad.
You can boast your moral superiority all you want, but those are the choices, and every person with a sliver of morality should spend all their waking second to prevent one of those choices to happen again, more.
The “everyone is the same, voting is pointless, if you vote you are a sheep that doesn’t see the moral truth” posts are doing the opposite of that, and when the opposite is encluraged, you get the worse choice, the one that hates you and actively working on killing you.There’s also not-insignificant evidence coming to light suggesting out voting is already compromised. Several counties have ridiculously anomalous voting patterns based on their investigation. Congress is already borked, and the Senate never seems to make a good decision, and the supreme Court is bought and paid for. I’m going to vote for the lesser of two evils because doing anything else is pointless, and also maybe is that vote. I highly doubt the people are going to be allowed to continue their voting fraud investigation, or make anything happen to those responsible even if the evidence becomes insurmountable.
I’m personally afraid that there’s no coming back. Trump (take 2) is the result of a broken system, not the cause. But I’ll continue doing my part in hopes that I’m wrong. I can’t afford to expatriate.
You heard it here first folks: this guy says don’t vote its not worth it it doesnt matter anyway they dont count it they’ll cheat anyway
I feel like I remember saying the exact opposite actually… Hold on, let me check.
I’m going to vote for the lesser of two evils because doing anything else is pointless,
But I’ll continue doing my part in hopes that I’m wrong.
Yep turns out I did. Yes, I absolutely have concerns that it won’t make a difference, but I’m not delusional enough to think doing absolutely nothing is a viable option. I think there’s a chance we can recover, but I’m also afraid we might not.
I want the two party system to die, but right now our only option is to try and vote in true progressives until they remove the parts of the system that keep the status quo. Yes, I said vote them in, because I think it’s still the best current option. It’s slow, and it sucks, and there will still be a ton more damage done before anything (hopefully) changes for the better, but I’m not giving up. Just expressing my fears and thoughts. Iowa’s recent election shows that voting still works, at the very least, in the smaller elections.
To reiterate: I, and everyone capable of doing so, should still vote. Who knows, maybe we can get enough independent Congress seats filled to eventually have an actual say in what happens.
But you can understand my frustrations right? These people are breaking the law, refusing to follow scotus rulings, committing war crimes, and a great deal of people are cheering for it, and not a single consequence is being dished out to those who deserve it. The rule of law has never to my knowledge been so flagrantly ignored in American history.
I’ll continue to participate in democracy, but I won’t truly believe it’s working until crimes and behavior is answered for, and those currently in power are properly held to account.
Americans have so thoroughly bought into the notion that democracy means an entrenched two-party system, that they instinctively view any suggestion to the contrary as “anti-democracy”.
Virtually every other functioning democracy in the world manages to maintain legislative houses with anything from 6-20 parties represented in Government, but somehow you’ve created a self-fulfilling prophecy where it’s impossible for you to have because it’s impossible for you to have.
It’s cool in theory. In practice, US is a two-party system, and a regular person can’t do shit about it. So you either vote for least bad party and organise and campaign to improve something, or you vote for most bad party and spend the whole time trying to survive while the most bad party kills most vulnerable people.
It’s a shit system, US is deeply fucked. However, you don’t go about fixing it by not understanding how it worksa regular person can’t do shit about it
Regular people can do everything about it. It just needs for people to stop telling them they can’t.
How’d “not voting to punish the dems” work last time?
It’s really weird to blame individuals for the failures of an organization. They can plan and change and strategize. The random voter your screaming at is a void. Stop being angry at the void, be angry at the thing that can actually change and do something.
voting only works if you also put in the work after the fact. When biden got elected, suddenly all the political fervor of the previous ~4 years vanished. And, assuming we get out of the current morass in one piece, it’s likely that all the uproar going on now will similarly disappear once “our guy” is in the oval office again.
Voting is the least any person can do, but without pounding the pavement and going out and doing the legwork, it’s just a bone they throw to us so we shut up. It happens every time, in every presidential election I can remember, and yet there are still people out here saying “but dae vote or dont complain!!:!:!:!:!”!“!”!?!!:!L!". It’s insulting.
There are few, if any, actually effective political movements that relied solely on officially approved political avenues to achieve anything. The Civil Rights movement in the US didn’t merely vote until the federal government deigned them worthy of being treated like human beings; they got out in the streets and demanded equality. The Indian Independence movement didn’t succeed by only appealing to the official colonial political apparatus using whatever methods were allowed them. They went and earned it.
So, whenever the liberal voting bloc is ready to stop letting themselves be politically infantilized by the electoral process, get at me.
Leftists: Don’t worry it’s late stage capitalism so inevitably it will all fall apart without us needing to do anything. If we voted for Kamala, nothing would be different anyway, so it’s a good thing we’re doing nothing.
Leftism is all about making people feel good about doing nothing. And that’s the point. Online socialism is monetized (like everything else online) so they need to convince you to feel good about buying from the merch stores of online “socialist influencers”.
It’s a similar grift to the incel dating advice scam. If they gave good advice and your life improved you would stop consuming their content. Monetized socialism is always trying to sabotage liberals because if liberals were successful in improving people’s lives, the monetized socialists would lose their income stream. Liberals are a natural ally to socialists, but they are the competition to monetized socialists.
