Having elected a fascist autocrat, who already prepared the way by having the supreme court declare him above the law. Living in the country with the most militarized police, a nation with a massive capability to spy on it’s own citizens, citizens who have little critical thinking capability to begin with. A society where social media creates the reality those poorly educated citizens live in, and social media is owned by oligarchs who benefit from a system where pleasing one narcissistic leader gives them power over regulators and increases their wealth more rapidly. I think people are a little optimistic to believe we can’t call the next election today.
Ding ding ding! This is the right answer folks. US citizens will be lucky to get fair elections (if at all) for the foreseeable future. There is no counterweight to what lies ahead, the doors to hell have been opened and no one is coming to save you. If you are in the US, you have the following choices: leave, survive (read: assimilate or hide), or fight.
If you are in the US, you have the following choices: leave, survive (read: assimilate or hide), or fight.
If you’re wealthy and worth a shit you can leave. No country on earth worth moving to will accept my worthless factory worker ass…
I just watched a video about “easiest countries for an American to move to” and was infuriated… I was expecting countries with low standards for acceptance except this is all it was:
1)digital nomad and retirees
2)digital nomad and retirees
3)digital nomad and retirees
4)digital nomad and retirees
5)digital nomad and retirees
…for fucks sake those people already have the world to choose from… Guess I’ll just suffer.
I’m sorry, it mega sucks and unfortunately you can only pick from the other two remaining options. If you’re not part of the targeted minorities or vocally a part of the opposition, here are some tips on assimilation:
- Keep your head down and keep a low profile
- Stay out of any media attention at all costs
- Be VERY careful with who you trust - denunciations are a common tool used by fascist governments to find targets. Avoid pissing off anyone who could throw you to the wolves.
- Button up any communications that could ever be construed as a slight against the ruling party. That means getting off social media, browsing and communicating on the internet completely anonymously, stop using devices and software that can spy on you. Wipe anything that can be interpreted as criticism of the ruling party that can be connected to you.
- Keep any documents with proof of citizenship on you at all times
- Start sounding like you’ve always supported the party and their ideas, or that you’ve suddenly “seen the way” and agree with them now.
- This one is riskier in the long term as fascists eventually start eating one another, but if you can, try to get a low level position in the party. Something inconsequential like cleaning, paperwork, etc.
Essentially, start studying what other people did to survive under similarly oppressive regimes. The change won’t happen overnight, but if this is going the way I think it’s going, your access to options will become increasingly limited so do what you can now to get ready.
Alternatively, wait until it becomes clear that you’re a political target, travel somewhere where you can get refugee status and claim asylum once you’re there. You don’t want to leave this until it’s too late, and it’ll get increasingly harder to do, but there’s no way to tell yet what the trigger could be.
Keep any documents with proof of citizenship on you at all times
US Passport cards are really handy for that. all the identity power of a passport book, but in a card you can keep in your wallet. Anyone who “looks foreign” at all should get one and carry it with you at all times. You shouldn’t have to, but you should anyway.
I appreciate the advice!
Nah. I’m just gonna get louder. Might even fly massive Harris flags
The Orange Hitler is on track to take power and you wanna put up a flag to support America’s Chancellor Paul von Hindenburg. XD
I’ll fight. There’s a line that I draw: if they start deporting legal immigrants I will be a domestic terrorist, just like the GOP
Strange, I can’t find a picture of the banner that said exactly that at cpac. Just like the GOP said, nah I’m just kidding
Hey man, you do what you have to do. Good luck either way!
I think they’re a little optimistic to assume any elections that aren’t Putin style going forward. We are done as We The People. The American Experiment is over.
That feeling in your belly? That need to huddle with your people, in closeness and silence? It’s the waiting room. Because you don’t know what we are going to be yet, but it’s not going to be a democracy and it’s not going to be America.
Wishful thinking is part of how we got here.
Putin style elections are exactly the plan. I don’t expect Trump to live long though and I don’t expect his cult of personality to live after him.
But, reclaiming any sort of democracy from the autocrats will be very difficult. The damage was done Tuesday. And it will take generations for this country to recover, if it does it all.
It’s easy to break stuff. Building up the United States of America again? Probably not. Rome has fallen.
Worse, this creates a giant power vacuum globally. We’re already seeing bits of it from his last presidency in Russia and Israel.
We are certainly in a stronger position than woman when they had no right to vote, or black Americans during the civil rights era.
I know this is bad but we can’t be whiny bitches about it and give up the moment the scale tips in their favor.
