As an outsider (I live in Belgium) it feels very weird and dystopian to see everything happening in American politics with Trump and Musk.
On one side, it’s very interesting and almost entertaining; on the other side, it’s scary. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live in the USA.
Americans, how do you cope? What’s your take on the situation?
I smoke a lot of pot. Probably the strangest part is how…I still have to live? I still have to go into work tomorrow, I’ve still got bills to pay. People just go about their day like nothing is happening. You sit in the office and joke about the ongoing hostile government takeover. Meanwhile, federal employees are getting fucked, trans people are getting erased, they’re building fuckin camps down in Guantanamo, people are fuckin starving outside shuttered USAID depots, and I still got work tomorrow. It’s like I’m just sitting here waiting for somebody to put a gun in my hands and tell me “the revolution starts now.” My local organizations are very focused on making sure people survive right now, which is a very good and noble focus to have, but I haven’t really heard of anyone planning something serious to fight back.
As a 50something American, it has never been weirder. While I saw this building during most of my life, I didn’t think I would actually live to see Americans voting to get rid of democracy.
But here we are - no longer a functioning democratic republic.
That American Exceptionalism is a real bitch, huh?
Many of us never believed in American Exceptionalism, since we could see this country slipping backwards while the rest of the world continued to progress.
It feels like American Exceptionalism was only seriously being challenged post-9/11.
I’ve heard people say they’ve never felt more american than they ever have since the last month. It’s a different perspective for everyone. But it does concern me that some people base their entire perspectives on the first ten words they hear, and refuse to think further
I am trying to ignore it. It’s like all the worst fears I could have coming true. The richest man in the world, a naked fascist and virulent transphobe, is gobbling up all the sensitive data the government has and is feeding it to AI so he can tear down the government and usher in techno-feudalism.
Meanwhile, I still have to go to work and pretend that everything is fine and normal, while the government is trying to define trans people out of existence, help Israel ethnically cleanse Palestine, and threaten every ally we’ve had.
I want to leave, but it’s extraordinarily difficult to uproot your life, and there’s no guarantee that finding a viable way to move elsewhere is going to happen.
So I’m just trying to imagine myself a single person, trying to hide from the brutality and eke out a good life with my little resources and community, and pray that whatever happens doesn’t happen to me directly.
Maybe I should be out protesting - I feel like I should - but there isn’t a mass movement right now, and there’s no leverage in government to stop them. So things are feeling pretty bleak right now.
but there isn’t a mass movement right now
Lookup the 50501 movement. There were protests across the entire country in every single state yesterday and they are planning future ones too. Many of them were quite large especially considering how short notice they were prepared
Here’s one video montage with just handful of some of the protests https://bsky.app/profile/50501movement.bsky.social/post/3lifqkjki2k2o
“a peaceful movement”. Ok. Unilaterally disarming seems like a dubious move to me.
I don’t think protests where you just stand around and chant are especially effective. Maybe in 1950 when seeing people get firehosed was shocking, but the world is different today. Media is captured by the wealthy and most people don’t care.
Protests are a starting point not an ending one. Many of the groups involved in this like Indivisible are also recruiting people from theses protests to do the less flashy work of fighting back in other ways
They also are quite the lighting rod to get people to feel engaged more broadly. If you’ve never gone to a mass protest, it’s hard to describe how they reignite you to fight back. Seeing all those people there makes you realize you are not alone. That you are not the only one who doesn’t think this is okay
These most recent protests were also much larger than the media is describing it. The media is saying thousands nationwide, but there were multiple cities that each had 1000+ people. Many smaller cities had hundreds protesting
glad to see you guys are doing a bit of socialism to fight back.
just wanted to wish you all the best in your endeavours.
This is a good point. Seeing other people get onto the street can motivate people who weren’t feeling enthusiastic.
But I do worry that protests will fizzle out and be, as you say, an ending point. Maybe they won’t be.
Maybe I should be out protesting - I feel like I should - but there isn’t a mass movement right now, and there’s no leverage in government to stop them. So things are feeling pretty bleak right now.
Nothing is going to change in a big hurry, no matter what happens, but the efforts great and small that we all make are cumulative over time, so that when observable change happens, it’ll be solid.