So monetized socialists (Hasan, Vaush, etc) will constantly tell you how bad liberals are, because liberals are competition to them and they only care for that sweet monetization money.
Putting Hasan and Vaush in the same category is wild.
They are literally exactly in the same category: leftist streamers. I realize Hasan is a bit more popular, but they’re identical in terms of what they do.
Vaush is an ideologically vapid grifter who comes up with things like Anarcho-NATOism and defends child porn and pedophilia. The association with leftism is dubious at best.
Not Hassan though! He’s totally genuine about his Gucci bag and Porsche haha
Lepthishm!
As if that’s an ideology. It’s literally a propaganda label lifted straight from FOX l, and you’re unironically using it.
We get it. You don’t like liberal Dems.
Make your own party. Go. Do something.
do anything please
Voting harder would have unironically prevented this situation.
Unmute this meme immediately!
Imagine having no knowledge of more than a lifetime of legislation and still being so sure you know the DNC’s true colors.
EDIT: You know what? I’ll make it easier for you
PRESENTATION BY MR. RICHARD GREENE Nov 2022
Category 1: 13 Bills Passed By Democrats in The House but blocked by Republicans in The Senate
1.“The Women’s Health Protection Act”: Should women have a right to have an abortion in America?
Dems: YES 218, NO 1
Reps: YES 2, NO 208
/2. “The Right to Contraception Act”. Should Americans have a legal right to purchase contraception?
Dems: YES: 220, NO 0
Reps: YES 8, NO 195
/3. “The Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act”. Should the oil industry face penalties for price gouging?
Dems: YES 217, NO 4
Reps: YES 0, NO 203
/4. “The Assault Weapons Ban”. Should military style assault weapons be illegal for sale or purchase?
Dems: YES 215, NO 5
Reps: YES 2, NO 208
/5. “The Bipartisan Background Checks Act”. Should we expand background checks to cover all gun sales?
Dems: YES 219, NO 1
Reps: YES 8, NO 202
/6. “The Paycheck Fairness Act”. Should women receive equal pay for equal work in America?
Dems: YES: 216, NO: 0
Reps: YES: 1, NO: 210
/7. “The Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement Act”. Should cannabis be decriminalized federally and have past non-violent arrests and convictions expunged?
Dems: YES 217, NO 2
Reps: YES 3, NO 202
/8. “The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Enhancement Act”. Should we enforce the provisions of The 1965 Voting Rights Act ensuring equal treatment for all voters?
Dems: YES 219, NO 0
Reps: YES 0, NO 212
/9. ” The Respect for Marriage Act”. Should the Constitutional Right of same sex marriage declared by The Supreme Court be codified into American law?
Dems: YES 220, NO 0
Reps: YES 47, NO 157
/10. “The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act”. Should there be consequences for police for discriminatory and illegal policing?
Dems: YES 219, NO 2
Reps: YES 1, NO 210
/11. “The American Dream and Promise Act”. Should “Dreamers” who came to The US when they were young have a path to earn citizenship?
Dems: YES 219, NO 0
Reps:: YES 9, NO 197
/12. “The Affordable Insulin Now Act”. Should the price of pharmaceutical insulin be capped at $35?
Dems: YES 220, NO 0
Reps: YES 12, NO 193
/13. “Child Care for Working Families Act” (part of “Build Back Better) Should the government subsidize the cost of child care for certain working mothers and families?
Dems: YES 220, NO 1
Reps: YES 0, NO 212
/14. “The Violence Against Women Act”: Should the government have and fund comprehensive responses to domestic violence, sexual assault dating violence and stalking?
Dems: YES 215, NO 0
Reps: YES 29, NO 172
/15. BUILD BACK BETTER: In addition to Affordable Insulin and Child Care (above):Hearing Aids for Seniors, Child Tax Credit, Universal Pre-K
Dems: YES: 220, NO 0
Reps: YES 1, NO 212
2022 Midterm Election Note: Most of the above bills WILL pass in early 2023 if voters re-elect a Democratic Majority in The House and #JUST2MORE Democrats in The Senate. None of these bills will be brought up for a vote in The House if Republicans regain the Majority and either Kevin McCarthy or Donald Trump is Speaker of The House. Republicans need #JUST5MORE Republicans to regain the Majority.
Category 2: 3 Democratic Bills that became law with UNANIMOUS support by Democrats and minor support from Republicans in The Senate
/16. The Honoring Our PACT Act”Should Veterans receive health care for serious injuries received from “burn pit” pollution while fighting in our wars?
Dems: YES 222, NO 0
Reps: YES 34, NO 174
/17. “The Invest In America Act’ (Infrastructure Bill). An historic, massive infrastructure bill for America
Dems: YES: 219, NO: 0
Reps: YES: 2, NO 201
/18. “The CHIPS and Science Act. Should we invest heavily in an American micro-processor (Chips) industry to compete with China?
Dems: YES 219, NO 0
Reps: YES 24, NO 187
/19. “The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act”. Should the government fund mental health, school safety and crisis intervention programs and incentivize states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System?