Freedom is still a strong message that can resonate. Professionalism and sound economic policy too. I suspect they will be even more greatly appreciated by then…
Sure, fake elections are a possibility, but with overwhelming exit polling and local activists doing everything they can to provide accurate vote tallies we can at least make it abundantly clear if 2028 ends up stolen. Illegitimate power leaves MAGA exposed to a broad range of potential challenges.
Or maybe not.
But at least be ready for that moment if it comes and don’t actively discourage others from doing the same. If MAGA can fight this hard for complete bullshit nonsense from some billionaire that openly manipulates them, then we can fight harder for the rights of our children and future generations.
I’m not discouraging anybody from acting. Compassion in the moment is always the way and we need to organize to minimize the suffering regardless.
Climate change is here. And the election went the way it did. Nations are impermanent like everything else.
That was my point about the country possibly never recovering. We need to organize outside of electoral politics in our local communties.
The Democrats can’t save us and they weren’t doing a good job with the to begin with. Hopefully they will use the filibuster to minimize the worst of it.
Governments, even totalitarian ones, have been overthrown by popular movements.
Big difference between this and 2016 is JD Vance is the adult, not Mike Pence. His ties to Peter Thiel is scary. Also we just had a billionaire buy votes, no way that is going to stop now.
I seriously never thought I would wish we had Mike Pence in a position of influence
Well we can bend over and spread our cheeks or we can at least make it as difficult as possible and maintain whatever last rays of hope that we can. It’s the least we can do if we really are the last real American citizens.
Trump certainly didn’t roll over and apparently that pays off in surprising ways sometimes.
No they won’t.
Trump just said that he’s going to impose tariffs that are going to increase the cost of living by about $400 a month per family. Elon Musk just said he plans on imposing “hardship” on the country for a few years. And Americans voted ovewhelmingly in favor of that. The economy will tank, yes. But they’ll just blame Democrats and the voters will eat it up.
Don’t believe me? gestures at Tuesday.
That’s assuming we have another election at all. Trump – A man, remember, that has repeatedly said that terminating the Constitution was on the table – now has the White House, both branches of government, a supreme court largely appointed by him, and several state governments. Moderate republicans have been successfully rooted out or marginalized. Trump could very well follow through on that promise, backdropped by the thunderous applause of the other two branches of government.
The trend is that when the economy is bad for the average person, it hurts the incumbent.
I don’t think the people whose votes swung the election in Trump’s favor know how tariffs work or what policies Musk has in mind. They don’t even know why eggs are expensive (bird flu); they just know things were cheaper last time Trump was president.
Of course that’s assuming there’s a free and fair election next time around.
And these goldfish forgot that gas prices were low because of a botched COVID response that way, way reduced demand and rocketed back up because we all got out of lockdown and demand went back to normal, at least that was partly why the prices went up.
Price-gouging had a lot to do with it too.
This is the answer. Corporations were quite giddy over this, in fact.
Complaining that people don’t know how economics work and that they have the memory of a goldfish is like complaining that knights move weird in chess.
These are the rules of the game we’re trying to win. Whining about how stupid everyone is doesn’t change the fact that we need to get stupid people to vote.
A bit of that, a bit of ordinary inflation, and a bit of Putin’s war. I find it unlikely the current president had reasonable options to prevent any of that.
I already had a trucker come into work saying the Dems have been propping up the economy and it’ll fail for God-Emperor Cheeto. Already making excuses.
And Americans voted ovewhelmingly in favor of that.
I really hate that I’m seeing this everywhere. Americans overwhelmingly didn’t vote. Yes, according to math that means they voted for Trump, but why they didn’t bother to vote is a lot more important. Yes, that means they’re responsible for what happens, but if Democrats can’t get people to vote for them how do they expect to win?
If Democrats can’t point at a fascist and say, “Look, I’m running against a literal fascist. You and I may disagree on some things, but we all know fascists are bad” while Trump aligns himself with other autocrats and fascists, then what is even happening in this world? We failed ourselves on election day. Trump has made himself known. A majority of voters picked him, and they collectively either completely ignored reality for the last decade or decided they’re on board with his vision. The party isn’t to blame, when the alternative was so foul. People chose this, whether through ignorance or malice. Make no mistake, both made an appearance
Not voting is the same thing as voting for a Republican. The odds are already stacked against any progressive candidate because conservatives are more willing to open their wallets to corporate donors. Non-voters are traitors just the same. They failed to accept their civic duty.
Suspending or terminating the Constitution by the federal government is definitely a good reason for secession if I’ve ever seen one. I hope California and other such states are thinking hard about their future here. That would be the last act of the United states.
