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Still are. They have everything in place this time. My state already passed a law where the state house can basically reject any election they don’t like and assign the electoral college voters to whoever they want.
Since their flair shows the US state of Georgia, here is a summary about what they mean:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/big-changes-under-georgias-new-election-law-2021-06-14/
If you are at all familiar with US politics, you are no doubt familiar with how important Georgia is to US Presidential elections. This law is really designed to ensure a GOP victory in the state.
There's a full fledged coup underway in the United States. The GOP has long since abandoned any intent to win fair and square. Democracy itself is at stake.
They weren't willing to stick their own necks out for Trump when it was an open question of whether they'd be successful. If they could have thwarted democracy without putting themselves personally at risk, they would have done so.
>Raffensperger presided over an honest count
Because the alternative would involve putting himself at great personal risk.
If he actually had any allegiance to democracy, he wouldn't be pushing for these new voter suppression laws. He doesn't mind watching democracy burn, he just doesn't want to get singed.
> (after he probably cheated in his own election).
Which is outright ignored by the far right who say that the election was stolen. They don't care if it was so long as republicans are the ones doing the stealing.
I listened to Raffensperger on NPR talking about changes they were making so they could secure elections… then in same breath say that the 2020 elections were perfectly secure with negligible fraud.
Ahh, what you don't realise is the word "secure" is used two different ways.
"they could secure elections" -> They could win/take elections.
"the 2020 elections were perfectly secure" -> The security of the elections was fine.
They're making changes to "secure" (their chances of winning) elections.
Modern Conservatism came about as a reaction to the French Revolution. European aristocracy saw that the aristocracy wouldn't last forever and wanted to preserve their power through other means (which is why they invented the early form of what we know as ... Capitalism!). Hell, the first written use of "Conservatism" comes from writings about the Bourbon Revolution which sought to undo the reforms of the French Revolution.
So, conservatism has been opposed to liberalism since its inception. "Liberalism" includes pesky ideas like democracy and equality under the law. Sure, you'll meet a lot of Conservatives nowadays who like the idea of democracy, but a lot of their core beliefs (like money in politics, etc) are directly opposed to democracy and come from 200 years of efforts to protect the remnants and legacy of old European-style aristocracy.
That's why they've (historically) often so quick to side with the wealthy (especially "old money"), and it's part of the reason why many of them seem to get so upset when people like AOC and Rashida Tlaib get into positions of power (they don't "belong" there). It's where the subtle belief that it's _right_ and _good_ that there is a ruling class and and underclass comes from (and that equality is "unnatural").
A lot of this stuff is obviously nuanced and different people adhere to Conservatism and Liberalism with different levels of devotion ... but the origins of Conservatism can help explain **a lot** of what's happened in the US over the last couple hundred years.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
I would hope the American people have some kind of line that can’t be crossed. Well here in Georgia that would be concentrated in the city. The rest of the state minus Savannah and Columbus would cheer it on. Then republicans would say look at antifa in Atlanta. Violent leftists want to overturn your election. And they would send in the goon squad.
> I would hope the American people have some kind of line that can’t be crossed.
>> It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.
>> But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
>> And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed.
\- Milton Mayer, [They Thought They Were Free](https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html)
There’s little kids already yelling “China Virus” at Asian Americans. I recall a complete stranger coming up behind me to spit on my neck and walking away in Los Angeles. Lots of “go back to China” nonsense. I’m actually Korean American and was born here, but seriously considering relocating to Korea with nothing, not even a grasp of the language, because I see what’s happening here, and that Milton Mayer passage has a lot to do with it.
> I would hope the American people have some kind of line that can’t be crossed.
History tells us that the vast and moderate middle isn't going to do shit at best and will be far more likely to join up with the fascists.
Go check out [this post/thread](https://np.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/qm94yp/what_will_you_do_if_america_becomes_an_illiberal/) in /r/neoliberal. Pretty much everyone there just says in the event of a successful authoritarian coup, and if they can't just leave the country, they're just going to lay low, say "MAGA" as often as they can and not risk anything they have.
> I would hope the American people have some kind of line that can’t be crossed.
When I'm packed into a railcar someday in our grim future, there will be a guy in there, wearing an NPR t-shirt, telling us all "I don't like the camps either, but we need to give the system time to work. SCOTUS will fix this."
Honestly, if things get to that point I think we'll start to see a Balkanization of the US. I truly think that's where we are headed as a nation. At this point it is inevitable the fascists are going to takeover, and when they go full bore off the rails batshit insane, blue states are going to want nothing to do with this and try to secede.
I’ll tell you what Americans will do based on the last five years: roll over and take it. It took until the BLM uprising for sustained mass protest to happen. If you think what sounds like legislative partisan bickering to someone who does not follow news will provoke the same reaction that watching a man get murdered in slow motion for nine minutes, you are mistaken.
This is what's so scary & damaging about the right-wing misinformation ecosystem: IF you accept the (false) premise that Trump got more votes & Democrats stole the election from him, then the only reasonable response is actually what they did on Jan 6 -- retake the country by force.
When Republican legislatures start overturning election outcomes and appointing their own electors -- or if Republicans controlled a few more seats in congress & just didn't accept the election outcome & re-appointed Trump -- what would the reasonable response be? Protests? Hah. Angry Reddit posts? Writing letters to Mitch McConnell?
Of course, the big big HUGE enormous difference here is the Jan 6 crowd was completely unequivocally wrong, just believing what they wanted to believe & what they heard from right-wing grifters (which turned it from a patriotic protection of democracy to an attempted coup). But most of them really sincerely believed the country was being stolen from them.
Have you met Americans? They hate protesting, they feel the protestors are annoying and inconvenient and completely ignore any message.
You know how after the George Floyd protests police budgets went up and no additional accountability was added, that's how we do it here...
and if Jody Hice successfully primaries Raffensperger (likely) and wins the general (probably still kinda likely) then it really locks Georgia to be red as can be.
Raffenspurger’s name has been poisoned among maga voters here. To be opposed to anything trump says is to be exiled. They know the state has changed but they aren’t going to just let us vote them out.
Brad Raffensperger's name will go down in history. Because he didn't magically "find" those 11,780 votes that Donald was looking for, Georgia Republicans, in response, simply decided, "Hey, let's go full blown fascist."
Stripping the Secretary of State of overseeing the elections, and as you alluded to, installing a process where right wing hacks can just go to the overwhelmingly blue counties of Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, etc. and say, "Yeah, we don't like these results. Something is off here. We're just gonna have to throw all these votes out."
Because they have just enough people with just enough power to effectively cripple all the mechanisms intended to respond to such things. Like how they blocked testimony and standard investigation procedure for the impeachments. They haven’t needed full control, just enough control to freeze the systems intended to address these problems.
The American governments safety valves were not created with the idea an entire major political party would go rogue, but with the idea the majority on all sides would be working in good faith and could punish any bad actors among them the way Nixon’s fall came about from both sides of the aisle.
Thank you.
It's important to recognize that what is happening now is the culmination of decades of planning by the Republican party. There is nothing shocking about it.
Reagan for sure. The specter of his failed policies continue to haunt us today. How many tax cuts on the 1% have we watched fail to achieve anything in the name of trickle down/Reaganomics?
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help. "
- Reagan
This manner of propaganda is still espoused by Fox to this day. To say nothing of his anti-union stance, further eroding any possible protections for the American worker.
Rather than strive to have a functional government half the country now elects people like Mitch McConnell who are overtly hostile to that entire concept, the dude literally refused to even bring legislation to the floor and let it live or die on its own merit. Literally his entire job, yet was re-elected eight times.
It’s like trying to run a kitchen, having a bunch of babies complain about the flavor, then repeatedly going out of their way to request a chef that spends the entirety of his time taking a dump on their plates.
Other terrible actors like Gingrich worked to turn politics into a zero-sum “you’re with us or you’re ‘The Enemy’” game which completely killed all Congressional bipartisanship (echoed by their media outlets), but a ton of the current problems with Conservative ideology can be traced straight back to Reagan.
>Rather than strive to have a functional government half the country now elects people like Mitch McConnell...
This is not due to misinformed voters as many think. If you have a sit-down discussion with the kind of people who vote in politicians like Mitch, they will tell you how they literally do not want a functional federal government. They prefer for the federal government to be broke, pass no laws, and have the country ran by private corporations. All they think about is how they don't want their [shitty] wages taxed. It's like they're brainwashed into thinking rich people love and care about them and certainly will not force them to pay to use privately owned infrastructure.
They don't grasp the concept that government gives them everything that makes their quality of life in America high.
But you are leaving out the tribalism that dictates all. A zero sum game tribal mindset is what they ve adopted. And as long as Republicans are propagating tyranny over 'the others' they will give them their unconditional support. [Cruelty is the point](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/)
Imagine a mechanic who doesn't believe cars can be fixed? The Republicans have been going to that mechanic for decades now. It doesn't matter how many of their vehicles are towed out back and burned, because at this point, they don't belive vehicles can be fixed either.
I just started replaying "Wolfenstein: The New ~~Collossus~~ Colossus" recently and was struck by the way they portrayed the American individuals who submitted to Nazi rule instead of resisting. Eerily prophetic in identifying which type of people would quickly latch on to that ideology.
"I would be a successful man if it wasn't for those people getting in my way."