Dems: YES 220, NO 0
Reps: YES 14, NO 193
Category 3: 1 Democratic Bill that became law with ZERO Republican support in The Senate
/20. “The Inflation Reduction Act”. The largest bill to fight climate change in history, reductions in prescription drugs, a 15% minimum tax on major corporations (and many other things)
Dems: YES 220, NO 1
Reps: YES 0, NO 212
2022 Midterm Election Note: Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other House Republicans have openly declared that THEIR legislative priorities include none of the above. Instead they will say they will focus on: a) Impeaching President Biden, b) Impeaching Merrick Garland, c) Investigating Hunter Biden and d) Making all abortions illegal throughout the United States.
The Republican and Democratic Parties are NOT the same. There is an almost total difference in policy.
The Republican and Democratic Parties are NOT the same. There is an almost total difference in policy.
The Uruk-hai and Democratic Party are NOT the same. There is an almost total difference in policy. The Uruk-hai are burning down cities, eating people and salting the earth, and the Democratic Party has consistently voted against every single one of those policies.
The post’s criticism is that the DNC is ineffective at standing up to fascists, not that there’s nothing desirable in their proposed legislation. Proposing laws that are guaranteed to be shot down is not an effective way of standing up to fascists.
The post is literally an image that has a two headed creature which is “fascists” and “Democrats doing resistance theatre”.
That’s not a mild fucking criticism, it’s like calling Mr. Rogers a nazi gestapo accomplice because he didn’t wash his feet hard enough.
The Dems are doing so little to maintain the political norms of our society that they appear to be ok with them changing. They look like they’re just trying to make sure they each individually get to keep their seat. If that’s in a sham legislature, that’s fine for them. Bribes might be legal soon, so they’re getting a sweet deal.
Republicans are controlling 3 branches. At this point the flight needs to come from us.
The Dems have had 48 or less senators for over a decade, you might as well blame the Jackson Five for their innaction.
You know what, you’ve convinced me. Im gonna go grab a beer and relax. Dems have done everything that can be done. There is no point in trying to prevent a third Trump term. It was gonna happen no matter what anyway.
If we weren’t watching a replay of the early 1930’s, it would be funny that Democratic ideologues still pretend that Dems are powerless when Donald has had the same amount of power as Biden and Obama for eight months and he’s completely remade American culture and government.
The problem isn’t power. The problem is Dems simply don’t care as along as their personal wealth continues to increase unimpeded.
Courts keep reversing Trump’s actions because they’re illegal, they also reversed several of Biden’s executive orders such as student loan forgiveness.
If your idea of preventing a third trump term was to spread Anti-DNC Propaganda then yes, please sit this one out.
Totally, man.
I’ll await your next sternly-worded letter.
Resist.
If your idea of preventing fascism is supporting fascists, then please sit it out.
Pretty sure neither the J5 or Mr Rogers actively supported genocide. You’re a silly, gross person.
Ah look they finally got the vote manipulation bots in here to reverse all the ratios, I wonder what the delay was about?
EDIT: To clarify, the Republican Loving Tankie bots have clearly been here.
Of course, can’t be that people legitimately disagree with you.
How do you think the meme got popular enough for you to see it in the first place?
I would expect politicians to have better ideas than the ineffective shit they have been doing this year so far. Considering that I don’t believe that politicians at the national level are all actually that dumb, it has to be on purpose. There’s certainly DNC politicians who are sincere about wanting avoid fascism, but they aren’t the ones who run the party.
Better ideas get filibustered. They could remove filibustered but since they’ve had 48 or less senate seats since 2013-2015 congress a literal decade ago that also means the GOP could potentially pass laws without a filibuster.
What we need is a strong DNC majority like we had in 2010-2012 which expanded healthcare to tens of millions of people and proposed tax reforms that reduced individual rates to 10% and raised corporate and foreign effective rates to 25% (many companies pay 0%
Instead we just reelected the fucking apeass bastard who keeps cutting taxes for the rich.
And have people learned anything from all this? NO! THEY’RE ACTUALLY GETTING DUMBER AS TIME GOES ON.
Dems had the presidency for four years. They had Congress for two years. With that same amount of power Donald has accomplished everything he wants.
Did you notice those special sessions Abbott just did in Texas?
The US president has the same power. He could have kept Congress in session for four years straight until he got what he wanted by sheer force of will.
But that assumes he gives a shit.
First of all
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Texas house and senate were also solid red.
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POTUS can’t keep congress in session because that would require power of the purse which belongs solely to the house.
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I JUST SENT YOU A LIST OF THINGS THEY ACCOMPLISHED DESPITE THEIR 50:50 MAJORITY, NOT COUNTING ANY EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
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Don’t pretend like the DNC aren’t to blame for not getting enough votes. Look at how hard they fumbled the last national election, and how they’re treating Mamdani.
You mean… just being joyful about not being able to afford food didn’t fix your entire life?
I’m shocked.
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Nice ad hominem.
Policy doesn’t matter if you’re not effective at actually getting elected, and by now we’re kinda beyond the point where the fascists can be voted out.
Dems are literally supporting a genocide. It’s pretty effing gross to compare them to Mr Rogers.
