The US had to come to this point. We couldn’t go on as we were, even under Democratic presidents. For 40 years, a narrow economic elite has been siphoning off ever more wealth and power.
Over the last 40 years, starting with Ronald Reagan, the US went off the rails: deregulation, privatization, free trade, wild gambling by Wall Street, union-busting, monopolization, record levels of inequality, stagnant wages for most, staggering wealth for a few, big money taking over our politics.
America’s so-called “leadership class” is a sham. Most of them do not care a whit for the rest of the US. They are out for themselves.
The “fucking nightmare” is not over by any stretch. It’s likely to get worse in 2026 as Trump and his sycophants, and many of America’s “leaders”, realize 2026 may be their last unrestrained year to inflict damage and siphon off the spoils.
There’s no solidarity amongst Americans. I think that’s the central issue.
The right wing fascist takeover has been in the making for decades, and a crucial part of that was capturing news outlets and turning them full bore propaganda. Control the narrative and condition 30+% of the population to believe anything the right wing regime says, and also condition them to distrust and hate anyone not on their side.
Because of this, we have little hope of unifying against the threat, even if things go bad. Troops in cities, people getting kidnapped off the streets and sent to foreign torture prisons, Epstein involvement and cover-ups, grifts, fraud, a self-enriching “president” who has made over 3 billion dollars in less than a year after re-election; all of these just by themselves would have sparked revolution in an older America, but today we are kept opposed at the class level because the brainwashing and conditioning of so many millions of Americans was successful and they will never turn on the people grifting them.
They are not waking up, they are kept sound asleep by their preferred political party.
Prove it.
cute take. the reality is this: meals will have to be missed, family will have to die due to lack of healthcare coverage, and homes will have to be foreclosed before anything happens (at which point the deportation machine will be repurposed for denaturalized citizens).
this wasn’t a quick transition. anyone who has been paying attention has seen the warning signs their entire lives. I’d argue that the offspring of korean war vets immediately turned on the previous generations’ sacrifices and became hyper-individualistic (while teaching their offspring to be the same)
don’t agree? look at black friday numbers during an authoritarian coup – individualism is a disease and technology accelerated perpetual childhood (MINE!)
It will be gradual, and people will try to weather out the storm. Think, “The Grapes of Wrath” type of situation during the Great Depression.
As an American, I’ve protested. I don’t believe the protests had any effect.
There are occasional ICE reactionaries, which, I think are great.
Unfortunately, vast majority of what I witness is just the “norm” everyday hustle. Yes, the house is burning down. I barely see anyone carrying a hose to the fire. I confess, I’m guilty of only a quick spray of a small kitchen extinguisher.
Protests only work because of the implication that if things don’t change, the people will force a change
Please don’t mistake the lack of immediate results with a lack of protest success.
It’s about growing the protest cause as much as the immediate effect.
Vietnam was much more personal to Americans with people directly seeing children and brothers turned to meat. Those protests took a decade to see effects.
LOL no they are not. Queue: “I have to work”, “I have to pay bills” etc etc the best they could do was two “protests” on weekends amidst a fascist takeover Americans have no clue what it is to protest or to resist. The next hunger pang is stronger than their willingness or ability to protest. Yet they yammer on endlessly about “mah rights” and “the 2nd amendment” 🤡💯
The people who yammer about that are the ones donning ICE gear.
My Dad was a huge 2A nut, specifically because he thought the government will come get him. But he was explicitly afraid of brown people - terrified of Obama and the ‘radical leftists’. He prophesied that the Gummit was gonna let “illegals” take over the country, and “regular folk” wouldn’t have a home left (ie, a white christian ethnostate, which he believed the US should be)
Waking up to what? He can talk all he wants about corporate profits but can’t say the words “capitalism” or “socialism.” This article alone is evidence Americans are not waking up. Even the people who are forced to recon with the fact that a society that puts profits before people is bad cannot even articulate the possibility of an alternative to it.
Americans are waking up.
I still think the Sarah Palin floor - the 20-30-some percent of dead-enders that support Republicans no matter what they do - will likely never wake up.
I imagine that number will decrease due to an increase in their fatality - like they’re not getting vaccinated, getting health advice from randos.
Were it not for that painful national exposure to racist brutality, we wouldn’t have gotten the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act.
Yeah so how those holding up nowadays? Gains should not be able to be ripped back, as Donnie is doing now. We shouldn’t have to fight AGAIN for that which has been won.
But if those are the rules, Dems need to grind this Republican trash into the dirt to the point that even if take backs are allowed there are none of them left to do it.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. That which can be gained can always be lost if we grow complacent, which we did.
Sure.
Wishful thinking. Polls still show 30 to 40 percent support Trump and his awful policies. Those people actuallyvote R no matter what. Another thirty percent can’t be bothered to get off their asses to go to the polls. Nothing will change until the “I can’t be bothered” crowd is swayed to actually vote for their interests.
Nothing will change until we start asking why people don’t bother to vote, instead of fruitlessly balling our fists, shitting our diapers, and whining that it’s not fair that so many people choose not to vote.
You can moan all you want about non voters, but brow beating people will only drive them away from your side faster. The truth is non voters don’t vote for real reasons, primarily because they don’t think either side represents them. You can whine and moan that people need to think more strategically, but no amount of crying will change the fact that a good chunk of the electorate simply doesn’t share your values and approach to voting. Some people vote strategically, some only when they feel they can truly support a candidate. Screaming at people, “you simply have to approach voting the way I do!!!” won’t convince anyone.
People have different values and priors, and they do not owe you their votes. In a democracy, saying “I can’t stand either of these monsters. I don’t care what happens, I’m not participating, a pox on both your houses!” is a perfectly valid choice. A core principle of democracy is that we’re allowed to believe different things, and brow beating people will not get them to support you.
Don’t blame non voters. It’s intellectually lazy and a cop out meant to prevent Democrats from making the hard changes necessary to actually appeal to this population of non voters. Trump managed to mobilize millions of non voters. He didn’t do so by whining at them and telling them to vote strategy. He did it by inspiring them and convincing them he was looking out for them. It was all lies, but it worked. If you want to mobilize non voters, you need to find ways and policies that actually appeal to them. Simply complaining about non voters will not work, just as it hasn’t worked for the last 40 years.
And while I’m sure you’re already typing a comment telling me it’s my fault Trump got elected because I didn’t vote, you’re wrong. I did hold my nose and fruitlessly vote for the Cheney lover, for all the good that did. I just have enough humility to realize that those who don’t vote have very good reasons for doing so.
Well, hurry up
The only upside of this is that when the us turns around, it’ll be easier to make changes because a lot of things were dismantled, so fixes won’t have to be very complex, and also a lot of people suffered so people will be eager to implement the changes, ie: healthcare for all. The only downside is that many of us won’t make it.
oh, um, it’s going to be very not pretty.
Tell that to my MAGA shithead coworker who still thinks Trump walks on water