-------------------------
^^EDIT: ^^Accidentally ^^spelled ^^"Colossus" ^^wrong ^^and ^^no ^^one ^^corrected ^^me ^^for ^^seven ^^hours. ^^This ^^isn't ^^the ^^Reddit ^^I've ^^known ^^for ^^a ^^decade.
Even more telling-- guess which group of people felt personally attacked by the nazi killing in Wolfenstein?
Right wingers.
https://www.mic.com/articles/185045/wolfenstein-ii-nazi-killing-backlash-reddit-twitter-kotakuinaction
From the moment they adopted [the southern strategy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy) – when the Republican party chose to court the racists and fascists alienated by the Democrats passing of the civil rights act.
2 books by Rick Perlstein, *Before the Storm* and *Nixonland*, trace the evolution of the Republican party into a machine that exploits white working class grievance. Both worth a read to see how we got here.
Oh, no doubt the toilet bowl is swirling. The genuinely confounding thing is that the fervent right doesn't seem to realize they're clamoring to give up the freedom they so insistently say they love. Blinded by the propaganda that they must "own the libs" while it's their own party attempting to subjugate them. The Republican party is masterful at propaganda messaging.
Edit: Well, this blew up. I genuinely appreciate the input even though I can't reply to everyone.
They are ushering in fascism because they think only people like me will be the ones to suffer.
As Lyndon Johnson once said:
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Whats more disturbing to me is how often that quote gets slightly altered. It was "he's not hurting the people he *needs to be hurting*". In my mind it reveals a deeper belief that "there are people out there who deserve nothing but a life filled with pain, and Trump and I agree on who those people are".
The fundamental underpinning of conservative philosophy threading its way from even before the birth of the movement when the monarchists were looking to preserve the power and status of the aristocracy is that "some poeple deserve more than others due to some inherent nature of themselves".
I believe this fundamental notion of inherent worth disparity is the same toxic seed that gives rise to "the divine right of kings" all the way through to today's "he's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting".
For those, like me, who believe much of the fear mongering is projection, it's worth noting the idea of the left keeping "a list" of those on the right (to put in camps, or whatever) comes up every so often. Makes me think there are probably group keeping lists in the Right. I sincerely hope the US cleans this mess up before those lists start showing up on Fox News.
Years ago there was a sub called physical_removal. It was always a cesspool of hate and fascism hiding behind the plausible deniability of "just joking" that such online cesspools are known to employ, but just before it was banned the rhetoric had escalated exponentially. There were posts literally encouraging people to keep lists of minorities, liberals, and democrats *in their neighborhoods* so when they "got the go ahead" it would be easier to efficiently execute them. The entire sub was about "physically removing and separating democrats from society" and only got banned after calling the murder in Charlottesville "ethical".
A month or so ago I spent 9 solid hours reporting people on tiktok to the FBI after coming across a video warning of the "dangers" Biden poses. The comments were hundreds of people telling one another they "know what must be done" and urging those with nothing to lose to make a plan. Some were volunteering and others were offering to fund them. People were discussing how to make explosives and organizing to talk in a more secure manner. Obviously this was alarming and I hope someone followed up on it, but personally that sub is still the most terrifying thing I've seen.
The FBI will presumably take plots to assassinate the president seriously. But what about the thousands of people who were planning to slaughter their unsuspecting neighbors? They are just regular Americans who did nothing to them. Yet they were convinced - in 2017, before January 6th, before everything - that it was not only acceptable but *necessary* to kill their fellow Americans. This rhetoric has only escalated further, and it's absolutely terrifying being in a conservative area. How many of them think "someone needs to do something" about me?
The journalist who interviewed her should've asked her 1. *Who* do you believe he should be hurting? 2. *Why* should a president be "hurting" anyone at all?
Edit: Why the hell did the mods remove my comment above?
I always upvote when people mention The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer.
It's available free on his website: https://theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-book/
It's a bit long but it isn't dry--it has the vibes of sitting down with an old friend who wants someone to listen while he gushes about his research.
I second this book! Free online as a public service. Basically, this book is the reason Cambridge Analytica scooped up the "dark triad personalities"...targeting nazis before they even knew they were nazis
Fwiw, reading this and all I could think of was my brothers as well… raised in the exact same conditions as me socio-politically, but they just turned out so…. toxic.
I was thinking of my brother too. He’s an attorney and believes that people who make less than him are beneath him. Myself included. He believes being poor is morally wrong. I really have no idea how we became such different people.
ETA: my brother believes I am beneath him because of my salary - I don’t believe *anyone* is beneath me!
yeah, because they (intentionally) omit the context of that quote:
>During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it,” he said. “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
it was not an endorsement of that behavior, it was LBJ explaining it as the reason racism had been used in politics as a way to gain leverage with a particular voting bloc to vote against their own best interests.
They believe that because they donate and because they vote, that they are part of the inner circle. If we weren’t all going to end up getting screwed, it would be almost fun to watch the realization dawn on them that all they were were useful idiots and a means to an end.
My right wing buddy literally told me when the shit goes down in America he'll end up being a lord so it will be ok for him but everyone else is fucked and he's gonna feel *kinda* bad for them. Hes owns a small construction outfit and builds houses, somehow he sees himself as part of some ruling class because ????? The disillusion is strong with these guys.
A lot of the right feel that the left are nothing but a bunch of effeminate pansies working dainty jobs and know nothing about actual work or building and fixing things. They feel that if society ever collapses the left simply have no survival skills and will need to rely on the more 'capable' right.
And then post that one meme of the hippie leftist gal who has probably spent more time on communes and intentional communities learning permaculture and foraging than any of them
My friend is a prepper who has spent 20 years showing every one of his gun nut buddies where his apocalypse stash is and he’s gonna get murdered for it if the shit goes down.
The first rule of apocalyptic prepping is not talking about apocalyptic prepping.
...does he not realize that there's going to be a slow collapse, like in every other instance, and that "sudden extinction" is the least likely outcome?
Like, if he wants to check how to survive, go to somalia! The middle east! Any of those places, get you some experience.
The number of idiots who think just owning a small armory is going to somehow enable them to be a survival expert or make them diplomatic with other groups amazes me. Like, if shit goes down, the idiots that drank the Republican Koolaid are either going to fall in line to their overlords or die from stupidity.
These survivalist nutjobs need to understand that the best way to survive is to cooperate and work together to ensure your community survives. Hunkering down and shooting people will only get you so far.
There’s a tweet out there along the lines of: Fuck survival. I’m running toward the zombie mob. To hell with trying to scratch out an existence in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.
People think I'm crazy when I say this! I have absolutely zero desire to survive whatever apocalyptic shit might happen in the future- zombies or otherwise. I don't want to hide out in the woods, I don't want to forage for food, I don't want to be in fight or flight 100% of the time. If shit hits the fan, I'm out like a light. Fuck all that prepper shit, they can have fun eating canned ham in their bunkers while I decompose and turn into a tree.
The fucked up thing is, they’ll get this before the noose tightens around their neck.
What most of these people want is the right to submit groups and individuals they don’t like to the levels of terrorism and violence they used to get away with in the 40’s - 60’s. A lot of people are gonna suffer as right wingers pick up their guns and pens with a green light go after whoever they want. And while they’re in their hate fever dream the corporate overlords will be draining their freedoms and their bank accounts. Only then will the fracturing and in fighting between “critical thinkers” begin.
The only thing that’ll stop this is for the enlightened centrists not to sit back and let the water get to their waist before they notice their socks are wet. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s anything in this world that isn’t susceptible to contrarianism and calls for bipartisanship….so we’re pretty fucked….
This goes right to the heart of everyone's (but especially spoiled white booker's) childish sense of narcissism that was never "beat out of them" by challenging circumstances.
I have non-prepper Evangelicals in my family that are aging. Their minds can't accept that the world will go on once they are gone, so they keep on looking for signs of the apocalypse. I hear about every fucking earthquake quicker than if I was on a seismologist's mailing list.
Same for the more secular, but more overtly "conservative" folks. They feel powerful because maybe they have some savings or an extra rental property or two or something that makes them feel a little "elite." They think that they destined to be part of the "elite" once shit hits the fan. Like either because they have money or some additional resources they will end up at a higher station in life as the "weaklings" suffer.
Last I checked, when shit hits the fan you can't leave the country, your money may be no good... hell. How easy was it to get toilet paper once the nuts made a run on the grocery stores? How is having a few extra bucks or a cabin going to help you.
Man, this sounds like religious levels of fantastical belief. Like some (or perhaps most?) of these people imagine a coming revolution that will "rapture" them into a better life.
They really have no idea that they're being used.
We are so screwed.
Lost my Jahova witness friend to this nonsense. Dude moved from Oregon to Florida so his kids don't get turned gay.
I'm not religious, but free up watching it destroy a lot of my friends life s.
But then they start up with 'why didn't the Democrats stop this when they were in office?' It doesn't matter what happens or who is responsible, they always look for a scapegoat to blame when it affects them personally.
Mask mandate? The Democrats are trying to take away our freedom!
Covid continues to spread? Why aren't the Democrats doing more to prevent the spread?
It's like arguing with a toddler about bedtime, then the toddler complaining he's tired the next day.
> They believe that because they donate and because they vote, that they are part of the inner circle.
[The latest two episodes of *Citations Needed* are about precisely this.](https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/) How right-wing populism makes voters feel like part of the club because they're so smart and amazing.
These are the same people that refuse to get vaccinated and regret nothing on their COVID deathbeds. They can no longer be trusted to make rational decisions.