Dems literally distributed tens of millions of lbs of food they delivered on a floating dock they built, via landroutes, and via airdrop. Dems literally withheld large bombs from the out of control Netanyahu admin. Dems consistently held the message of peace and ceasefire in exchange for hostages being returned.
Netanyahu literally endorsed Trump and Trump’s Pete Hegseth is literally promoting death or exodus of every Palestiniain.
You care about Palestinians? Volunteer for the DNC.
Dems literally distributed tens of millions of lbs of food they delivered on a floating dock they built, via landroutes, and via airdrop.
A floating dock that was operational for a grand total of 20 fucking days, land routes where aid trucks never reached their destination, and airdrops that all the experienced aid agencies referred to as a “grotesque distraction,” said “could never deliver the volume or the quality,” and are “expensive, inefficient, and can even kill starving civilians.”
Dems literally withheld large bombs from the out of control Netanyahu admin.
I’m certain the Palestinians are very grateful to have been killed with many smaller bombs rather than a few very big bombs. What a world of difference it makes.
Dems consistently held the message of peace and ceasefire in exchange for hostages being returned.
All while Israel refused to negotiate for the hostages’ return, even going so far as to kill the Palestinian negotiators, and always being the one to break ceasefires.
Performative, ineffective, insulting “attempts” at delivering aid when Biden could have ended the genocide with a single fucking phonecall by conditioning defense spending to Israel on opening a humanitarian corridor and threatening sanctions if Israel continues violating international law. And I know for a fact that he could have done so because RONALD FUCKING REAGAN DID EXACTLY THAT in August 1982 when Israeli forces advanced beyond southern Lebanon and began shelling the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Beirut. You cannot call yourself a leftist or even a liberal when you’re getting outclassed by Ronald Reagan.
I don’t think what Biden did was good enough. If it were me I wouldn’t have stopped at your suggestion, I’d have sent in the US military and deposed Netanyahu personally citing Israel’s own laws, international criminal justice, and defense of an ally nation under duress.
But unlike you I don’t make that an excuse to justify the starvation of hundreds of thousands.
But unlike you I don’t make that an excuse to justify the starvation of hundreds of thousands.
How, in all of the interactions I’ve had with you, have I ever given the impression that I’m justifying Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians? I’ve been ruthlessly criticizing Biden and the Democratic party’s complicity in the genocide and I agree that he should have gone as far as to depose Netanyahu by force if it came to it. I only mentioned conditioning defense spending and sanctions because that’s all it would have taken, and the most that could be reasonably expected of a neoliberal ghoul like Biden.
And I don’t know what you’re trying to communicate with that chart. Perhaps you’re trying to use the fact that Trump is far worse as some sort of gotcha, as if I don’t already know that.
Which of the bills you listed were about resisting fascism? I noticed two that were about actively capitulating to it (the ones aimed at disarming the populace), but zero that were about resisting it.
Expunging the records of millions of marijuana offenses would also restore voting rights, and the American Dream and Promise Act would give voting rights to more people who lived their lives in this country.
It’s funny that you mention the Aussault Weapons Ban, you realize Aussault Weapons were banned once before and Republicans allowed it to expire? Do you feel just as strongly about Firearms not requiring any background checks like Every Republican seems to think? Those are both in the list.
What about the George Floyd namesake bill that would have created more avenues to try police for their crimes? You don’t like that one? You feel bad for those poor police? I’m just trying to guage what level of NRA and Military Industrial Complex shillery you do or do not condone.
Edit: Let’s meet in the middle, you can put a scope on a magnum or semi-auto rifle and maybe kill 5 to 30 people before reloading, is that still too repressive for you?
You really don’t get it, do you?
We are rapidly approaching the time in which it will be necessary for the militia to defend the United States against a domestic enemy, if we aren’t there already. For that, they need to be just as well-armed, up to and including burst-fire AR-15s.
Assault rifles are the type of firearms most worthy of Constitutional protection, not least, specifically because they are the last defense against tyranny. The more useful a weapon is in a military tactical context, the more I want the citizenry to have it.
The “2nd amendment is important for a militia to protect us from tyranny” crowd is more ineffective than the Democrats.
Your AR-15s are gonna do fuck all to tanks and UAVs.
And you think Russia and China are just going to sit back and watch the USA build up from the ashes after you get massacred by some inbreds?
the vc and mujahideen and Taliban stopped the greatest imperial forces in the world with small arms.
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Care to explain why the same rich people have polar opposite policy stances depending on who wins?
Because the state serves capitalism and none of their “issues” actually threatens any capitalist at all. When it does, you see both “parties” grovelling in unison.
Oh look another DB0 Tankie what a surprise.
Libs literally think that spamming their endless losses and fascist collaborations is an argument. Please post about more issues that libs and fash collaborated on. Big winners.
Keep fighting the good fight. A lot of folks nowadays have grown disenfranchised with the democratic model because they aren’t seeing their particular flavor of progress. We must continue to guide them away from the sugar high that is dictatorial power and channel their energy into the fruits and veggies that is the democratic process. It can bear fruit if we nurture it.
We no longer have a democratic process. The only logical democratic process is to kill billionaires. Peter Theil not only wants to create a dystopian control, but he wants to literally end the human race. We need militia.
