I’m not in the US, but it seems to me that the Republicans keep breaking norms and procedures, including politicising impeachment and ignoring illegal, immoral and plain bad conduct.
They also seem to be fine with not applying the same standard across the isle.
On the other hand, either Democrats follow new precedent, with even more devolving, or they keep the old decorum and get their asses kicked by Republican foul play.
What ways out of this spiral are there?
I’m still optimistic. While the severity of the current shitshow is unprecedented, the reality is we tend to bounce left and right. One side gets in power and does (or doesn’t) shit, until people get pissed off and elect the other side.
I am more worried about the death of media and rise of streaming. Just like the rise of TV changed who could be elected and how, new media is also changing that. So far new media helps elect people with dark skills, people farther from anyone you’d want governing. It’s not pretty, it’s not good, and it’s getting worse before it gets better. Truth doesn’t matter, echo chambers matter, outrage matters.
Trump absolutely matters. This isn’t your avg rightward swing of the pendulum. They have gone full mask off and are ripping the copper out of the walls. This country genuinely will not survive this presidency. 0% chance it survives intact as a democracy.
ripping the copper out of the walls
Damn that’s a good analogy for the current slate of grifters!
Things can get better. Theres a saying; third time’s the charm.
It’s not exactly 0%. Their ineptitude is still fully on display, and that’s always been our greatest hope. But it is pretty bleak, and pinning our future on the hopes that the other side makes a mistake only makes it bleaker.
Join your local advocacy organizations, volunteer and make the difference in your community/local area. It’ll have more impact for you than you can ever do via federal level.
Everyone gets off their stupid asses, pays attention, and votes in an informed way.
So, basically, we’re probably fucked. People have repeatedly proven to be pretty God damned stupid.
What does fucked mean? Is it over? Will everyone on Earth die?
Not everyone, no. But climate change will kill most of whatever’s left
Fucked as in a huge number of people probably just won’t bother and things are probably not going to be getting better unless there is a fundamental shift in American citizens caring about fulfilling their civic duty to be an informed voter in every single election.
I have no idea, but I think something will have to happen that affects the majority of Americans. Another sustained Depression for example. Republicans will have to crash and burn the country down before their voters will turn on them. They have to experience pain for themselves, for they have no empathy for others. They say they do, but they cannot. They say they are Christian, but turn their back on what they say his teachings are. I’m fed up and scared at the same time. I hit retirement age in less than 10 years. Social security won’t be there for me. I did a terrible job of saving, I spent most of my paychecks on frivolous things like bills, rent, and food. I make good money now, but it’s not enough. I know I’m yelling into the void, but it feels good to say it.
Republicans are already poor and victimized. But all they watch is political propaganda (Fox News, Newsmax, OANN, etc) so they blame it on immigrants and trans people instead of the rich who are robbing them blind.
I’m not positive of what the answer is, but I truly believe it will somehow sometime. However, please remember that this website is an echo chamber and sells doom and gloom. There is always hope no matter what the doomers say, otherwise they wouldn’t be here.
Remember your information diet guidelines!
Limit social media intake, read with an eye towards bias and agenda, and verify all news with independent sources.
And remember that comments are typically opinion and made by a guy that looks like a hairy Shrek.
Yep… war or a plane
oh brother, you still think we’re on a spiral, as in active? dude the spiral is complete, and now the monsters have control of all three branches of us government, they’re going to do their damnedest to make sure they change just about everything that could possibly allow the power to be taken from them ever again. should have gotten the young people to vote, but wasn’t important, looking a bit more important now, huh. dumbest thing i’ve ever seen, trump was president, fucked everything up, a million americans died bad from a pandemic due to his ineptitude, then young people stayed home and didn’t vote democrat … can’t make this shit up, the jokes write themselves. and now … unstoppable destruction, and death.
You need to go have a beer with some friends and get off the internet for now.
Right now, not much can done, but ideas will change over time as the people holding the old ideas eventually die from age.
In my opinion, the current shitshow is actually a sign of old ideas dying. It’ll take time, but I don’t believe the Project 2025 will be successful. It’s happening brutally right now, but it will fail, because it’s being done with only very slim support from the population.
Seems like a lot of support honestly.
It’s an illusion. Not that many people care (which was the problem in November), but the ones who do are loud about it.
The issue is one of education. The Republicans have been spewing non-stop misinformation, and the populace is too uneducated to understand the difference. When people actually know what’s going on and understand it, they overwhelmingly oppose conservative policies. Which is why Project 2025 wants to take a sledgehammer to public education.
If Democrats diverted all of their advertising budget toward remedial education of the electorate, I think they’d find themselves in a much better state in 2028.
Let’s not forget that Republicans have been cutting school funding for decades. The people are uneducated by design and for this exact purpose.
As long as people believe Democrats are different from Republicans the spiral will continue.
People believing that they’re the same is the kind of mindset that leads to a Trump victory. Apathy rewards extremists.
Democrats refuse to undo what Republicans do. The best they deliver is upholding the current status quo for another four years.
Yep. The ratchet effect.
The Overton window has shifted so much in 4 years that 2024 democrats were definitely running on 2016 Republican platforms.
I don’t believe apathy is the solution but let’s not kid ourselves, they are effectively the same in regards to the proletariat. They just operate on a 50% societal deterioration as opposed to Republicans 100%
50% is not effectively the same as 100%
Whether Gaza is entirely rubble in 2 years vs 4 years, it’s still rubble.