You’re enough. What you can do is enough, even if it’s as simple as making some space in your home to be able to accomodate someone who needs safety on short notice, getting involved in mutual aid, printing flyers, being observant and identifying small opportunities to make fascists think twice. Even just getting into a resistance mindset is a positive move.
Everything has risk, of course, and the level of risk you are prepared to take on, for you, is up to you. A teeny tiny bit of risk today might just make you feel that you can take on a bit more tomorrow, and a bit more the day after that.
and there’s no leverage in government to stop them.
Do you think government will do anything at all in the coming weeks, months, years? I can’t wrap my head around the situation at all. How does anyone with a slight bit of brains and a small grasp of history just accept this? It’s so dystopian…
There have been people fighting back. They just get 10x less media coverage than all the horrible things going on. This is part of what people mean when they say the revolution will not be televised
Many of their actions have been blocked in many of the federal courts and they are largely complying with those orders
There are many federal workers refusing to go along with all kinds of their action that slow them down
Many blue states and localities have already passed laws/ordinances to stop cooperating with the federal government ICE raid making them more difficult to carry out
The revolution will not be televised.
Where can I find info on the people fighting back. I have found some judges, but the workers and people like that is hard to find in mainstream media.
Democracy Docket is a good source for court battles. They cover all kinds of court cases and the updates on them you hardly find in other media
The other action is harder to find concentrated in one source, but there’s people on various social media that try to signal boost the limited media coverage of that stuff. For instance, Ariella Elm (@ariellaelm.bsky.social), various activism groups like Indivisible, the r/fednews and r/50501 subreddit, etc.
Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, and the US is so big that getting from bumfuck, Arizona to DC is a monumental task. Hell, even getting from bumfuck, NY to Albany NY is impossible for some. It’s all on purpose. Most Americans are barely getting by.
To add to that, half the country wants this
Half the voting country wants this.
Edit: I just checked the polls, maybe you’re right.
My view from across the pond is that is bad enough that 30%ish of the country voted for this - but the 40% of non-voters (let’s knock 10% off for people who are unable to vote through injury, commitments, or mental capacity or whatever) don’t care enough to vote against it.
It leaves 60% of the country who are at least okay with how it’s all working out. Frightening.
My view from across the pond is that is bad enough that 30%ish of the country voted for this
That does sound like a fucked up number if you take it at face value. But I have found if you look at historical voting, about 35% are always going to be bat shit crazy on how they vote. Is it not like that where you’re from?
Over 50% of our population reads below a 6th year education and our school system has been steadily defunded and dumbed down over the past 40 years. A large portion of Americans only have 2 brain cells and they’re both busy fighting for 3rd place. Ignorance and a lack of critical thinking skills is what has gotten us into this situation and I don’t know if we have what it takes to get us out of it.
How do we even get out of it? How do you reconcile the fact that Americans live in entirely separate realities to each other? How are we meant to educate and connect to a group of people who demonize education and connection? Like I honestly don’t know what can be done for some of these people short of actual re-education camps, because they need a full mental debriefing.
A large portion of Americans only have 2 brain cells and they’re both busy fighting for 3rd place
I’ll steal this one. That’s a marvelous quote
Don’t forget the 24/7 propaganda networks telling them they should be angry at immigrants and people who are different from them and that only these specific oligarchs are the ones who can save them from the libs.
The people that want to rule in the coming dictatorship run the government currently, the GOP holds every lever of power including the federal “police” force and has installed loyal “yes men.” It’s the whole reason you read about “buyouts” to let people resign, it’s so they can all be replaced with people who have to undergo a new loyalty test they’re implementing which apparently ask questions along the lines of “how do you feel the January 6th protestors were treated?” Looking for an answer of “unfairly” or something.
There is no force within the government that isn’t under their control. There are individual judges scattered around the country that can try to stop the worst offences with sternly written letters, but with no method of enforcement, the paper just gets torn and ignored.
The people with “brains” are diseased with the greed virus and have looked to history, seeing that Germany was stopped by force and knowing there is no force that could stop us. There is no stopping fascism when it goes full tilt here in America, there is no outside force that has the capacity to free us. It will somehow have to happen from within and I honestly don’t see that happening with all the new methods of technology driven monitoring and successful propaganda outlets.
there is no force that could stop us
… yet! I have some hope in the EU becoming stronger together and try to do something against it. I don’t know what, but something…
It is bleak. Trust me, I’ve been fighting this for ten years. Can’t say it feels good to have been right all along about what Trump is capable of.