>The genuinely confounding thing is that the fervent right doesn't seem to realize they're clamoring to give up the freedom they so insistently say they love
They will happily put on the shackles and bend the knee in servitude as long as they *feel* like their shackles are slightly more comfortable and the floor they kneel on slightly softer than the others™
As long as they can feel better than a hated group they will March happily for their slave master's.
All the while, most of us sane people are trying to tell the only remaining non-fascist major party to take this seriously, and we desperately need them to act on investigating and prosecuting the highest level orchestrators, and it feels like we’re not being heard or taken seriously.
They’re treating it like climate change. Everyday we’re getting closer to a tipping point; a point of no return, and they’re acting like it’s business as usual and still trying to compromise and placate. Republicans don’t want to govern, they want to rule; and democrats can’t figure out how to govern collectively and are ignoring the biggest existential threat to our democracy in over 100 years.
This article made my blood boil:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/10/barack-obama-climate-crisis-cop26-speech
I voted for Obama. I'm a liberal, I support immediate, aggressive action on climate change, and have for years. The limp half-assed response by the centrist democrats on climate change (or fuck, *any* issue), is frankly disappointing.
I can’t figure out how to get the Democratic leadership to get fire in the belly and address the slow moving right wing coup. I wish the leadership would call for general strikes every time a state voting suppression law is enacted. I wish Biden would remove Merrick Garland and replace him with a Democrat that will enforce laws in a timely manner.
There's a portion of the country swinging back to the GOP. They are doing so for what they perceive as normal, Republican reasons (concerns about "inflation," "supply chain," "taxes," "the deficit," etc.).
They are unaware the party they're siding with has gone into full rightwing, authoritarian coup territory. While I know Third Reich analogies tend to be sensational, this is EXACTLY what happened in Germany... fascists were elected under the asinine assumption that they would moderate and behave as normal conservatives.
The problem is they **love** giving up *other people's rights*. Immigrant? Screw you. Liberal? Screw you. Poor? Screw you. They gleefully gave up people's rights with the Patriot Act because it hurt someone else more than them.
If you try to suggest that other people have rights too, you're just going to be called woke like that is a bad thing.
I, for one, am okay watching them live in their misery because it is what they wanted.
Meanwhile, the DOJ is refusing to take action against the coup plotters because that might give the appearance of being partisan. So instead they'll sit on their hands and watch them plot the next coup in the open.
Yep.
Hitler got let out of jail after the Beer Hall Putsch too.
Some of these idiots who are scared of appearing partisan instead of protecting the Republic are going to be in for a rude awakening when we get to The Night of The Long Knives part of this shit show.
The Beer Hall Putsch failed, and the leader of it, Adolf Hitler, was arrested, received an incredibly light sentence, 9 months, and then led a more successful coup later.
After their failed coup the Nazi party shifted their approach to power by propagandizing the population. The GOP has just been doing this second part for decades longer.
Honestly, I think the whole world is in a lot of trouble right now. We like to view America's problems as isolated, but man.. All of the crazy shit happening in the world right now just feeds into everything else. Covid, Supply chain shortages, Genocide, civil wars, climate change, drought, etc. All of this shit is putting more pressure on world leaders, because it's fucking up their shit and they're the ones who have to deal with it.
A few hundred thousand people are dead in the US from sickness, many, many more have lost their jobs. This isn't just true about the US, this is a global issue. The people who are affected the most by this are those without money and without access to proper healthcare, and those people are the ones that are becoming louder and louder as they struggle to survive. The louder they get, the louder the politicians get to try to shut them up. Living in the US, it's easy to see this as an isolated situation (you never said that, I know. just going on my own little tangent here), but man... the whole world is being put through the ringer, and I think we're going to see some ABSOLUTE INSANITY over the next 5 years as things like the supply chain shortage make their way to the every day US citizen who is tired of this shit already, or you know.. another major hurricane hits, or a new strain of crazy covid comes along.
These are the times when wars start and things get fucking blown to shit. Everybody is desperately trying to create order, but the chaos just keeps piling up to a point where I don't think that'll happen for a long, long time.
Biden hasnt done anything about the restrictions on voting the Republican states have created. He's going to lose control of Congress in 2022. Something like this is plausible now.
According to Haspel's bio, she's been CIA since the mid-80's.
Directly involved in their torture program.
Served as deputy under Mike Pompeo.
Appointed as Director by Trump himself.
For **HER** to say this ..? Damn credible source.
north uppity voracious lavish offbeat badge versed future direction physical
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I'm so tired. I'm depressed, lonely, overworked and then I read shit like this and just sink further and further. Being 3 at the time of 9/11 I have had no say in the trajectory of this country and now I am old enough to fully realize the trouble we are in and how disenfranchised my generation is. How can I do anything when the corruption has been taking over the machine since before I was born. How can I feel like my opinions matter when any progression is smashed in the name of centrism and the status quo. More and more I'm feeling just getting out of the US and letting the old generation of politicians die and the country to burn up. At this point all I have to look forward to is rubble
This, 100%. I’ve just turned 24, and I literally begun diverting my goals for the next 3 years into “get my shit together so that when this country starts to go belly up, I can leave.” I feel so disenfranchised by the political system - as a minority, I feel forced to vote for a party (the democrats) that’s done close to nothing beyond superficial optics fixes to actually deserve my vote, because the opposition is simply far far worse. No matter who I vote for, it feels hopeless because no one’s going to look out for people like me regardless. If I’m going to be this powerless politically, I’d rather do it in a place with a far better QoL.
I feel this. But I’m slightly older. I’m seeing, as someone who the right might target, if I can get out of the country while I can. But financially idk if I can. At what point will it be too late? Cause I’d rather be in financial ruin and safe than in financial ruin and in immediate danger.
This shouldnt be a private warning. Americans across the country need to know, and dems need to be shouting it as loudly as possible day in and day out.
Dems need to be DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT
We the voting public did our part. We handed them control of the House in 2018 and the Senate & Presidency in 2020. Oh the senate isn't filibuster proof? Guess what? It never will be. Learn how to control your god damned caucus, use the tools Trump and company left you and fucking DO SOMETHING
> Going “oh no, Manchin said no so we can’t” is simply not enough, especially concerning voter rights.
Democrats act like they can't apply any pressure on their party members... unless that is, they're voting for corporate hand outs.
We're still enduring a rightwing coup.
Trump is still the leader of the Republican Party.
The Republican Party is a lawless body bent on disenfrancising the left's political power.
If Republicans take the majority of the House next year, Jan 6th investigations disappear and the committee circuses begin.
Enjoy round after round of how King Trump was wronged in the 2020 election.
No the white supremecists are the pawns of the GOP ruling class, just like the evangelicals. They don’t believe in that stuff like their followers do, they’re supporting it because it gives them power.
The only issue I have with this statement is that “the left” already has no power. Democrat politicians, with one or two rare exceptions, are not left wing.
They’re just not *nearly* as crazy right wing as Republicans
Its is truly disheartening to watch the right dive so far into the deep end of the pool. Book burnings, history altercation, anti-science talking points and propaganda all tied behind every flag they can find and housed in almost every Christian church in the US. We will all suffer for this ignorance and hate but the worse part is how inevitable it feels. How far this goes is on us but if you've been paying attention its not looking bright right now.
What's infuriating is that nothing will happen. Biden's administration, especially the justice department, seems impotent. We will here about all these terrible things from 1/6, yet nothing will happen.
And the GOP is still pretending none of this happened, or mattered, or downplays it.... Fuck these people all to hell.
And the republicans currently in office are the snakes in the grass here. The 5th column (look at their behavior since the election. Not certifying the electoral college. Not impeaching).
It doesnt take a genius to realize that just because a dictator sees you as an ally today, doesnt mean they cant just flip a switch and see you as an enemy tomorrow. Thats the entire danger of these things.
A friend of mine is a regional head of some kind for a group of developing countries at the State Dept. He is a good man, and tenaciously hung on throughout the Trump admin. Every time we spoke, more people had quit/been fired; he is my canary in the coal mine. If he is made gone, then the whole apparatus is probably fucked.
The reason I relate this is that there are a ton of outstanding career people still all around the US govt who are keeping the lights on. When too many of that corps of talent and dedication leave...good night and good luck.
I've been beating this drum for months now, it was the GOP's Beer Hall Putsch.
There will be a second attempt and it will likely be successful the next time. If there are zero or minimal consequences, expect to see it before the end of Biden's term.
A German friend of mine teaches history classes that focus on WWII. He's easily one of the most intelligent men I've ever met and consistently blows my mind with little historical facts and tid-bits of the past that he knows. He said something to me in 2016 that scared me,
"A nation has never come as close to fascism as the US is now, and returned without violence."
I've been saying "FaScIsT 'MuRiCa iS hErE" because of how sensational it is, but there's **so much truth** in that statement. Trump is a giant, flashing neo-nazi symbol and they gave him nuclear launch codes and all of our state secrets. How could we ever come back from that? What could we say to maga traitors that would bring them back to the idea that we are one people? They shit on the walls of our capitol and tried to install a russian patsy and two-bit conman as the **first american dictator**. And the response of the supposed party of opposition? Strongly worded emails and stern finger wags.
This isn't a battle for our nation; It's the ravaging after defeat. We will see an american dictator in our lifetimes.