You know that you can strategically vote liberal and do direct action, right?
Well ackshually felons aren’t allowed to vote
You know that you can strategically vote liberal
There would have to be a strategy in voting against your own interests. It’s actively voting for bad things so worse things maybe don’t happen? That’s your strategy?
Correct. At present, the outcomes at the ballot box are “bad” and “worse”. Of the two, “bad” is preferable. “Good” will require non-electoral direct action.
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How many decades of turning up your nose at the lesser evil do you people need before you realize that just makes things worse faster?
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Who is “y’all”? What exactly do you think is “something productive” and what are you doing, besides making things worse through electoral misinformation?
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Lmao.
“We’re the good guys because we’re making things worse more slowly” is one hell of a self report.
Slowing the decline is one aspect of treatment, and the best outcome presently available via electoral action. More significant progress requires alternative methods. Mitigating damage via the electoral vector is more valuable to the efficacy of those alternative methods than whatever it is you’re trying to do by not mitigating damage.
Holy shit, so many words just to cope that you got owned. Yikes.
Name another “aspect of treatment” from within your delirious worldview, if voting for the lesser evil is just one aspect. I dare you to elaborate.
More significant progress requires alternative methods.
Like what?! You’re so close to reality, yet so far away.
Look where that got us. It’s a bad strategy and needs to be retired.
Is it truly a bad strategy? Or is there much less direct action than what’s needed?
It being a bad strategy and also the best available strategy are not mutually exclusive. No presently actionable strategy has a better outcome.
So there’s no strategy that has a better outcome than Trump’s second term? You sure about that?
What? Trump’s second term is largely the result of not strategically voting for lesser evil.
What alternative, actionable strategy would have led to a different outcome? Actionable means “Everyone votes for the same third party” doesn’t count. So go on, what was the alternative strategy that had any chance whatsoever of succeeding?
I think you’re missing the point. The strategy out of the DNC going on two decades has been “our horrible candidate is less horrible than their candidate,” and it took a worldwide pandemic and thousands of deaths for it to work once.
They need to stop and find someone who isn’t horrible if they ever want to win again. That or just let the world burn and hope it’s only the neolibs that survive. I wouldn’t bet on that myself.
Are there any organizations taking direct action?
People usually don’t like throwing their lives away for a 1 off act of rebellion.
As individuals, I think the best course of action is to build a movement behind a common goal. Talk to the people around you. Talk to people online. Break up infighting and bring people together on their common grounds. When the movement becomes big enough, then everyone rebels simultaneously. One person rebelling is one life thrown away for no gains and one less person in the movement. Everyone rebelling together is what leads to real change.
Are there any organizations taking direct action?
That’s you. Organize and talk to others. You will eventually find others also organizing towards the same goal. Merge your efforts and you have a larger organization. Rinse and repeat.
The reason so many rich are financing these Neoliberal organizations to take charge is because they will never tell us to perform the necessary action to redistribute their wealth.
So we can organize under the Neoliberals or get fucked…
It’s called controlled opposition
So we can organize under the Neoliberals or get fucked…
It’s not one or the other. You can organize independently of the neoliberals.
And how much of a chance does that give independent grassroots organizations that don’t receive money from billionaires?
You know it’s more difficult to go to two different protest events on the few days, you just don’t support the things that are necessary to enact change because you are a good serf.
how much of a chance
A non-zero chance. If you have a better idea, I’m all ears. The only alternative I’m hearing is to give up, and that guarantees your chances to be zero.
You know it’s more difficult to go to two different protest events on the few days, you just don’t support the things that are necessary to enact change because you are a good serf.
Protesting is just one of many ways of building the movement. A protest tells you that there are others ready to take action. It creates conversation and an opening to talk to the people around you about it. Being at the protests is always good, but it’s not the only way to help a movement.
I’m not sure if I understood what you were saying. Regardless, I think my response makes sense for at least two possible interpretations of it.
There’s usually one or two people actually, but they don’t usually help their cause as much as they’d like to. That guy who missed Trump didn’t help anyone do anything except make trump almost a martyr. I had a friend who told me that he knew Trump would win after that. While I don’t think in absolutes and wasn’t as sure as him (and this was not a maga guy of the rails, this is a calm man who had more to lose than me) he was right that trump did win. Most people who assassinate a president or candidate don’t get the change they want.
No, I’m not, because I’m not an American and it isn’t our fucking job to fix the thing the rest of us have been telling you for decades was going to happen.
Sorry to break it to you but the blame lies with the American people. In Europe, when something like this happens, everyone’s on the streets and there are strikes everywhere. And the protests almost always turn violent. And we’re talking about large demonstrations of millions, not a few hundred/thousands as in the US. In the US, the demonstrations kinda feel like a spectacle, a show that you join for a couple of hours. In Europe it means business. I’m also American, but I’m currently in Greece. I’ve seen the differences with my own eyes. The public needs to show force, or it has no teeth. I’m not advocating for violence, I’m advocating for teeth.
Unfortunately even Europe is going this way. The right have figured out how to spam nonsense on social media and turn enough people. And how to control media in general, just be on tv and radio as much as possible complaining about everything even if it doesn’t exist and offer up baseless solutions to solve every problem you’ve ever head.