Whether Billionaires and corporations make 50% extra profits or 100% profits via exploitation of workers, it’s still exploitation.
If on day 1 of a presidency you can effectively have nationwide ICE raids and deportations, the previous administration allowed and helped in that in at least some capacity.
Yes. All modern human civilization will collapse with the coming climate change.
Elite centrists have dominated the Democratic party since Clinton. They love to take a “responsible” center left position and try to grab centrists. Unions, minorities and people on the left have no recourse but to continue to vote for them because the Republicans were soo much worse.
Trump’s super power has always been his ability to say anything it takes to get votes yet deliver very little. Because of this he can say appealing things to unions and minorities who have been disenfranchised which undermines Democrats.
The generation of boomers who have lead the Democratic Party since Clinton is literally dying out. These next few election cycles are going to be interesting as the next generation of Xers and Millennials have a different opinion of government and are much more militant and vocal.
These next few election cycles
It’s very hopeful to assume there will be another set of elections in 4 years or even midterms in all 50 states. We should be operating as if there won’t be.
Try living here. I feel hopeless every time I go online or turn on the TV.
Then don’t! I’ll leave with you, brother.
Emigration or civil war, I’d wager. My home country will be a fascist state during my lifetime, as I’ve been saying for about three to four years.
Somewhere along the way we decided punching Nazis wasn’t cool. I worry it’s too late now.
The “we” you speak of is a lot smaller of a group than you think.
Ok.
Is it though? we all claim to hate nazis (largely because of their genocide), but talk about halting a different genocide and suddenly the dems have all wandered off or are staring intently at their shoes.
Saying to punch Nazis is against the rules on the new 196.
inb4 drama
No, the ban wasn’t about anything else. Drag has direct statements from multiple mods that it was about violence against Nazis, not about anything else. The admin is not the mod team. The admin’s views are not the reason for the mod team’s actions
convenient of you to leave out this message
Drag thought it would be redundant to include that one, since it just restates a more specific part of what you already said. Plus drag would have to go edit the image again to include it for no extra information, and give everyone more to read. Drag is thankful however that you did send that message, and drag has posted it elsewhere when other users argued the 196 ban was for “promoting suicide”, which didn’t happen, and as you say here, wasn’t part of the decision.
But thank you anyway for the extra context and direct confirmation.
If you really expect people to believe you’re not the troll that you are, maybe don’t bring your bullshit into discussions that have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Your little “inb4 drama” is exactly the type of shit you do to stir the pot. It’s entirely unnecessary and extremely disruptive and you have a very bad reputation of doing exactly this.
I dare you to go one week without turning the topic of discussion into something that involves you being a victim.
We are having a discussion about whether society allows people to say to punch nazis. Drag shared a relevant piece of information about a community on this platform that bans the behaviour. Drag predicted the same old people would come onto this thread to spread lies about drag, and put drag’s response to them in spoilers. What do you know, you and spujb came to harass drag just as expected. If you wanted to “gotcha” drag, you could have just not replied, and drag would have looked the fool. But now everyone can see that just as expected, you couldn’t resist coming to start an argument that has nothing to do with punching nazis.
You were banned for telling people to kill themselves. You’re a troll. Everyone knows this.
And private message me again with your nonsense and I’m reporting you to your home instance admins.
To clarify, this user didn’t just say “punch Nazis”; this user told a disabled person to commit an act of gun violence that would most likely result in death. Some mods have called that encouraging suicide by cop. Other mods have simply said that inciting a specific act of violence is against the rules. In every instance, though, it’s been modded, because it’s disgusting behavior.
Just clearing up the lies because I am sick of it.
This user did say “punch nazis”, and here’s the proof:
If you want to decide why drag is banned from 196, then apply to be a mod of 196.
You are formally requested to leave drag alone. The next time you reply to drag to spread lies about this, drag will report you for harassment and speak with the Blahaj and .cafe admins.
Corrected; added “just”
Thank you. There’s still another falsehood in your comment, though. You said “Some mods have called that encouraging suicide by cop.”, but as far as drag knows, only Ada has said that. Ada isn’t a mod, she’s an admin. She has no say in 196’s rules, so her opinion isn’t relevant to whether 196 allows nazi-punching. She decided not to ban drag from the instance for that comment, and drag doesn’t think she’d be happy to hear you’re harassing drag over it.
Drag is willing to have a discussion if you’re willing to stay factually accurate. But let’s keep this on topic to the Nazi punching issue. If you want to talk about Ada’s opinions, let’s do that in private messages to avoid disrupting this thread any more.
https://imgur.com/a/4Xf3c6N this was done by a mod in !fedimemes@feddit.uk
Edited. Glad to be of service.
Most of us are still ok with it, but we won’t be the ones to do it. There aren’t enough that will.
Revolution
This is the only way. You don’t defeat fascism peacefully.
Well. You can. But we already passed all the opportunities to do so. Gotta nip it in the bud and we chose not to do so.
you already beat one oppressor, what is one more
One more.
yeah, the amount should be 0. I really hope you succeed though, rest of the world will be fucked if you dont as powerbalance shifts in horrible way.
Thanks. My country beat three oppressors, though; Spain, France and Germany. Although, which European country didn’t deal with the latter?