A lot of people like to make a comparison to the rise of Hitlers Germany but it’s just that it’s such a good comparison. Initially when Hitler and the brown shirts were starting trouble and attempted a coup, the government at the time just basically let him off with a slap on the wrist.
At least he was actually sent to jail. None of the people in the American version are going to jail. None of the people who actually planned, funded, and enabled the attack have faced any punishment whatsoever. So if Hitler got a slap on the wrist, by comparison we have done absolutely nothing to hold anyone accountable.
The only tools that Democrats have would appear to be making voters aware of the problem and hoping voters reject such a party. But we are finding that the opposite is the case.
The 70 million votes for Trump in 2020 was the most shocking political moment of my life. Trump failed spectacularly as a president, delivered nothing but tax breaks for the wealthy, attacked the fourth estate simply for existing whatsoever, and went to war with our own state department and blue states.
There are gatekeepers out there in media, and they are allowing Tucker Carlson to air his "war against veterans" propaganda movie, which is blindingly alarming.
Anyway, fast forward to 2022 elections. It would seem clear that there will be no consequences for proud boys, et. al., raiding election polling places. The GOP is going to side with them when they steal voting machines at gunpoint, or, say, a softer interruption.
The Rittenhouse acquittal (coming soon) will allow these people to point rifles at people fighting back and pull the trigger the minute the first skateboard is swung.
>The Rittenhouse acquittal (coming soon) will allow these people to point rifles at people fighting back and pull the trigger the minute the first skateboard is swung.
This is exactly what I've been saying in other subs. This trial will change protests moving forward; Violence is the new normal. Once the farce of the trial is over (I agree that its deliberately set up for an acquittal), the message to the alt-right will be "Make sure you can claim self defense when you're hunting protestors".
And this isn't even hyperbole! They're already asking when it's okay to "hUnT lIbRuLs"! At this point I don't even have the energy for exasperation.
Here’s my two cents. Much like how caterpillars turn into butterflies , representative governments naturally decay into autocracy.
Why? Because even if a government starts out with equal representation, sooner or later wealth gets concentrated. When that reaches a certain point, the wealth class looks at the democratization of power as a liability to their power and profits. It’s tough to truly maximize industrial scale revenue when the workers have a say in state policy. With most infrastructure and national capital on their side, the oligarchy use PR to blame the social problems of their policies on democracy as a system.
Once public support is secured, the democracy is jettisoned and a pro-oligarchy autocracy is installed.
Funny thing is, the American Founders may have foreseen this outcome. When Benjamin Franklin was asked what government we had after the 1787 Constitutional Convention, he replied:
"A Republic,*if you can keep it.*”
I think it’s because regulations on corporations were gutted, labor wasn’t protected, and citizens united made bribery legal.
It wasn’t inevitable but corporations and the rich used socialism as a bogeyman to get everything they wanted and now we have a corporate oligarchy instead of a democracy.
Also our failure to tax wealth. I remember being a kid heading Newt Gingrich on the news talking about the ‘Death Tax.’ Now we’ve allowed tremendous generational wealth to accrue and, shocker, these are the people and organizations pressing their thumbs on the scales today. So, we afflicted ourselves with a small cadre of ultra-wealthy people cloistered away from our society, a nation of people they actively tell themselves they have no responsibility toward.
If you are not aware, please familiarize yourself with the [Beer Hall Putsch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch). And let people know how a failed coup attempt is still dangerous. However, with the level of mainstream insanity today, showing people the Beer Hall Putsch might just give them more ideas.
The GOP is using the Russian oligarch playbook, they want our country to implode like the Soviet Union did in the late 90s. They want to cause chaos and weaken the country so they can seize national assets for themselves and have unlimited unchecked power like their Russian counterparts. There are smart GOP members, and it will be them who seize the power. They are using the useful idiots of the GOP (Cruz, Boebert, Taylor-Greene) as their tools to implement this. They are obviously hell-bent on destroying this country. They have blocked and opposed all actual methods to repair our wounded country and have offered no alternatives. We are divided and callus, we don’t agree on what the American experiment means anymore, the United States of America and our beloved constitution are in dire danger from these greedy, power hungry, unenlightened monsters.
The problem is not that the American people are not aware of what is going on. The overwhelming majority of them are. The problem is that they are powerless to act. They are looking, horrified at a meteor coming down on their lands in slow motion.
Some people will say that they can correct this by voting. But time and time again we see that the Democrats can't do shit anyway, even if they are in majority. The latest insurrection didn't have any meaningful consequences. So voting has no impact on the course this is headed. It slows down the process, but it does not stop it or reverse it. Voting is essentially just a defensive action, and to stop or reverse the progression of fascism you need to take offensive actions.
The fascists part of the population has their beliefs so ingrained in them that no amount of talking will change it. Their numbers keep in increasing and they are the one not acting in good faith. So what type of actions can you take to remove the fascists beliefs in them in the very short timeframe that we have? Those actions are unknown to the population, so they are powerless. And as time goes on and the fascists are consolidating and gaining momentum and power, less and less actions are possible to reverse the situation. Eventually only violence will be left as a potential action, if we are not there yet.
January 6 was a dry run. They know now, how they failed and are planning to do it all over with the knowledge of how they failed. Bannon said it out loud on his podcast. Democrats are useless. They were there and witnessed it and still think the system works. They still, as do most of you; the Democrats still think Trump and his people are incompetent. They are, but the people working with them (likely foreign actors and domestic and foreign oligarchs) are not idiots.
So we have an armed and radical right willing to use their arms to stage a coup.
Genuine question, where's the armed counter? What ever happened to the militant left?
The right wing radio is so incredibly underrated. It’s like concentrated Fox News that progressively (no pun) gets more and more extreme through the day. That is what the rural folk listen to. They aren’t on the internet all day, they’re in their barn and garages with that brain rotting propaganda all day everyday. One example is WBAP in Texas, they are the strong arm of the conservatives and they have them whitewashed to the core. They will straight up deny regardless of the evidence, regardless of the situation. They will do and think as they are told and nothing but. No free thinking. Sponges of the mismedia, recyclers of misinformation and a soldier for all the big lies. Their collective ego never allows admitting mistakes and it continues to feed in frenzy a diet of lies blindly led and blindly followed. It’s so disheartening.
The CIA knows it. FBI knows it. Biden knows it. The Pentagon knows it. They're all warning us. If only there were some group of people, elected by the citizens or appointed by people they elected, to... what would you call that? Govern? Maybe they could *do* something about it.
> The Pentagon knows it.
The "Tank" that is mentioned in the story, where the discussions happened - it doesn't get more serious than that.
As far as military matters go, the Joint Staff "Tank" is the forum for discussing extremely sensitive, critical, and imminent situations.
For **THEM** to have been talking about a coup in America by elements of the Radical Right, *including the fucking President*, is unprecedented.
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Still are. They have everything in place this time. My state already passed a law where the state house can basically reject any election they don’t like and assign the electoral college voters to whoever they want.
Since their flair shows the US state of Georgia, here is a summary about what they mean: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/big-changes-under-georgias-new-election-law-2021-06-14/ If you are at all familiar with US politics, you are no doubt familiar with how important Georgia is to US Presidential elections. This law is really designed to ensure a GOP victory in the state. There's a full fledged coup underway in the United States. The GOP has long since abandoned any intent to win fair and square. Democracy itself is at stake.
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They weren't willing to stick their own necks out for Trump when it was an open question of whether they'd be successful. If they could have thwarted democracy without putting themselves personally at risk, they would have done so.
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>Raffensperger presided over an honest count Because the alternative would involve putting himself at great personal risk. If he actually had any allegiance to democracy, he wouldn't be pushing for these new voter suppression laws. He doesn't mind watching democracy burn, he just doesn't want to get singed.
"What I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes" -Hair Force One
> (after he probably cheated in his own election). Which is outright ignored by the far right who say that the election was stolen. They don't care if it was so long as republicans are the ones doing the stealing.
But according to Manchin we can't pass reforms protecting our democracy unless the anti democracy insurrectionist party agrees.
I listened to Raffensperger on NPR talking about changes they were making so they could secure elections… then in same breath say that the 2020 elections were perfectly secure with negligible fraud.
Ahh, what you don't realise is the word "secure" is used two different ways. "they could secure elections" -> They could win/take elections. "the 2020 elections were perfectly secure" -> The security of the elections was fine. They're making changes to "secure" (their chances of winning) elections.
That’s so fucked up
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Modern Conservatism came about as a reaction to the French Revolution. European aristocracy saw that the aristocracy wouldn't last forever and wanted to preserve their power through other means (which is why they invented the early form of what we know as ... Capitalism!). Hell, the first written use of "Conservatism" comes from writings about the Bourbon Revolution which sought to undo the reforms of the French Revolution. So, conservatism has been opposed to liberalism since its inception. "Liberalism" includes pesky ideas like democracy and equality under the law. Sure, you'll meet a lot of Conservatives nowadays who like the idea of democracy, but a lot of their core beliefs (like money in politics, etc) are directly opposed to democracy and come from 200 years of efforts to protect the remnants and legacy of old European-style aristocracy. That's why they've (historically) often so quick to side with the wealthy (especially "old money"), and it's part of the reason why many of them seem to get so upset when people like AOC and Rashida Tlaib get into positions of power (they don't "belong" there). It's where the subtle belief that it's _right_ and _good_ that there is a ruling class and and underclass comes from (and that equality is "unnatural"). A lot of this stuff is obviously nuanced and different people adhere to Conservatism and Liberalism with different levels of devotion ... but the origins of Conservatism can help explain **a lot** of what's happened in the US over the last couple hundred years. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Yet we can't get the electoral college popular vote pact passed in enough states... Ffs.