See Farage.
Even Japan is seeing protests against immigration right now and rallying for building up armies and getting nuclear weapons. Ideas we would have thought completely insane even a few years ago.
Far-right rhetoric is the key to corporate wealth. As long as the world is divided, people will focus their fears outward instead of unionizing, creating competition or regulating the businesses in their homelands. Wealth inequality is how you make billions of people want to give you money for stupid distractions and entertainment and false security.
We HAVE to stop buying shit. Seriously, we are feeding our killers and supplying them with every incentive to keep raping us. We have to stop buying doordash and fast food and new games and movies and new cars and phones. We have to start living like we’re already in the hard times ahead, because if we can punch the corporations hard enough, they may loosen their grip enough or lose time restructuring their tactics that we can get actual anti-oligarch representation into local seats of power. That’s our ONLY hope right now, and it’s a longshot that requires each of us to do far more uncomfortable things than we want.
I’m not advocating for violence, I’m advocating for teeth.
The status quo is more violent than a riot or political assassination could ever measure up to. I advocate for killing it by whatever means are available. If violence is a plausible tool, use violence. If voting still has any hope of accomplishing anything, do that. Our stupidity and apathy have created a monster that must die.
I think one of the big concerns is that Trump is looking for any excuse to deploy the military against our own citizens. If he can start something violent in the streets, it justifies declaring martial law and taking over Democrat-run states. But in this digital age, everyone has cameras on their phones, so he needs the citizens to start shit first. He’s not brave enough yet to directly contradict video evidence of crimes (although he’s getting there).
That’s one of the big reasons Americans are trying to keep their protests civil. If we turn it violent, Trump gets his way and we get don’t stand a chance against a military invasion on our own land. Like in California, when Trump sent the National Guard to quell protests against ICE in LA, nothing came of it because no one wanted to start a fight. Protestors showed up, but none of them directly engaged with the military. Eventually the whole military campaign fizzled and the National Guard was recalled home.
We’re dealing with that again in Washington D.C. right now. Trump created some fake crime emergency to deploy the National Guard in D.C., despite an all-time low crime rate right now. Protestors are showing up in force, but nothing’s happening because they’re not directly confronting the National Guard. Just standing their ground and peacefully protesting.
I’m all for revolution; I think the only way we’ll fix our broken system is to tear it all down and rebuild from scratch; there are too many corrupt officials, on both sides of the fence, to repair it as is. And too many corrupt laws and regulations in place to function effectively. But you can’t just go in with violence. It’s a delicate situation right now and violence should be the absolute last resort. Trump has no problem sending millions to their deaths for his ideals and he’ll gladly invade our own nation to cement his dictatorship. We can’t give him the excuse to do it.
I was serving in the US military when Trump got elected the first time, and that was a scary time for us. He spoke very favorably about various dictators and wanting to reshape America like their countries. But he had a majority Democrat government that kept slapping down every BS thing he tried, so his first term was mostly uneventful.
This time around, though, he has a majority Republican government and enough supporters in high level positions that he’s surrounded by yes men. He’s been a lot more bold. I’m really glad I retired when I did because there’s no way I could follow his unlawful orders.
I think that’s the biggest difference between the US and Europe. Europe isn’t going to deploy the military to break up violent protests and then use it to enact martial law and overthrow that nation. Trump will, if given the chance.
Sure, we don’t have to start with violence, but the person you responded to also said strike. A general strike would topple what’s left of the rotting economy Trump created and angering the corporate overlords is really the only hope in a corporate oligarchy.
The final count for No Kings was over 5 million. Glad a bunch of folks that only work 30 hours a week can be at their commin protest point within hours and complain that Americans barely keeping their heads above water have low numbers just because our country is massive.
5 million is nothing in country of 300+ million. In Greece, last February, 4 million people hit the streets, in a country of 10 million.
It would have taken me 5 hours to get to my state capitol where I am from, and even if half the state came, as huge as it is, that would still be only 2.5 million in a place that is barely on the map. We would have to shut down the entire state for a day just so people could take off work for the travel alone. Thos country is HUGE! I would like to protest chicago, but it would take at least 6 hours for me to get there from my location. Washington DC is about 14.5 hours away. And I am just talking one-way. There is lots of empty space here, with wildly different cultures on each side of those spaces. Greece is like the size of Alabama, but if you protested in Alabama, you are protesting in cities that do not get a lot of attention. I would bet you can not name one city there. Want to know why? Because nobody cares.
Shit is hitting the fan this week in Chicago. We have protested and protested and protested. That 50501 number was just for the No Kings protest. Of course the news never makes it to all of you. You might all get to see the civil war you wanted so badly. But we’ll lose. This wil be a slaughter if it pops off.
In Europe, when something like this happens, everyone’s on the streets and there are strikes everywhere.
