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It should be noted that through all this people fought for those rights. So don’t fall asleep, dear America, because organizing even within small communities will make a difference.
If done correctly, massive change can happen. Dream big so that those who fear negotiate back down to the levels you’ll accept.
The Beastie Boys certainly did.
I feel like a lot of people online need to read this comment, go outside, and live their life. This is not defeatist, and it’s not unreal optimism. Thank you for this.
I think the problem here is the concurrent effects of climate change. The US couldn’t have picked a worse time to move from flirting with facism to full-on marrying it.
You can deal with one crisis if you’re coordinated enough but the chaos that’s already occurring with the climate - and is set to become exponentially worse - doesn’t give me much hope for a harmonious conclusion to this. Obviously, I hope I’m wrong and you’re right.
Dont forget the trail of tears.
The US has been through a lot and will likely recover, but it would be nice to avoid making the same mistakes again. How many more people have to get hurt before humanity learns?
democracy survived
LMAO!!
Choosing between two candidate picked by lobbyists/corporations, and anyone else not having a slightest chance in hell isn’t a democracy, but hey, you do you.
It’s slightly better than China/Russia having a single candidate and everyone else is just for show.
The part about our history you’re forgetting is that we never, through any of that, gleefully elected a guy that has made it abundantly clear he doesn’t give a fuck about democracy and will work to subvert or destroy it if it doesn’t suit him.
This is new territory.
And we’re about to experience the deconstruction of things that will be very difficult to build back.
Your point is that we’ve been around for a few hundred years, so we can bounce back. But history would like to point out that nations that were around much longer than us have ceased to exist many times over.
I wish I had your optimism.
one difference today is that govt/establishment/utra-rich have centralised way more power than anytime in human history.
add that with extreme surveillance & automated weaponry, “govt” can do basically anything they want. 1% can easily crush any opposition to them with no matter how strongly united the rest of us are. dnc just ignored its entire voter base to continue a genocide & support fracking while letting corporate greed run rampant for last 4 years.
with ai+drones it will become way worse. it’s not unimaginable what’s happening to palestinian will happen to the non-white population here in next 10-15 years.
From an outsider’s perspective, I think a lot of people think you guys sailed past the point of no return back in the 80s.
Reagan, he is the starting point of everything: the tax cut from 73% to 28%. USA never got back on track after this.
Nope. Johnson.
No, not that one.
Andrew Johnson.
So many ways it could have been better.
He could have punished the Southern Aristocracy for starting the civil war. He could have ensured that the evil that led us there was exterminated forever.
Failing that, they could have actually removed him via impeachment instead of falling just short. That would have at least established forever that the presidency is not some sacred “unimpeachable” office.
But Raygun did a great break dancing set in the Olympics.
Remember when the entire world was convinced there was absolutely no way Bush, an idiot, fascist, religious bigot, etc could get re-elected?
Nobody thought that at all. Most presidents sitting during outbreaks of war retain their positions. You’d have to have been in a complete echo chamber to believe this stance. The moment 9/11 happened, it solidified Bush’s Second term in stone.
I assume you mean Jr. Because Sr wasn’t the moron that Jr was.
Yeah no, I’m gonna disagree. Being outside of the US at the time, most people did think that. And yes, obviously I’m talking about Jr since Sr didn’t get re-elected. 9/11 was a full three years before the election of his second term. And most importantly before he started the war in Iraq. A war that was widely viewed as illegitimate outside the US.
It was viewed as illegitimate inside the US too. And yeah, I remember, even as a 17yr old at the time, seeing the event happen live and lamenting to my mother that we were going to have another Bush term over it. Historically for America that’s always been the case.
It was viewed as illegitimate inside the US too.
You’re recollection of events is clearly skewed. Something like 80% of the population approved of it at first. Meanwhile there were protests in the millions of people around the world against it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq
A Gallup poll made on behalf of CNN and USA Today concluded that 79% of Americans thought the Iraq War was justified, with or without conclusive evidence of illegal weapons.
It’s so fucking disgusting to be honest… I’m just a worthless dumb shit uneducated factory worker and at 17 I could see right through that garbage… We’re a hateful group of people whether we care to admit it or not, there was a lot of anti-islamic/Muslim/Arab sentiment in the US at thst time. People were bloodthirsty.
I was going to join the military after highschool to get training since I’m poor and had no real direction to gamble on college, and then take it from there whether to stay in or not. Once talk started of invading Iraq I immediately said fuccccck that. I still blame Bush partially for my current situation. :/
You should read your own link, because it also mentions that by the end of his term, most disapproved. By 2006 it was viewed as illegitimate by most. My recollection of events is fine, thanks.
America will generally approve of measures when they are led to believe it affects their security and safety. It’s the years afterwards that determine if it continues to hold support.
You should read your own link, because it also mentions that by the end of his term, most disapproved
I clearly stated “at first”. Mind you by the end of his term a majority still thought it was the right thing to do.
Nucular. 🤦
9/11
What?!