But still, fight back, even in small ways. They want us to be too afraid to try anything, that’s been the entire point.
If we don’t stop the rich from using the American military to take over the world then pretty soon the rich will come for your country too.
Would this be the military that could only reach a standstill in Korea? That lost in Vietnam? That lost in Afghanistan? That ran away scared from Mogadishu? That “won” in Iraq by generating the world’s largest collection of terrorists until the blowback lost you two large towers and a smaller one?
That military?
I think you’ll find, as a regular civilian or a VIP in the target country, that you’re making a distinction without a difference.
Ask Saddam Hussein’s opinion on the US’s loss in Iraq or the hundreds of thousands of dead civilians how they feel about winning in Afghanistan.
The one that is only currently setup to drone strike any human on earth yes that one.
I’ve got some bad news for you…
All of the media about this stuff has felt increasingly like misleading propaganda to me since 2016, and getting an accurate, unbiased, big picture understanding of what is happening seems somewhere between a lot of work and actually impossible with so many people trying so hard to manipulate you. It is like reality television. I try to tune it out as I can but enough gets through.
I’m glad everyone is finally coming around to hating Twitter though.
For anyone feeling small: Take a stand, join us. Masters are merely men.
Is there a website with this info somewhere? Mostly curious. Still going to share the image.
The no spending/not buying from amazon is hilarious. Not only will people in general not do it, even if they see a dip in profits, they’ll have record profits the next day.
I don’t understand why people just can’t stop buying shit form Amazon. At some point a few years back, I had had enough. I stopped buying stuff from Amazon. I…didn’t think it was that hard. If anything, I’ll browse Amazon for something vague I’m looking for, find it, search the company names and buy it direct.
Amazon is just straight up bad. I have to be super desperate to buy something from there. Even when it was “good” i mainly used it to find something and compare it, and read reviews. If you do that now, you’re an insane person. Amazon video or what it’s called is really really bad. They show a lot of shows that you have to click on, to tell you that it’s not available in your region. It would be hilarious to just stop using amazon and see Jeffrey losing his shit. But not gonna happen.
Amazon is what I use when the original company doesn’t ship to me but I still want their product. Used it like a year ago for a Tribit speaker.
Took over a week to take my payment out which was wild. If ive been through the purchase process the money should already be gone like it is for literally every single other online transaction I have ever done in my entire life.
Yeah, now all of the reviews are bought and paid for anyway. So it’s not even good for that anymore. I really wish people could put in literally the smallest amount of effort to change bad habits. It’s crazy that people just seem addicted to it
As a Canadian, I and many others have been boycotting Amazon for over a month.
I wonder if ya’ll read this before you post. Its a display of unity. Its a warning.
I’m trans. I don’t have the luxury of ignoring it.
I have been fighting against this bullshit for ten years. I even got arrested protesting Trump’s bullshit once. Met some fantastic socialists and amarchists in jail.
Yeah, entertaining, isn’t it? Seeing that every warning bell that was rung was ignored? That every day I waved a sign or shoved a cop, was just a day delaying this from happening?
Has it all been futile? Have I wasted ten years fighting the same fascists my grandfather fought in WW2?
The scariest thing is that the only reason we haven’t done the violent uprising thing yet is because the only way it would succeed is if the military instigated the countercoup. We won’t survive under American martial law, and they’re bullbaiting us into giving them an exuse to kill and imprison us all. We must fight back, but we can’t fight back.
This is hell. This is hell. Never, ever, ever let it happen in Belgium. For the love of any god that gives enough of a fuck to listen, care about politics. Care about politics before they decide they don’t care about you.
Because in ten years, those of us who aren’t in prison camps are going to be starving and freezing. Take a good look. Take a good, long look, and be smart enough to get up and do something dangerous and crazy once in a while when it matters most.
I’m trans too. I’m still closeted, though, and now I’m getting scared that I’ll never be able to transition. They’re restricting gender-affirming care for minors right now, but it feels like a small step for them to ban it for adults too. And I have ADHD and take antidepressants- I’m starting to be genuinely worried that they might put me in a camp. What do we do? Where can we go that is safe?