Oh, I’m not saying it would be a good idea by any stretch of the imagination. Secessions would be the least we’d have to worry about.
I’m just saying that in a world where Trump has seriously and repeatedly suggested it, his voting base has actively said they’re OK with it, and all 3 branches are firmly and securely in his pocket, Trump going so far as to actually suspending the Constitution is a very, very real possibility. Especially if he’s being advised by an administration stacked from top to bottom with Trump yes-men and crazies that make Qanon conspiracy theorists seem sane.
Nah bad economy means the incumbent gets kicked out.
Happens every time
Democrats are NOT leftists, they’re center right at best. They ultimately serve corporate interests and NOT the will of the people.
You will never get universal healthcare, police reform, free college, less military spending, and other leftist ideals from the Democrat party because they’re not leftists. Doing these things runs counter to the interests of their corporate masters.
We have a fascist party and a conservative party, but we don’t actually have a liberal party. We haven’t had one since before Clinton.
We don’t need a liberal party. We need a party that serves the interests of people, not corporations and oligarchs.
We needed Bernie.
We need a labor party.
Democrats are NOT leftists, they’re center right at best.
Americans are NOT leftists, they’re center right at best.
Edit: Also, everyone loves to blame Democrats for turning conservative after Jimmy Carter, but have you looked at the election results from 1980? 1984? 1988?
You run to represent the population you have, not the one you wish for.
Historically, fascist governments are voted in.
They’re never voted out.
This is exactly what has me so horrified. Hitler was stopped as was Mussolini.
There’s no one strong enough to stop America and with our geographic and strategic locations we’re practically invincible. :(
A better example might be the collapse of communism in Russia and the former USSR. The system just got increasingly rotten until it crumbled from within. And despite the self-serving lies, Reagan had nothing to do with it. It was all down to the people in those countries who had finally had enough.
It was all Russia for some of them. The Hungarians did jack shit and it shows to this day.
It was getting late for libs to start bringing up socialism to diagnose their fascist oligarchy. The USSR collapsed in the way most socialist states have collapsed: at gunpoint, after decades of siege, sabotage and outright insurrectionism sponsored or directly enacted by the US. It’s no accidentt that Vietnam, the DPRK and China have robust security states, you can’t survive the US without them.
Well, I’m hoping we are a little closer to Franco’s Spain, and things just peeter out once Trump dies.
Trump gonna die ( kill by it’s masters ) so Vance can get promoted as the perfect puppet to push the US even more into dictatorship using the coup for more violent repression of everyone they dont like
My bet is Trump gets the 25th amendment treatment just after he passes the 2-year mark of his term. That way, the back half of the term won’t start the timer on Vance’s 2-term limit and the fascists can keep Americans sleepwalking for the next 12 years before we collectively wake up and realize we’re in a dictatorship. I hope I’m wrong but I could easily imagine this plan already having been drawn up.
Why would there be term limits?
Franco’s a worst case, and there are still lingering problems in Spain due to the compromises made in order to restore democracy.
Ummm…are you forgetting WWII? No one is coming into the country to help us drag them to the Hegue. Of course there will be compromise. The only other scenario is WWIII.
There is also civil war though, or an USSR style dissolution of the union.
But they can also be ended with protests. See East Germany.
Yes, but that was more a case of the government collapsing due to Germans fleeing through Hungary and Austria.
Besides, I don’t really want to wait 50 years for the GOP to finally wither away.
40 years and while that was definitely an important part of it, it was mainly half a million people protesting on the streets of every major city.
Just gotta get yourself a foreign sponsor to start sabotaging the US and get the rest of the world to stop selling you food, oil, or consumer goods like the US did to the DDR.
Haven’t seen many people asking, but aren’t an awful lot of votes being counted by ES&S?
Who even says we voted this one in?
But they also seldom last long until they’re overthrown.
Mussolini had power for 21 years.
Franco for 36, though he took power by coup not votes.
And Orbán had 18 so far and 2 remaining from this term for a more recent example.
Whoop-de-frickin-doo.
If Project 2024 is implemented, it’ll take many consecutive terms with full control of Congress to fix the damage, assuming it can be fixed at all.
Repealing legislation is far easier than enacting it. Trump was able to repeal 112 climate regulations in his first term, during a pandemic.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html
Don’t forget the judges like Cannon they plan on installing now that they have full control of the Senate. Those people never go away. Any future government will have any attempt to make change shot down by rubber stamp judges.
The billionaire class won.