The 80s were fucked, but if you’re saying it was worse than the response to the Civil Rights movement…
McCarthyism…
Jim Crow…
Or the KKK destroying reconstruction…
Like, I could see saying that last one was the point, only if you start the clock immediately after resolving the civil war. Cause obviously a Civil War is what really happens after a point of no return. We lasted a couple years in between the two points.
For as fucked as the last 40 years has been, as far as America goes we’re beating the average on basic human decency.
What’s happening now isn’t new, it’s a slip backwards, which is unfortunately common when you try to fight fascism with moderate politics. It works for a little bit because they’re coasting off the last people who really fought. But all moderate politcs really are, is giving fascist time to regroup in the shadows like fucking Sauron.
It’s a cycle, and we live in a time when you can learn pretty much anything about history in a few minutes on Wikipedia
America can not afford for voters to stay ignorant. We need people who know what happened last time, what worked then, and what might work again. Stop acting like we live in unprecedented times, and start reading up on how fascism has been defeated historically.
Cuz we’re up, like it or not shits getting real again. And the more people know what we’re doing then better.
You mean the 1780s, right?
Progress isn’t a straight line, and sometimes there are setbacks on the way. I’m disappointed, of course, but I’m optimistic that we’ll manage.
We may yet manage as a country, but the millions that die from this election won’t get to see it.
millions who die
how so?
Soldiers knocking down doors to arrest millions of illegal aliens and everyone who looks like an illegal alien and shoving them into camps, what could go wrong?
I don’t think we will see that, but i do think we will see ice raids on businesses that tend to hire immigrants and fake crackdowns on paperwork that dramatically increases the time and hassle for everything, and weird pushes for all paperwork to be in English.
Hm. Okay.
Women. Queer people. Non-white people. Hell, even white straight cis evangelical Christian rich men who die from being sick.
There will be so much death.
It will be unending.
That does not clarify anything.
How about the fact drill baby drill means seeing a 3 degree Celsius increase by 2100. That’s the lifetime of many of the people in this earth. That kind of change will kill many ecosystems and make deserts out of a lot where we live and grow food. We know we can’t stop going past 1.5 degrees now do to our slow changes. Instead we are hitting the gas pedal according to Trump. The oceans, plantlife on land, everything that consumes it is in jeopardy. Estimates are around 60% of animal populations have died off since the 70s. At some point you break the link in the food “chain” if you will, and larger masses die off, until it is unrecoverable.
“We can farm fish”. <- We farm fish in the U.S. ship it to China to package and then ship it back to put it on our shelves. That’s how wasteful we are.
I’m not about to provide you with masturbation material.
I love how you have downvotes for asking for clarification. As if asking for it is an argument deserving of downvotes.
I think that the us perspective on politics is surprising self-centered. If millions will die remains to be seen, but an unpredictable us leadership will certainly shift power dynamics on an international scale. The trump administration might randomly decide to side with land grabbing dictators, might embolden Israel, or switch to Doge Coin as the main currency. Those things might not directly cause death, but will disrupt the world stage to a degree which might overpower currently stable institutions. Which in turn might lead to death and suffering as a consequence. I’m not trying to say that everything should remain as is. Things are awful in a lot of places, but one of the biggest and most powerful nations with a “leader” that might throw a world ending tantrum over a Twitter thread is nothing anybody, but the most nihilistic acclerationists want. Also Trump’s plans to withdraw from climate change mitigation will certainly add to the pile of dead bodies which we will inherit in the next 50 year as a consequence of our actions today.
And progress without testing it’s resiliency against malicious actors will not last. As much as we hate Trump being elected and staffing clowns in each position, it will test what has been made so far. Row v. Wade, as we now know, should have been stronger. The Voting Rights Act too. The states that required the law to be fair have pulled back the law and reveal little has changed.
No one likes getting burned but fire is useful for showing us what burns easily and what withstands the heat. We will rebuild stronger and know what works.
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I was as surprised and disappointed as anyone, and I think we WILL take a few more steps backwards over the next few years, but I don’t expect an unstoppable fall into fascism.
Most of the votes for Trump weren’t actually FOR Trump. They were against the current situation they are in. They see him as the revolution. The anti-politician that will bring real change. They think all his court battles are the “Man” trying to hold him down and keep him from disrupting a system that gave up on its people long ago.
Of course that’s all bullshit, but, assuming that all “normal” people can see through his lies and that only evil, woman hating racists would support him, is a big part of why he was elected.
Trump denied Project 2025 because he knew most people wouldn’t want it. (Honestly, I would be surprised if he even knew what was in it) If he lets the Christian nationalists push that whole agenda on day one, he’ll become the oppressive government that is taking away their freedoms. And nothing is more important to Trump than making Trump look good.
I’m way more concerned with Vance. Like you say, Trump does what’s best for Trump. If Vance becomes VP for whatever reason then ideology takes center stage.
I think the real answer is that we end up kind of like the UK – going from the worlds ultra-dominant superpower to a sort of slow regression to the mean, as China, India and others take the spotlight.