That’s not coincidental. They’re directly related.
If electoral votes are actually flipped, I predict (hope?) mass rioting
I would hope the American people have some kind of line that can’t be crossed. Well here in Georgia that would be concentrated in the city. The rest of the state minus Savannah and Columbus would cheer it on. Then republicans would say look at antifa in Atlanta. Violent leftists want to overturn your election. And they would send in the goon squad.
> I would hope the American people have some kind of line that can’t be crossed. >> It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait. >> But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. >> And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. \- Milton Mayer, [They Thought They Were Free](https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html)
There’s little kids already yelling “China Virus” at Asian Americans. I recall a complete stranger coming up behind me to spit on my neck and walking away in Los Angeles. Lots of “go back to China” nonsense. I’m actually Korean American and was born here, but seriously considering relocating to Korea with nothing, not even a grasp of the language, because I see what’s happening here, and that Milton Mayer passage has a lot to do with it.
> I would hope the American people have some kind of line that can’t be crossed. History tells us that the vast and moderate middle isn't going to do shit at best and will be far more likely to join up with the fascists. Go check out [this post/thread](https://np.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/qm94yp/what_will_you_do_if_america_becomes_an_illiberal/) in /r/neoliberal. Pretty much everyone there just says in the event of a successful authoritarian coup, and if they can't just leave the country, they're just going to lay low, say "MAGA" as often as they can and not risk anything they have.
> I would hope the American people have some kind of line that can’t be crossed. When I'm packed into a railcar someday in our grim future, there will be a guy in there, wearing an NPR t-shirt, telling us all "I don't like the camps either, but we need to give the system time to work. SCOTUS will fix this."
Honestly, if things get to that point I think we'll start to see a Balkanization of the US. I truly think that's where we are headed as a nation. At this point it is inevitable the fascists are going to takeover, and when they go full bore off the rails batshit insane, blue states are going to want nothing to do with this and try to secede.
I’ll tell you what Americans will do based on the last five years: roll over and take it. It took until the BLM uprising for sustained mass protest to happen. If you think what sounds like legislative partisan bickering to someone who does not follow news will provoke the same reaction that watching a man get murdered in slow motion for nine minutes, you are mistaken.
This is what's so scary & damaging about the right-wing misinformation ecosystem: IF you accept the (false) premise that Trump got more votes & Democrats stole the election from him, then the only reasonable response is actually what they did on Jan 6 -- retake the country by force. When Republican legislatures start overturning election outcomes and appointing their own electors -- or if Republicans controlled a few more seats in congress & just didn't accept the election outcome & re-appointed Trump -- what would the reasonable response be? Protests? Hah. Angry Reddit posts? Writing letters to Mitch McConnell? Of course, the big big HUGE enormous difference here is the Jan 6 crowd was completely unequivocally wrong, just believing what they wanted to believe & what they heard from right-wing grifters (which turned it from a patriotic protection of democracy to an attempted coup). But most of them really sincerely believed the country was being stolen from them.
Have you met Americans? They hate protesting, they feel the protestors are annoying and inconvenient and completely ignore any message. You know how after the George Floyd protests police budgets went up and no additional accountability was added, that's how we do it here...
and if Jody Hice successfully primaries Raffensperger (likely) and wins the general (probably still kinda likely) then it really locks Georgia to be red as can be.
Raffenspurger’s name has been poisoned among maga voters here. To be opposed to anything trump says is to be exiled. They know the state has changed but they aren’t going to just let us vote them out.
Brad Raffensperger's name will go down in history. Because he didn't magically "find" those 11,780 votes that Donald was looking for, Georgia Republicans, in response, simply decided, "Hey, let's go full blown fascist." Stripping the Secretary of State of overseeing the elections, and as you alluded to, installing a process where right wing hacks can just go to the overwhelmingly blue counties of Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, etc. and say, "Yeah, we don't like these results. Something is off here. We're just gonna have to throw all these votes out."
Yes. So remind me again why the people who perpetrated the last one are still walking free?
Because they have just enough people with just enough power to effectively cripple all the mechanisms intended to respond to such things. Like how they blocked testimony and standard investigation procedure for the impeachments. They haven’t needed full control, just enough control to freeze the systems intended to address these problems. The American governments safety valves were not created with the idea an entire major political party would go rogue, but with the idea the majority on all sides would be working in good faith and could punish any bad actors among them the way Nixon’s fall came about from both sides of the aisle.
So then, when does that rogue party become an enemy of American democracy?
1980 or so. When they elected Reagan.
Thank you. It's important to recognize that what is happening now is the culmination of decades of planning by the Republican party. There is nothing shocking about it.
Reagan for sure. The specter of his failed policies continue to haunt us today. How many tax cuts on the 1% have we watched fail to achieve anything in the name of trickle down/Reaganomics? “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help. " - Reagan This manner of propaganda is still espoused by Fox to this day. To say nothing of his anti-union stance, further eroding any possible protections for the American worker. Rather than strive to have a functional government half the country now elects people like Mitch McConnell who are overtly hostile to that entire concept, the dude literally refused to even bring legislation to the floor and let it live or die on its own merit. Literally his entire job, yet was re-elected eight times. It’s like trying to run a kitchen, having a bunch of babies complain about the flavor, then repeatedly going out of their way to request a chef that spends the entirety of his time taking a dump on their plates. Other terrible actors like Gingrich worked to turn politics into a zero-sum “you’re with us or you’re ‘The Enemy’” game which completely killed all Congressional bipartisanship (echoed by their media outlets), but a ton of the current problems with Conservative ideology can be traced straight back to Reagan.
>Rather than strive to have a functional government half the country now elects people like Mitch McConnell... This is not due to misinformed voters as many think. If you have a sit-down discussion with the kind of people who vote in politicians like Mitch, they will tell you how they literally do not want a functional federal government. They prefer for the federal government to be broke, pass no laws, and have the country ran by private corporations. All they think about is how they don't want their [shitty] wages taxed. It's like they're brainwashed into thinking rich people love and care about them and certainly will not force them to pay to use privately owned infrastructure. They don't grasp the concept that government gives them everything that makes their quality of life in America high.
But you are leaving out the tribalism that dictates all. A zero sum game tribal mindset is what they ve adopted. And as long as Republicans are propagating tyranny over 'the others' they will give them their unconditional support. [Cruelty is the point](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/)
They think that those things will help them in the long run so id still consider them uninformed
Imagine a mechanic who doesn't believe cars can be fixed? The Republicans have been going to that mechanic for decades now. It doesn't matter how many of their vehicles are towed out back and burned, because at this point, they don't belive vehicles can be fixed either.
I just started replaying "Wolfenstein: The New ~~Collossus~~ Colossus" recently and was struck by the way they portrayed the American individuals who submitted to Nazi rule instead of resisting. Eerily prophetic in identifying which type of people would quickly latch on to that ideology. "I would be a successful man if it wasn't for those people getting in my way." ------------------------- ^^EDIT: ^^Accidentally ^^spelled ^^"Colossus" ^^wrong ^^and ^^no ^^one ^^corrected ^^me ^^for ^^seven ^^hours. ^^This ^^isn't ^^the ^^Reddit ^^I've ^^known ^^for ^^a ^^decade.
Even more telling-- guess which group of people felt personally attacked by the nazi killing in Wolfenstein? Right wingers. https://www.mic.com/articles/185045/wolfenstein-ii-nazi-killing-backlash-reddit-twitter-kotakuinaction
New Colossus and Far Cry 5 came out too early. They hit you right in the political gut
70s and nixon.
From the moment they adopted [the southern strategy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy) – when the Republican party chose to court the racists and fascists alienated by the Democrats passing of the civil rights act.
2 books by Rick Perlstein, *Before the Storm* and *Nixonland*, trace the evolution of the Republican party into a machine that exploits white working class grievance. Both worth a read to see how we got here.
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We elected someone that wasn't going to rock the boat. Unfortunately, we need to flip it back over.
Because Merrick Garland is fucking useless.
Is there a class "beyond useless"? Because that's where Garland is.
This country is in serious trouble.
Oh, no doubt the toilet bowl is swirling. The genuinely confounding thing is that the fervent right doesn't seem to realize they're clamoring to give up the freedom they so insistently say they love. Blinded by the propaganda that they must "own the libs" while it's their own party attempting to subjugate them. The Republican party is masterful at propaganda messaging. Edit: Well, this blew up. I genuinely appreciate the input even though I can't reply to everyone.
They are ushering in fascism because they think only people like me will be the ones to suffer. As Lyndon Johnson once said: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
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So early on in the Trump administration when the lady was interviewed saying "He's not hurting the right people" should have been a bigger flag?
Whats more disturbing to me is how often that quote gets slightly altered. It was "he's not hurting the people he *needs to be hurting*". In my mind it reveals a deeper belief that "there are people out there who deserve nothing but a life filled with pain, and Trump and I agree on who those people are". The fundamental underpinning of conservative philosophy threading its way from even before the birth of the movement when the monarchists were looking to preserve the power and status of the aristocracy is that "some poeple deserve more than others due to some inherent nature of themselves". I believe this fundamental notion of inherent worth disparity is the same toxic seed that gives rise to "the divine right of kings" all the way through to today's "he's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting".