Removal of compromised officials is a typical move following a revolution. It would be entirely reasonable as well as necessary to remove every single official appointed by Trump or his successors, and to bar them from public office for life.
The billionaire class won.
They haven’t won until we’ve all surrendered or are all dead. Are you taking orders, or are you taking over? Those will be our only choices.
And when the Democrats don’t fix it fast enough, Republicans will get elected all over again.
Love your optimism. Might not be another election, at least a fair one. I look for elections like Russia, where Putin gets 99 percent of the vote
I was going off disguy’s comment about consecutive terms of democratic control already assuming there was anything besides smoking ruins left.
We still haven’t recovered from Reagan. This is going to take a looooong time to fix.
Thanks non voters!
Thank them and the DNC. They did their best to accomplish this.
Pretty sure those environmental regulations were all things Obama had to do through executive orders because the GOP controlled the legislature.
It’s much harder to undue things that have passed both houses and been signed into law.
True, for the time being. The fully Republican controlled Congress we have coming should have a much easier time than the split we have now.
Will they be as careful to keep the filibuster as the Dems did I wonder?
Lol no they will just burn it down.
it’ll take many consecutive terms with full control of Congress to fix the damage, assuming it can be fixed at all
Assuming non-revolutionary means are used. If the Constitution is thrown out the window during this period of darkness, we are not going to be in a situation where incremental reform is called for. It’s going to be a phase shift.
Who are your allies in this “revolution?” Do you honestly think one half of the nation can take on the other half and the US government all at once?
We are divided, the wealthy are conquering.
You don’t vote fascism away. This is why it was so important for the DNC to listen this time around.
You don’t vote
fascism away. Thisis why itwas so importantfor the DNC to listenthis timearound.Oh no, you accurately assessed fault. DNC sucks but fascism sucks harder. Great job non voters.
People have got to stop believing that “things will just work out.”
No, they won’t.
We aren’t guaranteed anything. I’m sorry after school specials lied to you, but there is no “spirit of goodness” that permeates reality that will make all of this okay.
There are no heroes coming to save us from the fire.
We let the worst happen, and now if we ever want decency again, we are going to have to fight tooth and nail against tyrrany to make it happen. Period.
Don’t waste your time listening to anyone still talking about this situation in terms of candyland simplicity and standard decorum. Not even the shitty status quo will save us, because we blew up the status quo in favor of fascism.
No they won’t because the opposition party will be crushed. This mirror’s Mussolini and Hitler exactly as a classical fascist rise to power. The Democrats will be no more in four years.
They’re already tearing themselves apart, as planned.
Republicans know that without a strong Democratic party, they will remain in power indefinitely. Once they have control over everything, they can crush any movement that aims to challenge them.
Anyone thinking that the next 4 years is an opportunity for a third party is going to be horrified when they find out what’s really coming.
If they need a sneak peak they can look no further than the history of Mussolini, or Hitler. The strenuous members of the parry are already being abandoned. The capitalists have already backed the fascist as is par for course. Next up is the installment into power and the oppression of any dissenters. Afterwards its a heyday on whatever scapegoats they’ve chosen and war.
The only goal now is survival and resistance.
In this situation, the Democrats are irrelevant. They’re too bought into the rotten system to meaningfully change it.
Or he can pull an Orbán and keep the dems on life support, just strong enough that they will be an effective spoiler for anything new, but never strong enough to be an effective challenge.
Might as well revolt at that point.
Oh, you will get protests, even organized by Democrats! That’s the point, they will never be effective, but they will siphon off the willpower to actually start up meaningful protests to the point when the real shit goes down, protests won’t mean anything any more!
And if you organize a protest yourself? The Dems will come to support you, coopting the whole thing, and making sure it all stays civil and respectful while the police tear gas your ass!
I am not saying give up. There is light at the end of the tunnel. At least that’s how it feels right now in Hungary. But the tunnel is long and fucking dark, and you have just taken the first steps in, and Trump is going to try to make sure you can’t back out. And our way through was sending our corporatists masquerading as leftists to the garbage dump of history, as it should be.
You can’t protest, Trump will bring in the armed forces if you do.
Oh, that’s the point, in an Orbánesque society, some protests are allowed. A very often used playbook is to create an issue that his base can rabidly frothe about, most people don’t give a shit about, but it hurts a small minority of people enough that they will be very loud about being on the opposite side.
For Hungary, it was academic freedom for a university teaching mostly social sciences. Most people never even heard of it and had no opinion when laws were made to make its position untenable and basically destroy it. But the people immediately close to the issue were protesting like hell! They were out in orderly groups, with loudspeakers and signs on the streets of Budapest, week after week.