When you look at what China is doing with their Belt and Road Initiative, and their move to dominate the transportation infrastructure of developing nations – the US isn’t anywhere near equipped to counter that. We’re still in a cold war mentality thinking that we will dominate as the world’s police force.
Meanwhile, all the actual economies will be run by Chinese companies operating with state support.
Sure the US may be past it’s glory days. Hell even the Rand Corporation (who write a bunch of stuff for govt leaders and other high ups) says it’s been trending downhill since some point in the early 2000s. They didn’t mention 9/11 but it seems like a good historical milestone.
Essentially the paper says the last 200 years have been an anomaly and we’re slowly sliding back to historical norms. They call it the neomedieval era and it’s not just the US.
Neo Feudalism is upon us, the frog got to comfortable in this warm water… Now it is too late.
The trend is set and reversal is not on the menu.
Best you can do is quit being poor, otherwise you gonna get progressively more fucked each year.
No. People always want some apocalyptic ending, but there’s always a chance to make adjustments in various ways. It’s just that some solutions, the ones that are less painful and involved less people’s lives getting destroyed and less death, some of those solutions become increasingly distant.
And look, if you go back and check out the history of unions and labor rights in the US, it was a bloody history. I think we might be looking at that repeating itself. And that’s only if we’re lucky.
Unless there’s nuclear war, there’s no such thing as the point of no return. Just a further slide into more egregious civil rights violations. Eventually it will get better, hopefully through democratic means and not violent ones.
You don’t vote out a dictator. The only way out is through violent revolution.
That’s up to Trump, because your vaunted checks and balances are gone.
Think he’s going to show restraint? Insight? Empathy?
This is based on nothing but vibes and my observations but I think so. We were cooked the moment we elected the clown the first time, just been a slower slide than I anticipated. In truth though we already had the disease at that point but it was then it became terminal.
I desperately want to be wrong and will do what I can to prove myself a moron. Fingers crossed.
Assuming you are talking about who won the US presidential election. Happened 8 years ago too, it wasn’t the end of America then. It won’t be the end of America now.
8 years ago, the GOP wasn’t crammed with MAGA, the judiciary wasn’t crammed with MAGA, and the executive wasn’t going to be crammed with MAGA.
I think you are assuming wrong…
It ain’t end of America either way, just plebs getting fucked harder every passing year
It WAS the end for a lot of people. Not everyone survived the last Trump regime.
Be prepared for the doomers to tell you why you are wrong. God speed, brother.
Well, by now the Supreme Court has been supplanted and intent to overthrow democracy has been shown. That’s a big difference to last time. So it’s not exactly the same situation.
But we’ll see how robust American democracy is.
Yeah, forcing Trump onto the ballot despite the insurrection because congress hadn’t passed a law to enforce the constitution and then making the president a fucking king are a huge difference from 2016. Not to mention Trump appointed jusges throwing out his cases and his 34 felonies not being a sign that he should 't be elected again after his disastrous first term.
Yeah, this is way worse and the only hope is Republican infighting keeping the worst from happening again.
How fast is God speed?
Infinite, I guess?
More than 55 mph, that’s for sure.
The saying is really about asking god to remove obstacles from your path and facilitate faster travel. A little like “goodbye” is a very shortened “may god be with you.”
TIL the etymology of goodbye is a contraction of “god be with you.”
Which is why I always just say, “Later, butt sniffers.”
Kinda makes “bye bye” seem a little weird, eh?
Be with you, be with you.
Yeah pretty much. We’re 2-3 generations deep into a cultural expectation that “some one else” will deal with all these problems.
The constant threat of this being “the most important election of our lives”, when the party making that argument campaigned as if the outcomes were irrelevant (because from their privileged perspective, the outcomes are irrelevant).
Back during covid a boat got turned a bit sideways in a canal and it seemed like the whole world economy was going to collapse. The system we have is actually incredibly fragile and built largely on trust, both in one another but also in institutions and systems. Not only the US, but western Europe is about to get smacked up-side the head by the 2x4 of failing to maintain a civil society (US at fault within its borders, EU at fault beyond its borders).
Don’t believe there really is an absolute point of no return without the plot of Genesis of the Daleks happening. The future is long, and we don’t know how the next four to eight years will play out, but dictatorships have risen and fallen before. Spain was a fascist dictatorship for decades, now it isn’t. Also, lots of people died in the meantime and not all vestiges of the dictatorship are gone.
I choose to believe that we are not. The true fight for our democracy by the working/middle class hasn’t even started yet. Some think it won’t. I choose to believe that good will again triumph and life is roller coaster of good and bad.
Will it start any time soon? It’s only going to get harder and harder to resist, from now on.
Yeah, people really don’t understand how powerful a surveillance state can be when it focuses it’s eye on you. It’s not safe to talk about resistance around basically anything internet connected with a microphone.
Let’s try this: https://magic-8ball.com/
Thanks for that…
The true fight for our democracy by the working/middle class hasn’t even started yet.
Seems like we’ll need to form our own political party if we want any representation because we’re certainly not getting it from either one of these two dominate parties.
Count me the fuck in. I’ll grab my pitchfork.