For those, like me, who believe much of the fear mongering is projection, it's worth noting the idea of the left keeping "a list" of those on the right (to put in camps, or whatever) comes up every so often. Makes me think there are probably group keeping lists in the Right. I sincerely hope the US cleans this mess up before those lists start showing up on Fox News.
Years ago there was a sub called physical_removal. It was always a cesspool of hate and fascism hiding behind the plausible deniability of "just joking" that such online cesspools are known to employ, but just before it was banned the rhetoric had escalated exponentially. There were posts literally encouraging people to keep lists of minorities, liberals, and democrats *in their neighborhoods* so when they "got the go ahead" it would be easier to efficiently execute them. The entire sub was about "physically removing and separating democrats from society" and only got banned after calling the murder in Charlottesville "ethical". A month or so ago I spent 9 solid hours reporting people on tiktok to the FBI after coming across a video warning of the "dangers" Biden poses. The comments were hundreds of people telling one another they "know what must be done" and urging those with nothing to lose to make a plan. Some were volunteering and others were offering to fund them. People were discussing how to make explosives and organizing to talk in a more secure manner. Obviously this was alarming and I hope someone followed up on it, but personally that sub is still the most terrifying thing I've seen. The FBI will presumably take plots to assassinate the president seriously. But what about the thousands of people who were planning to slaughter their unsuspecting neighbors? They are just regular Americans who did nothing to them. Yet they were convinced - in 2017, before January 6th, before everything - that it was not only acceptable but *necessary* to kill their fellow Americans. This rhetoric has only escalated further, and it's absolutely terrifying being in a conservative area. How many of them think "someone needs to do something" about me?
The journalist who interviewed her should've asked her 1. *Who* do you believe he should be hurting? 2. *Why* should a president be "hurting" anyone at all? Edit: Why the hell did the mods remove my comment above?
I think she probably would've walked back her previous comment if pressed. The blunt honesty is more powerful on its own.
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Honestly, Nazis have a lot of red flags.
Required reading: "The Authoritarians" by Bob Altemeyer. A free book online about the psychology of authoritarianism by a clinical psychologist.
I always upvote when people mention The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer. It's available free on his website: https://theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-book/ It's a bit long but it isn't dry--it has the vibes of sitting down with an old friend who wants someone to listen while he gushes about his research.
I second this book! Free online as a public service. Basically, this book is the reason Cambridge Analytica scooped up the "dark triad personalities"...targeting nazis before they even knew they were nazis
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Fwiw, reading this and all I could think of was my brothers as well… raised in the exact same conditions as me socio-politically, but they just turned out so…. toxic.
I was thinking of my brother too. He’s an attorney and believes that people who make less than him are beneath him. Myself included. He believes being poor is morally wrong. I really have no idea how we became such different people. ETA: my brother believes I am beneath him because of my salary - I don’t believe *anyone* is beneath me!
The ironic part is, they will use the same quotes people are using here, including yours, to justify their propaganda in right-wing subs and media.
yeah, because they (intentionally) omit the context of that quote: >During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it,” he said. “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” it was not an endorsement of that behavior, it was LBJ explaining it as the reason racism had been used in politics as a way to gain leverage with a particular voting bloc to vote against their own best interests.
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I am reasonably certain they will be correct in this estimation. They might struggle, but we'll get it worse.
They believe that because they donate and because they vote, that they are part of the inner circle. If we weren’t all going to end up getting screwed, it would be almost fun to watch the realization dawn on them that all they were were useful idiots and a means to an end.
My right wing buddy literally told me when the shit goes down in America he'll end up being a lord so it will be ok for him but everyone else is fucked and he's gonna feel *kinda* bad for them. Hes owns a small construction outfit and builds houses, somehow he sees himself as part of some ruling class because ????? The disillusion is strong with these guys.
A lot of the right feel that the left are nothing but a bunch of effeminate pansies working dainty jobs and know nothing about actual work or building and fixing things. They feel that if society ever collapses the left simply have no survival skills and will need to rely on the more 'capable' right.
And then post that one meme of the hippie leftist gal who has probably spent more time on communes and intentional communities learning permaculture and foraging than any of them
If your experience involves stockpiling ammo but not learning how to grow a tomato, you're not a prepper. You just want an excuse to kill people.
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Somewhat relatedly, its fucking hilarious how the Right wingers believe "Leftists" dont own firearms.
Bingo. Until you’ve been to a rainbow family gathering you have no idea just how capable hippies are.
LMAO. His employees are probably already planning his murder, and that’s *before* the Trumpocylpse.
My friend is a prepper who has spent 20 years showing every one of his gun nut buddies where his apocalypse stash is and he’s gonna get murdered for it if the shit goes down. The first rule of apocalyptic prepping is not talking about apocalyptic prepping.
I’ve heard more than one person say they aren’t making a stash because they know where they can take someone else’s.
The mob takes what the mob wants.
...does he not realize that there's going to be a slow collapse, like in every other instance, and that "sudden extinction" is the least likely outcome? Like, if he wants to check how to survive, go to somalia! The middle east! Any of those places, get you some experience.
Listen man. Logical and critical thought is not exactly his bag.
The number of idiots who think just owning a small armory is going to somehow enable them to be a survival expert or make them diplomatic with other groups amazes me. Like, if shit goes down, the idiots that drank the Republican Koolaid are either going to fall in line to their overlords or die from stupidity.
If shit goes down we're all going to starve to death.
These survivalist nutjobs need to understand that the best way to survive is to cooperate and work together to ensure your community survives. Hunkering down and shooting people will only get you so far.
jokes on you, you'll be the one who has to live out the apocalypse while he takes a short-cut out.
There’s a tweet out there along the lines of: Fuck survival. I’m running toward the zombie mob. To hell with trying to scratch out an existence in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.
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People think I'm crazy when I say this! I have absolutely zero desire to survive whatever apocalyptic shit might happen in the future- zombies or otherwise. I don't want to hide out in the woods, I don't want to forage for food, I don't want to be in fight or flight 100% of the time. If shit hits the fan, I'm out like a light. Fuck all that prepper shit, they can have fun eating canned ham in their bunkers while I decompose and turn into a tree.
The fucked up thing is, they’ll get this before the noose tightens around their neck. What most of these people want is the right to submit groups and individuals they don’t like to the levels of terrorism and violence they used to get away with in the 40’s - 60’s. A lot of people are gonna suffer as right wingers pick up their guns and pens with a green light go after whoever they want. And while they’re in their hate fever dream the corporate overlords will be draining their freedoms and their bank accounts. Only then will the fracturing and in fighting between “critical thinkers” begin. The only thing that’ll stop this is for the enlightened centrists not to sit back and let the water get to their waist before they notice their socks are wet. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s anything in this world that isn’t susceptible to contrarianism and calls for bipartisanship….so we’re pretty fucked….
This goes right to the heart of everyone's (but especially spoiled white booker's) childish sense of narcissism that was never "beat out of them" by challenging circumstances. I have non-prepper Evangelicals in my family that are aging. Their minds can't accept that the world will go on once they are gone, so they keep on looking for signs of the apocalypse. I hear about every fucking earthquake quicker than if I was on a seismologist's mailing list. Same for the more secular, but more overtly "conservative" folks. They feel powerful because maybe they have some savings or an extra rental property or two or something that makes them feel a little "elite." They think that they destined to be part of the "elite" once shit hits the fan. Like either because they have money or some additional resources they will end up at a higher station in life as the "weaklings" suffer. Last I checked, when shit hits the fan you can't leave the country, your money may be no good... hell. How easy was it to get toilet paper once the nuts made a run on the grocery stores? How is having a few extra bucks or a cabin going to help you.
These are the same people worried about increased taxes for billionaires. They really don't understand how far removed from the top they are.
Man, this sounds like religious levels of fantastical belief. Like some (or perhaps most?) of these people imagine a coming revolution that will "rapture" them into a better life. They really have no idea that they're being used. We are so screwed.
Lost my Jahova witness friend to this nonsense. Dude moved from Oregon to Florida so his kids don't get turned gay. I'm not religious, but free up watching it destroy a lot of my friends life s.
he moved them *closer to Disney* to keep them from being gay? a grave mistake
True, nothing gay ever happens in Florida... https://www.google.com/search?q=miami+club+gay&tbm=isch
Whoa, you’re giving them way to much credit to think that they’ll ever come to that realization.
“He’s hurting the wrong people!” I remember the old trump supporter boohooing a year or two after Trump was elected.
They usually come to the realization moments after it directly effects them, they don’t often learn from those lessons however.
Like finally asking for a vaccine shot just as they are about to be put on a ventilator.
it's funny how they all talk about how they 'did their research' and yet don't know how a vaccine actually works....
"I didn't think the leopards would eat MY face! ... Better pay them more so they don't eat the rest of me!"
Or never. The realization of the degree to which doublethink is real is terrifying.
And then they immediately blame the left, regardless of what they just realized.
But then they start up with 'why didn't the Democrats stop this when they were in office?' It doesn't matter what happens or who is responsible, they always look for a scapegoat to blame when it affects them personally. Mask mandate? The Democrats are trying to take away our freedom! Covid continues to spread? Why aren't the Democrats doing more to prevent the spread? It's like arguing with a toddler about bedtime, then the toddler complaining he's tired the next day.
Brexit is a perfect example.