This is not true, most major European countries have a growing Trump like movement and they’re steadily gaining ground. Consider France, the country most notorious for its protests, the left there does like the Americans – keep voting for their version of the Democrats only to get burned over and over in Parliament. In many spaces, European countries do not have as good protection for individual liberties and even social democratic governments are fine with doing things that are sometimes on par with the Trump regime (albeit not being as gauche, lawless and explicitly cruel about it). For instance, the EU is trying to mandate that pretty much all digital communication is put under AI based surveillance (under the guise of tracking down pedos) – the movement against this is very fringe even though it affects everyone. You should also keep in mind that European leaders, all over the spectrum, are blindly caving to Trump whenever he exerts any form of pressure.
In summary, many of us in Europe are better off in terms of not yet living under a creeping autocracy that has become void of any credible democratic influence for the populace. But it’s slipping here too, heading in the same direction, and by and large the general public is not really paying attention.
You’re right, but two things can be true at the same time: Europe is slipping to the right, but it still has a lot more civil engagement.
But as long as neoliberalism is maintained while it withers, the course here will be the same as the US: Fascism.
I’m also American, but I’m currently in Greece.
Oh yeah that definitely makes you a credible voice for “europe”.
I am from the Netherlands, born and raised, and let me just say: the lack of civil resistance against Trump’s regime is shocking to me and my Dutch peers.
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Look at my other comment. Greece is a country of less than 10million and 4 million hit the streets in feb. For No Kings protest in the US, only 5 million hit the streets. Out of 300 million ppl. That’s the comparison I’m making.
In other countries still, when tyrants start imposing their will and breaking the law, people just fucking drag their ass out of office by force.
America has the wealthiest, most comfortable middle-class population in the world, a relic from when we had great trading power and were on our way to become the globe’s central service, technology and engineering seat, but all that is now going away and there are raiders and orcs pillaging the middle-class.
By the time they’re done, America is going to be divided, wrecked and there will be shanty-towns where suburbs and universities used to stand, and all the frogs will have been boiled so slowly that nobody will remember how and why the country used to be profitable.
Right now, that middle-class is still so comfortable that they’re not noticing the changes. They are checked out. You all are. The number of people on this site alone who cannot grasp basic civics is more than depressing, it’s a sign of how far we’ve allowed our home to crumble and there will be no short-term solutions. We can start planting the seeds for a better tomorrow by getting involved in community and local representation and spurning the temptations of distractions and new shiny toys, but we will not sit in the shade of those trees. You all think this damage can be turned around as soon as “the liberals rise up” or some perfect, ideal leader suddenly appears out of the shadows.
Motherfuckers, nobody is coming. We let it slip, we stopped fighting the right fights, we let distractions divide us, and this is the consequence. You all should feel bad and be depressed. I have no positive news or bright side to look at. We are fucking maimed.
Yah I don’t have solutions for near-term successes because we’re now living in motherfucking consequence.
Our liberal appeals, our lefty identity politics, our scolding and appealing and hand-wringing about all the wrong problems to focus on has cost us everything and I have spent the last decade warning everyone that this was going to happen.
But sure, go ahead and keep sharing memes on Lemmy about how bad orange man is, keep reposting witty twitter exchanges and keep deluding yourselves into thinking “any day now, America is going to wake up and DO SOMETHING” while the situation gets progressively worse.
You don’t expect some great plan for getting out of “consequence” you try to avoid it from happening in the first place. A lot of us were screaming the entire last decade that we need to mobilize FAST to get grassroots candidates installed in local and state seats, that we need to protest not brands for not being woke, but we needed to protest EVERYTHING and start hoarding and saving money broadly. You lost the left because the left was about scolding the right and not mobilizing people against oligarchy and corporations. You made it about inclusivity and fringe issues when it should have been about workers. Once you secure the workers and production, you can then fix the social issues… I don’t understand how you all thought you were going to fix social issues while the elite capitalists were running the show.
Sure though, go ahead and blame the Democrats, blame Obama, blame dumb hicks who have no education or consistent values and just go along with whatever emotional narrative feels good to them at the moment- you know, instead of USING them like the tools they are. We could have done SO MUCH.
Right now, America’s remaining middle-class liberal population are like a ripe nest of honeypot ants out in the Sahara. There are massive forces looking at that ripe basket of wealth waiting for any and every opportunity to chop into that nest and start scooping out whatever they can before it’s all gone, and it’s going fast. That’s where we’re fucking at right now. The middle-class is being raped and gutted and we’re here on the sidelines saying “Is our platform inclusive enough?”
Fuck all ya’ll. You were dumb and this is what happens when you’re dumb. First you checked out and didn’t care what was happening, then when you started to care, you just divided in a thousand splinters arguing about the dumbest shit imaginable for performative Lefty Points that can be redeemed at your local concentration camp for the benefit of feeling smug as you wait for deportation.
But sure, go ahead and keep sharing memes on Lemmy about how bad orange man is
It’s not an orange man bad meme. It’s a liberals ain’t doing nothing meme, which is actually a true and valid problem. We have to find ways to sabot the gears of the autocratic oppression machine. As Helen Cox Richardson notes, if you got an artistic bone in your body, get to artting!
Also Knitting Cult Lady did a video ( on YouTube ) about how Orange Man’s orange makeup is the same thing as Queen Elizabeth I’s make-up (white leaded paint, which, yes, did poison her) to signal that she is a living god. In the queen’s case it was a means to get England to recognize a woman as a legit ruler (rather than pressuring her to find a husband to take over).