Orbán was very happy about this. Hungarian state media was frothing about how this university was destroying the fabric of society, so his base was rabidly against it. The people close to the issue were loudly trying to save it, but they were a minority. And you had a situation where there were weekly protests for half a year, representing a clear minority opinion, basically defanging all other protests for any other issue, while people got jaded into an opinion that protests don’t mean anything.
Orbán was not in the country even for most of this, that’s how much he cared.
Now imagine the same with Trump deciding to repeal the ADA. Most people don’t care about people with disabilities enough, but just enough people will be marching around the country to keep it in the news cycle constantly. All the while his supporters will be out in counterprotests dwarfing the others. And all the while if the economy tanks and there was real discontent, and there was space for real protests, you’d be called a Nazi and a Republican if you didn’t join in the existing “movement” headed by the Dems and didn’t abide by the “civil and high road” ways of protesting. Most people won’t even join your protest because they are tired of protests and protesters, and it will never work anyway, see all those other protests?
Sorry for the rant, I am really jaded by all this, and it just seemed so obvious years ago that the US was going down a Hungary path, and it’s just a boring dystopia from now on going forward. It doesn’t look like the people getting shot by the National Guard for protesting, it looks like you can do anything, you will always stay a minority, and decency dies a death of thousand cuts.
Removed by mod
The Democrats won’t win until and unless they grow a spine. This is not a situation where genteel institutionalists are needed: we need people with principles, discipline, drive and focus, who won’t stop fighting until the corruption is completely rooted out.
…and Republicans will certainly crash the economy.
The only question left is whether or not there will be elections in 2026.
There will be elections in 2026. The question is how fair they will be.
Actually, to be quite honest… we’ve been looking at a pretty much inevitable recession in 2025 for about nine months now.
The slight upside is that this will happen in the onset of Trump’s term and likely lead to widespread discontent instead of hitting a Harris administration right out the gate.
For poetic justice this whole cycle of greed-flation into recession seems to have been mostly triggered by Trump royally fucking up his pandemic response on the first place.
It’ll just be blamed on the Harris administration, there will be some type of propping up of the economy to give Trump an upswing and then another event will happen and it’ll be the new reason it’s not trumps fault
“Oh we see Germany gearing up their military, and you know what that means WWII, we have to fund new military programs it or we will all die….the economy is gonna take a hit, but we are patriots America”
It’s funny, economic issues early into a presidential term should almost always logically be blamed on the last guy but for some reason that never fucking happens - the people feeling pain during economic stress always blame the new guy.
None of that will matter if things are still shit when it’s time to vote. Just like with Dems in 2024… we had every reason to blame inflation on COVID and Trump’s horrible response but many people just decide by looking at their grocery bill a couple days before heading to the polls.
All those infrastructure investments Biden made will begin to pay off economically during Trump’s term.
He will be sworn in, do nothing, and declare inflation has been solved. The media and right-wing podcasters will parrot it, and all your relatives will brag, grinning from ear to ear, how smart they were looking past his rudeness anf picking the guy who saved tjem from those crazy prices they saw during the Biden years.
Republican voters turn out for anyone with an R.
Reality doesn’t matter to the cult.
You think there’s going to be another vote?
Another way of saying “Americans have absolutely no spine”
And absolutely no memory. I keep seeing “I was better off four years ago.” Really? We were in the middle of a pandemic that was so badly mismanaged that we suffered a higher death rate than any other developed economy, and caused all the issues Biden has worked four years to untangle.
Around 2/3 of us, yes. The 1/3 who voted red, and the 1/3 who did not vote.
But not all of us.
I don’t know how to tell you this, but the third who voted democrat are at fault for repeatedly letting dems know they’d vote blue no matter who.
Not everyone wants to vote in Mussolini to avoid getting Hitler.
Americans do have a spine. The problem is that too many of them are no longer connected by functioning brains. Those spines are what elected Trump.
The cope among thr Democrats post election has been embarassing. 0 reflection as to why they lost (just like in 2016), blaming every possible external factor imaginable instead of thinking “hey, maybe we sucked and need to actualy be people that people want to elect” instead of relying on the “ooooh this guy is bed, better vote for us to keep him out” strategy.
They have fucked up in a major way, in what should have been a slam-dunk election, by ignoring what people actually want and trying to be Great Value Republicans when the right has Coca-Cola Fascism readily available to them.
I hope adherence to the corporate staus quo was worth it, you absolute fucking buffoons.