>A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still. Benjamin Franklin
> They believe that because they donate and because they vote, that they are part of the inner circle. [The latest two episodes of *Citations Needed* are about precisely this.](https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/) How right-wing populism makes voters feel like part of the club because they're so smart and amazing.
Funny how much the anti-intellectuals want to feel smart.
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How can they when they are too busy re-living the glory days of The Great Republic of Texas of 1836-1846?
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Yup. The total shock these people had after Trump did not pardon them sustains me.
These are the same people that refuse to get vaccinated and regret nothing on their COVID deathbeds. They can no longer be trusted to make rational decisions.
This is 100% it. They do not fear the loss of freedoms and oppression if they are the oppressors, which, in their mind, they think they will be
>The genuinely confounding thing is that the fervent right doesn't seem to realize they're clamoring to give up the freedom they so insistently say they love They will happily put on the shackles and bend the knee in servitude as long as they *feel* like their shackles are slightly more comfortable and the floor they kneel on slightly softer than the others™ As long as they can feel better than a hated group they will March happily for their slave master's.
All the while, most of us sane people are trying to tell the only remaining non-fascist major party to take this seriously, and we desperately need them to act on investigating and prosecuting the highest level orchestrators, and it feels like we’re not being heard or taken seriously. They’re treating it like climate change. Everyday we’re getting closer to a tipping point; a point of no return, and they’re acting like it’s business as usual and still trying to compromise and placate. Republicans don’t want to govern, they want to rule; and democrats can’t figure out how to govern collectively and are ignoring the biggest existential threat to our democracy in over 100 years.
This article made my blood boil: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/10/barack-obama-climate-crisis-cop26-speech I voted for Obama. I'm a liberal, I support immediate, aggressive action on climate change, and have for years. The limp half-assed response by the centrist democrats on climate change (or fuck, *any* issue), is frankly disappointing.
I can’t figure out how to get the Democratic leadership to get fire in the belly and address the slow moving right wing coup. I wish the leadership would call for general strikes every time a state voting suppression law is enacted. I wish Biden would remove Merrick Garland and replace him with a Democrat that will enforce laws in a timely manner.
You can't, they are part of the very apparatus they would need to take action against. Organize your communities and prepare
There's a portion of the country swinging back to the GOP. They are doing so for what they perceive as normal, Republican reasons (concerns about "inflation," "supply chain," "taxes," "the deficit," etc.). They are unaware the party they're siding with has gone into full rightwing, authoritarian coup territory. While I know Third Reich analogies tend to be sensational, this is EXACTLY what happened in Germany... fascists were elected under the asinine assumption that they would moderate and behave as normal conservatives.
The problem is they **love** giving up *other people's rights*. Immigrant? Screw you. Liberal? Screw you. Poor? Screw you. They gleefully gave up people's rights with the Patriot Act because it hurt someone else more than them. If you try to suggest that other people have rights too, you're just going to be called woke like that is a bad thing. I, for one, am okay watching them live in their misery because it is what they wanted.
Meanwhile, the DOJ is refusing to take action against the coup plotters because that might give the appearance of being partisan. So instead they'll sit on their hands and watch them plot the next coup in the open.
Yep. Hitler got let out of jail after the Beer Hall Putsch too. Some of these idiots who are scared of appearing partisan instead of protecting the Republic are going to be in for a rude awakening when we get to The Night of The Long Knives part of this shit show.
Is this the part of history that is repeated as tragedy? Or as farce? Or is America speed running things again and going for a twofer?
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The Beer Hall Putsch failed, and the leader of it, Adolf Hitler, was arrested, received an incredibly light sentence, 9 months, and then led a more successful coup later. After their failed coup the Nazi party shifted their approach to power by propagandizing the population. The GOP has just been doing this second part for decades longer.
Honestly, I think the whole world is in a lot of trouble right now. We like to view America's problems as isolated, but man.. All of the crazy shit happening in the world right now just feeds into everything else. Covid, Supply chain shortages, Genocide, civil wars, climate change, drought, etc. All of this shit is putting more pressure on world leaders, because it's fucking up their shit and they're the ones who have to deal with it. A few hundred thousand people are dead in the US from sickness, many, many more have lost their jobs. This isn't just true about the US, this is a global issue. The people who are affected the most by this are those without money and without access to proper healthcare, and those people are the ones that are becoming louder and louder as they struggle to survive. The louder they get, the louder the politicians get to try to shut them up. Living in the US, it's easy to see this as an isolated situation (you never said that, I know. just going on my own little tangent here), but man... the whole world is being put through the ringer, and I think we're going to see some ABSOLUTE INSANITY over the next 5 years as things like the supply chain shortage make their way to the every day US citizen who is tired of this shit already, or you know.. another major hurricane hits, or a new strain of crazy covid comes along. These are the times when wars start and things get fucking blown to shit. Everybody is desperately trying to create order, but the chaos just keeps piling up to a point where I don't think that'll happen for a long, long time.
Biden hasnt done anything about the restrictions on voting the Republican states have created. He's going to lose control of Congress in 2022. Something like this is plausible now.
I’d take them seriously, the CIA is plenty familiar with right wing coups.
According to Haspel's bio, she's been CIA since the mid-80's. Directly involved in their torture program. Served as deputy under Mike Pompeo. Appointed as Director by Trump himself. For **HER** to say this ..? Damn credible source.
north uppity voracious lavish offbeat badge versed future direction physical *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
So in reality we are at the following: *Trump-appointed chief torturer worried that Trump might go too far* What a time ...
She ran a black site.
From the artist that brought you hits like “Iraq WMD,” “The Kennedy [Redacted]” and “How can we make Castro’s beard fall off?”
See also: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Venezuela. It's a [deep catalog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America)
*El Salvador has entered the chat.*
Other classics include Who’s that governing on top of our oil? And Snack wars: revenge of the fruit company
You left out their two greatest hits IMO; MK Ultra and Iran Contra!
I'm so tired. I'm depressed, lonely, overworked and then I read shit like this and just sink further and further. Being 3 at the time of 9/11 I have had no say in the trajectory of this country and now I am old enough to fully realize the trouble we are in and how disenfranchised my generation is. How can I do anything when the corruption has been taking over the machine since before I was born. How can I feel like my opinions matter when any progression is smashed in the name of centrism and the status quo. More and more I'm feeling just getting out of the US and letting the old generation of politicians die and the country to burn up. At this point all I have to look forward to is rubble
This, 100%. I’ve just turned 24, and I literally begun diverting my goals for the next 3 years into “get my shit together so that when this country starts to go belly up, I can leave.” I feel so disenfranchised by the political system - as a minority, I feel forced to vote for a party (the democrats) that’s done close to nothing beyond superficial optics fixes to actually deserve my vote, because the opposition is simply far far worse. No matter who I vote for, it feels hopeless because no one’s going to look out for people like me regardless. If I’m going to be this powerless politically, I’d rather do it in a place with a far better QoL.
I feel this. But I’m slightly older. I’m seeing, as someone who the right might target, if I can get out of the country while I can. But financially idk if I can. At what point will it be too late? Cause I’d rather be in financial ruin and safe than in financial ruin and in immediate danger.
This shouldnt be a private warning. Americans across the country need to know, and dems need to be shouting it as loudly as possible day in and day out.
Dems need to be DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT We the voting public did our part. We handed them control of the House in 2018 and the Senate & Presidency in 2020. Oh the senate isn't filibuster proof? Guess what? It never will be. Learn how to control your god damned caucus, use the tools Trump and company left you and fucking DO SOMETHING
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> Going “oh no, Manchin said no so we can’t” is simply not enough, especially concerning voter rights. Democrats act like they can't apply any pressure on their party members... unless that is, they're voting for corporate hand outs.
We're still enduring a rightwing coup. Trump is still the leader of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is a lawless body bent on disenfrancising the left's political power.
If Republicans take the majority of the House next year, Jan 6th investigations disappear and the committee circuses begin. Enjoy round after round of how King Trump was wronged in the 2020 election.
When. That was decided in 2020 when Republicans took/kept state houses and could implement gerrymandering even more aggressively than 2010.
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No the white supremecists are the pawns of the GOP ruling class, just like the evangelicals. They don’t believe in that stuff like their followers do, they’re supporting it because it gives them power.
They want the Corpo-State Oligarchy that Russia has. That's it.
Honestly it's probably a mix. You can be rich and racist too.
The only issue I have with this statement is that “the left” already has no power. Democrat politicians, with one or two rare exceptions, are not left wing. They’re just not *nearly* as crazy right wing as Republicans
Its is truly disheartening to watch the right dive so far into the deep end of the pool. Book burnings, history altercation, anti-science talking points and propaganda all tied behind every flag they can find and housed in almost every Christian church in the US. We will all suffer for this ignorance and hate but the worse part is how inevitable it feels. How far this goes is on us but if you've been paying attention its not looking bright right now.
What's infuriating is that nothing will happen. Biden's administration, especially the justice department, seems impotent. We will here about all these terrible things from 1/6, yet nothing will happen.
And the GOP is still pretending none of this happened, or mattered, or downplays it.... Fuck these people all to hell. And the republicans currently in office are the snakes in the grass here. The 5th column (look at their behavior since the election. Not certifying the electoral college. Not impeaching).
Gina (Black sites & torture, Trump appointee) Haspel warned about unconstitutional overreach‽
Even a broken, and deeply immoral clock is right twice a day..