With his talk of invading Canada, I’m wondering how much of that is to drill oil in the Arctic, and how much of it is to hunt down the people who ran away from him.
This is hell. This is hell. Never, ever, ever let it happen in Belgium. For the love of any god that gives enough of a fuck to listen, care about politics. Care about politics before they decide they don’t care about you.
I try! It’s a hard battle, sometimes, because even here right-wing nutjobs are getting more and more normalised. We can only hope that they see the situation in the US and realise they don’t want this kind of shitshow. On the other hand… even here some of those nutjobs are celebrating Donny and Elmo. That’s very scary.
Has it all been futile? Have I wasted ten years fighting the same fascists my grandfather fought in WW2?
It’s not! I really believe it hasn’t been futile! Keep on fighting! I know it’s very demanding, but never underestimate the power of the masses. I support you, even if I can only raise my voice online. And here in Belgium, I’m fighting for sure to evade the same situation.
Has it all been futile? Have I wasted ten years fighting the same fascists my grandfather fought in WW2?
You didn’t waste your time any more than he wasted his. Plenty of people died fighting without seeing victory on the horizon. If WW2 had ended differently, it still wouldn’t have been a waste of time fighting Nazis. You can’t always win, but you can always fight.
Martial law would be devastating but no matter how well-funded they are, the American defense industry is bloated, mismanaged, and full of flawed humans. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, even Ukraine - all prove that defeat is far from guaranteed against what appears to be an unstoppable force.
But to tell the truth, I am struggling to figure out how to fight at this stage. Messaging, communication, organization - these appear sparse and unreliable right now, drowned out in the sea of disinformation. What will bring us together? Do we need heros to rally around? Martyrs to avenge? Slogans to shout? Organizations to unite? Platforms to coordinate? All of the above?
A military force with a moral conscience would be nice. A revolution in America will be impossible without defectors, and a LOT of them.
We’re dealing with the most heavily armed police force in the world, the most well-funded secret police in the world, the most insanely overarmed military on the planet, and a citizen’s army of heavily armed zealots.
We have teenagers with winter boots whistling Hunger Games.
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It’s not a good time, let me tell ya.
Oh I can imagine… I really don’t know what I would do if I was in the same situation
Americans, how do you cope? What’s your take on the situation?
Trying not to think about it. It very well may lead to my death, but so does every avenue radical enough to avert it by my personal intervention.
I think the hardest part considering it is how okay people are with everything that’s going on. Despite the high levels of copium from liberals and leftists about how there’s TOTALLY a grassroots movement ready to rise up, the fact is… there isn’t. The protests are smaller this time 'round than they were last time. Public opinion is more in favor of Trump than it was at the start of his last administration.
Many of us noted that this country isn’t as left as many of the “Trump will make the moderates SEE that fascism is BAD!” types wanted to believe it was. We were ignored.
People live in a bubble, where what they want to believe is true, and goddamn reality.
Anyway. I’m fucked, and just trying to stay alive until I can’t avoid dusting off my old suicide plans.
The way I see it, even if our lives are basically worthless anyway, we ought to at least give them in glorious revolution. Better to die on your feet for what you believe in surrounded by comrades than by your own hand alone. I’ll go on living until that happens, and you should try to survive too.
Has it ever not been weird, or are people just too young to remember. Like people lost their shit when obama wore a tan suit, or like dijon mustard. He got a nobel peace price while drone striking schools and being in 2 active wars. Bush was maybe a bit smarter than trump, but he was still an idiot son of an asshole. And just overall buffoon, that gor elected twice. I was too young to really care for clinton, but we all know how this went down. But every president you read up is either just a straight up criminal, or a spiteful asshole or both. And the ones who weren’t comically evil just got fucked.
American here. Terrified about what’s happening and even more terrified how unaware people like my parents are.
Someone told me recently “People don’t want to think. They want to be ruled.”
AI can help them with that
Same. My parents tell me to just stop reading the news so I’ll feel better. I can’t look away from the train crash that is our country, how can you guys?
Exactly. I would feel this way, even if I didn’t know people affected and I may be as well, but I do and I might be, so that doesn’t help. I was told I stress too much. Fucking absurd dismissive bullshit. This is how we got here. People thinking the American way is to only give a damn about yourself and the people right in front of (assuming your uninformed political beliefs don’t conflict with caring about those people). Maybe it is the American way but it didn’t have to be.