Orange Man does it because he wants to be a cult leader (which is essentially the same thing), and we don’t find his facepaint absurd enough to throw him from his podium or think of him as a clown.
This is how we know human beings are the evolutionary equivalent of a lowest-common-bidder project, the minimum amount of reasoning necessary to build a rocket and touch the moon. Otherwise, we are still brutal animals, and apes as silly as the ones in the jungle.
He’s wearing the face paint for the same reason 18th century French aristocrats did- because he has syphilis. You have got to be joking with the “divine symbolism” take, he’s an intellectual basket case, he’s nowhere close to being capable of that level of symbolic ostentation, and neither would his base be capable of making that connection, that’s just dumb.
I don’t even take issue with this meme in this post, it’s actually closer to reality than anything.
It’s the constant, daily “LOOK AT WHAT HE SAID AND LOOK AT WHAT THIS PERSON SAID IN REPLY” or other kinds of fake, delusional satisfaction-porn that we all spread and pat ourselves on the back for that bothers me. I don’t mind the propaganda, we need everything we have, but I don’t like how it’s being circulated in places where it’s just reinforcing people’s belief that we’re actually scoring points.
I feel strongly that if the average LemmyLefty were to see just how strong the country’s conservative base really is, and just how tuned-out and apathetic the average American voter is, any how many there really are, they would despair the way I have and sound just as angry and cynical as me.
And then hopefully, after the despair passes, they will start tackling it seriously like the real problem that it is, from a more realistic ground-floor than letting themselves get distracted over every identity-politics hit-piece and emotional appeal designed to make people lose rational thought.
Everything you claim should be done is what Bernie Sanders supported and that got us nowhere.
It’s really easy to get up on your high horse and claim that leftist identity politics is the problem instead of looking at the systemic failures of American democracy. Lobbying, Gerrymandering, media outlet control, anti-intellectual propaganda, voter disenfranchisement, an underfunded education system, the electoral college, a packed supreme court, etc.
This isn’t a case of ‘if you can stop being righteous and just hate gay people for a moment we could have had universal health care.’ This is a case of the democratic process unravelling in its end stages as the popular candidate lost the vote four times in the seven presidential elections.
Everything you claim should be done is what Bernie Sanders supported and that got us nowhere.
Imagine if Bernie just gave up the first time he lost an election, he would have bowed out in 1972 when he only got 2.1% of the vote in a Vermont Senate special election.
Instead he’s been bang on consistent with his views for going on 60 goddamn years now. The rest of the left could learn a lot from that.
if you can stop being righteous and just hate gay people for a moment we could have had universal health care.
What’s really sunk is this widespread, infectious binary thinking. It’s not even natural, it’s a product of media and propaganda.
If you all think “focusing on workers” as a priority is the same as “hate gay people” then we have no hope. It means our minds are not capable of holding simultaneous ideas or making priorities anymore. It fucking sucks and I don’t know how to explain things anymore to people in ways that don’t trigger this kind of “all or nothing” “love or hate” “black and white” thinking mode, and it’s getting worse.
You wanted equality? Then you should have looked at how the average dumbass white, straight american views it… as a secondary issue. Then used their primary issues to leverage our society to the issues we wanted to see. Now we lose everything because we couldn’t work with the problem we had and instead tried to solve all the problems at once. It’s dumb and sometimes I want to give up and let you all have the fascist hellhole nightmare you all seemed to secretly want so you can continue to be victims of the establishment and not have to get off your asses and DO something for your community.
That’s a little hypocritical of you to call this “widespread, infectious binary thinking” when I was pointing this out in your comment, not advocating for it.
You’re faulting liberals for stifling class warfare through engaging in identity politics, when you said so yourself that it doesn’t have to be either or.
Identity politics isn’t the enemy of class warfare, it’s corporate interests, lobbying, and billionaires, and they want you to do exactly what you are doing now, which is to get liberals to gatekeep each other while they laugh at low tax rates.
That’s a little hypocritical of you to call this “widespread, infectious binary thinking” when I was pointing this out in your comment, not advocating for it.
I was saying that you pointing it out in my comment was the binary, black and white attitude. I say: “We on the left have been tackling this problem wrong, most American’s don’t care about the issues we keep hitting them with.” To which Lefty Clone #409687 says “How can you hate marginalized people so much you’re willing to turn your back on them???”
It sounds exactly the same to me as “You want to help children in Gaza? How can you empower anti-semitism???” In that, one has nothing to do with the other. It’s an artificial binary used to keep us from getting anywhere. Yah, we did too much scolding and identity politics and abstract worries that people don’t see… Covid should have been our wake-up call that people’s minds have changed or melted out their ears, we should have focused on issues that average americans actually care about, we should have leveraged their selfish worries and used their fear to fight the system that wants to send us all to camps. Then we could have done better and pushed our desires for a just and equitable world back on stage and got that shit protected… we were even making progress on it for a little while. Then everyone started falling for the same distractions.
The only real resolution is the one people don’t want to admit to publicly. They can’t even write the words out and publish it. It’s not even a game of chicken. Nobody lives forever. History has seen the correct treatment to what he is in the past. It should be done now as well.