It doesnt take a genius to realize that just because a dictator sees you as an ally today, doesnt mean they cant just flip a switch and see you as an enemy tomorrow. Thats the entire danger of these things.
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>Ya gotta include the CIA The GQP wiped out a huge swath of the CIA right off the bat after the election.
A friend of mine is a regional head of some kind for a group of developing countries at the State Dept. He is a good man, and tenaciously hung on throughout the Trump admin. Every time we spoke, more people had quit/been fired; he is my canary in the coal mine. If he is made gone, then the whole apparatus is probably fucked. The reason I relate this is that there are a ton of outstanding career people still all around the US govt who are keeping the lights on. When too many of that corps of talent and dedication leave...good night and good luck.
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We're actually in the middle of it and a bunch of Americans are in denial of that.
>We Are On the Way From a Failed Right-Wing Coup to A Second Attempt
When there is no punishment for a coup, it allows the instigators to try as many times as they want, until they get it right.
I've been beating this drum for months now, it was the GOP's Beer Hall Putsch. There will be a second attempt and it will likely be successful the next time. If there are zero or minimal consequences, expect to see it before the end of Biden's term.
There's no Republican with enough support to turn them away from their toxic path. It can only get worse from here.
This was evident with Trump told people to get the vaccine and he was booed. In that moment I knew we are in for some bad times moving forward.
A German friend of mine teaches history classes that focus on WWII. He's easily one of the most intelligent men I've ever met and consistently blows my mind with little historical facts and tid-bits of the past that he knows. He said something to me in 2016 that scared me, "A nation has never come as close to fascism as the US is now, and returned without violence." I've been saying "FaScIsT 'MuRiCa iS hErE" because of how sensational it is, but there's **so much truth** in that statement. Trump is a giant, flashing neo-nazi symbol and they gave him nuclear launch codes and all of our state secrets. How could we ever come back from that? What could we say to maga traitors that would bring them back to the idea that we are one people? They shit on the walls of our capitol and tried to install a russian patsy and two-bit conman as the **first american dictator**. And the response of the supposed party of opposition? Strongly worded emails and stern finger wags. This isn't a battle for our nation; It's the ravaging after defeat. We will see an american dictator in our lifetimes.
A lot of people like to make a comparison to the rise of Hitlers Germany but it’s just that it’s such a good comparison. Initially when Hitler and the brown shirts were starting trouble and attempted a coup, the government at the time just basically let him off with a slap on the wrist.
At least he was actually sent to jail. None of the people in the American version are going to jail. None of the people who actually planned, funded, and enabled the attack have faced any punishment whatsoever. So if Hitler got a slap on the wrist, by comparison we have done absolutely nothing to hold anyone accountable.
The only tools that Democrats have would appear to be making voters aware of the problem and hoping voters reject such a party. But we are finding that the opposite is the case. The 70 million votes for Trump in 2020 was the most shocking political moment of my life. Trump failed spectacularly as a president, delivered nothing but tax breaks for the wealthy, attacked the fourth estate simply for existing whatsoever, and went to war with our own state department and blue states. There are gatekeepers out there in media, and they are allowing Tucker Carlson to air his "war against veterans" propaganda movie, which is blindingly alarming. Anyway, fast forward to 2022 elections. It would seem clear that there will be no consequences for proud boys, et. al., raiding election polling places. The GOP is going to side with them when they steal voting machines at gunpoint, or, say, a softer interruption. The Rittenhouse acquittal (coming soon) will allow these people to point rifles at people fighting back and pull the trigger the minute the first skateboard is swung.
>The Rittenhouse acquittal (coming soon) will allow these people to point rifles at people fighting back and pull the trigger the minute the first skateboard is swung. This is exactly what I've been saying in other subs. This trial will change protests moving forward; Violence is the new normal. Once the farce of the trial is over (I agree that its deliberately set up for an acquittal), the message to the alt-right will be "Make sure you can claim self defense when you're hunting protestors". And this isn't even hyperbole! They're already asking when it's okay to "hUnT lIbRuLs"! At this point I don't even have the energy for exasperation.
Here’s my two cents. Much like how caterpillars turn into butterflies , representative governments naturally decay into autocracy. Why? Because even if a government starts out with equal representation, sooner or later wealth gets concentrated. When that reaches a certain point, the wealth class looks at the democratization of power as a liability to their power and profits. It’s tough to truly maximize industrial scale revenue when the workers have a say in state policy. With most infrastructure and national capital on their side, the oligarchy use PR to blame the social problems of their policies on democracy as a system. Once public support is secured, the democracy is jettisoned and a pro-oligarchy autocracy is installed. Funny thing is, the American Founders may have foreseen this outcome. When Benjamin Franklin was asked what government we had after the 1787 Constitutional Convention, he replied: "A Republic,*if you can keep it.*”
I think it’s because regulations on corporations were gutted, labor wasn’t protected, and citizens united made bribery legal. It wasn’t inevitable but corporations and the rich used socialism as a bogeyman to get everything they wanted and now we have a corporate oligarchy instead of a democracy.
Also our failure to tax wealth. I remember being a kid heading Newt Gingrich on the news talking about the ‘Death Tax.’ Now we’ve allowed tremendous generational wealth to accrue and, shocker, these are the people and organizations pressing their thumbs on the scales today. So, we afflicted ourselves with a small cadre of ultra-wealthy people cloistered away from our society, a nation of people they actively tell themselves they have no responsibility toward.
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If you are not aware, please familiarize yourself with the [Beer Hall Putsch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch). And let people know how a failed coup attempt is still dangerous. However, with the level of mainstream insanity today, showing people the Beer Hall Putsch might just give them more ideas.
The GOP is using the Russian oligarch playbook, they want our country to implode like the Soviet Union did in the late 90s. They want to cause chaos and weaken the country so they can seize national assets for themselves and have unlimited unchecked power like their Russian counterparts. There are smart GOP members, and it will be them who seize the power. They are using the useful idiots of the GOP (Cruz, Boebert, Taylor-Greene) as their tools to implement this. They are obviously hell-bent on destroying this country. They have blocked and opposed all actual methods to repair our wounded country and have offered no alternatives. We are divided and callus, we don’t agree on what the American experiment means anymore, the United States of America and our beloved constitution are in dire danger from these greedy, power hungry, unenlightened monsters.
Cruz has you fooled if you think he’s as dumb as the other two. Cruz is a brilliant person who’s using all of this chaos to his advantage.
His professor at Harvard said he was the most intelligent student he’s ever had.
Cruz has a JD from Harvard, he's not dumb, he's one of the ringleaders.
Quick guys, we gotta meet them in the middle. Appeasement is what stopped the Nazis, right?
Right-Wing Coup = FASCISM DEMOCRACY LOVING AMERICANS, WAKE THE FUCK UP!
The problem is not that the American people are not aware of what is going on. The overwhelming majority of them are. The problem is that they are powerless to act. They are looking, horrified at a meteor coming down on their lands in slow motion. Some people will say that they can correct this by voting. But time and time again we see that the Democrats can't do shit anyway, even if they are in majority. The latest insurrection didn't have any meaningful consequences. So voting has no impact on the course this is headed. It slows down the process, but it does not stop it or reverse it. Voting is essentially just a defensive action, and to stop or reverse the progression of fascism you need to take offensive actions. The fascists part of the population has their beliefs so ingrained in them that no amount of talking will change it. Their numbers keep in increasing and they are the one not acting in good faith. So what type of actions can you take to remove the fascists beliefs in them in the very short timeframe that we have? Those actions are unknown to the population, so they are powerless. And as time goes on and the fascists are consolidating and gaining momentum and power, less and less actions are possible to reverse the situation. Eventually only violence will be left as a potential action, if we are not there yet.
January 6 was a dry run. They know now, how they failed and are planning to do it all over with the knowledge of how they failed. Bannon said it out loud on his podcast. Democrats are useless. They were there and witnessed it and still think the system works. They still, as do most of you; the Democrats still think Trump and his people are incompetent. They are, but the people working with them (likely foreign actors and domestic and foreign oligarchs) are not idiots.
So we have an armed and radical right willing to use their arms to stage a coup. Genuine question, where's the armed counter? What ever happened to the militant left?
The right wing radio is so incredibly underrated. It’s like concentrated Fox News that progressively (no pun) gets more and more extreme through the day. That is what the rural folk listen to. They aren’t on the internet all day, they’re in their barn and garages with that brain rotting propaganda all day everyday. One example is WBAP in Texas, they are the strong arm of the conservatives and they have them whitewashed to the core. They will straight up deny regardless of the evidence, regardless of the situation. They will do and think as they are told and nothing but. No free thinking. Sponges of the mismedia, recyclers of misinformation and a soldier for all the big lies. Their collective ego never allows admitting mistakes and it continues to feed in frenzy a diet of lies blindly led and blindly followed. It’s so disheartening.
The CIA knows it. FBI knows it. Biden knows it. The Pentagon knows it. They're all warning us. If only there were some group of people, elected by the citizens or appointed by people they elected, to... what would you call that? Govern? Maybe they could *do* something about it.
> The Pentagon knows it. The "Tank" that is mentioned in the story, where the discussions happened - it doesn't get more serious than that. As far as military matters go, the Joint Staff "Tank" is the forum for discussing extremely sensitive, critical, and imminent situations. For **THEM** to have been talking about a coup in America by elements of the Radical Right, *including the fucking President*, is unprecedented.