I’m not really sure I am coping. I’ve been seeing a decline for a long long time, but even though I knew it was possible I really didn’t think we’d reach the point were we’re pretty much going to be living under a dictatorship.
I knew that capitalist interests would continue to decrease everyone’s standard of living, and I figured there would be some kind of reaction, I just never in a million years thought it would be the dumbfuck duo of Trump and Musk that actually harnessed the reaction in such a destructive manner.
It’s been incredibly depressing to see the right get what they want time and time again making things worse for everyone and yet the propaganda machine somehow manages to create more right wingers.
But then again “the house always wins” and billionaires are the house so it shouldn’t be a surprise. :/
It’s difficult. You’ve got people that vote red or blue for no other reason than that’s what they’re told to do by peers/family. They don’t look at the possible outcomes, just that “they win”. And wanting to help people is almost looked down upon in many facets of society.
America has a critical thinking problem, coupled with an extreme lack of genuine empathy. Don’t let the “nice American” bit fool you if you ever travel here. The nice small talk is a front, and you can very easily find yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Health care is a great example. Or anything LGBTQ+.
Honestly, it’s a culture thing. It’s toxic as hell and hard to navigate.
I visited New York years ago (2014, I think), but that’s nothing like other regions in the States, I imagine. Where I live (Bruges), I sometimes stumble upon American tourists in bars, but due to the nature of the places I visit they’re often more open minded.
They don’t look at the possible outcomes, just that “they win”
I think this way of thinking is a big problem in a democratic system. When you vote, you don’t “win” or “lose”. But maybe I compare this too much to the Belgian system. There’s so many political parties to choose from and they have to form a coalition to represent the majority.
Out of curiosity: how do you see the next 4 years evolving? And do you have hope for the next elections?
I might just be a cynic. But I think we just had our last free election. If I know one thing about Trump, I know that he is an honest liar. He will breathe untruths like CO2, but he always makes his intentions nakedly clear. He’s planning on invading countries. He’s already parceling out Ukraine like the West did to the Middle East during the Sykes-Picot treaty.
Give a damn about keeping the EU democratic and healthy. You guys might be our last hope when he finally slams the jail cell door and crowns himself king.
I really believe this hole situation is a big opportunity to strengthen our ties within the EU and create a strong bond. And I hope so as well… The German elections this Sunday will be important
I’m hoping that JD Vance’s hamfisted lunacy shocks some sense into the German people. They need to know what the stakes are. They need to know that the world has its eyes on them. After all, they recovered and rebuilt after festering the last terrible fascist dictatorship that all others have patterned themselves after.
If Germany can shake off AfD and spank them for good, then we have hope.
I’ve had this discussion with a friend of mine at length. He’s an “independent” and votes such. I think an approach to the 2 party system without ranked choice will always be a losing battle. We agree the system is broken, but have vastly different opinions on how we can approach it.
Trying to explain that systemic issues that go back generations cannot be solved overnight. Even 20 years would not be enough to see a large enough change in society, and how others are perceived. Think about it, our civil rights movement was only 60 years ago where people of color and whites were segregated and explicitly did not have equal rights.
Personally, and I hope I’m wrong, I see the next 4 years being a downward spiral. Those who voted for Trump are so closed minded, they grasp for anything that remotely supports their position.
It’s impossible to help those who do not want to be helped.
My reaction is to get to work. The far-right is trying to take over much of the world, and it’s going to take many of us to push it back. Don’t wait for someone else to step up - everyone else is waiting too. Be the person who steps up. The people have power if we use it
There’s groups like Indivisible doing directed pressure of those in government that need more people to contact their house representatives and senators. With that pressure for instance, they’ve started to get Democrats to use procedural tools to slow down senate confirmation of Trump’s picks
There’s movements like the 50501 protests in many cities in all 50 states yesterday, on Feb 5th, and there will be future protests
For anyone else reading this, don’t think this can’t happen wherever you are in the world, join the fight back locally. People in the US thought it couldn’t happen to them too until it did. People in the UK thought Brexit wouldn’t happen until it did. It can happen to you. Take what’s happened in the US as a warning for you too to get involved in the push back
