You aren’t wrong. But being walked all over because you took the high ground instead of responding in kind to someone else raising tensions isn’t the answer. Just ask how that worked out for the Ukrainians who gave up their nukes.

It takes two to deescalate.

Voting has consequences. The time to wake the fuck up was two weeks ago. I guess the next best time is now.

Institutions will not save democracy. Democracy is accountable to only the people.

Republicans aren’t actually pro small government/freedom. That’s all just opposition rhetoric. When they are in power, it’s as much government in your face as possible.

Elect a clown, expect a circus.

Common guys, we’ve already been through this.

We are in uncharted territory here. There is no crystal ball for what comes next.

That being said, this is not sustainable. Society is a contract. The contract goes away when parties to that contract begin to disagree on what that contract says, and that is inevitable when people are fed garbage without results. Most empires have collapsed under their own weight. I suspect this will happen to the US as well, which has always been the purpose of all this disinformation: not to consolidate power into a dictator, but instead to sow division, and rip apart the social contract. The fact that Americans are so polarized is proof of that division. You ask if people will ever wake up. Clearly half the the US has.

The only question is how that collapse will happen, and how peacefully it might be.

Consumption tax for everyone! Unless you all want to go to work in a shoe factory.

I spent an unhealthy amount of time on Reddit. Getting bored of Lemmy is a feature, not a bug. Embrace it.

That institution is rotten to the core. No amount of this is going to fix it.

MAGAS are incapable of associating anything bad with their dear leader. Hold them accountable.

Sounds to me like you are not very well read on 1930’s German history.

Fighting fascism is a great cause to rally behind and give people purpose.

A constitutional crisis is very likely over the next 4 years. And if it does, all bets are off.

Holding Trump supporters accountable for their actions is the only way forward. There are no more excuses. Every bad thing to happen now moving forwards is 100% on Trump supporters AND complacent bystanders who chose not to take a stand. It was plain for everyone to see. Repudiate fascism and the toxicity plaguing the country at every opportunity.

Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.

American individualism goes too far. It’s just sad.

Trump voters: “Trump is the most peaceful president ever. We need to bring the defence spending to Ukraine home. America first”.

Trump is elected and inevitably drags the US into yet another war in in the Middle East

Trump voters: Pikachu face

Nah. Just kidding about that last part. It was all just empty rhetoric to justify the grift and looting all the way down as the country burns to the ground in the background.

Keep telling yourself institutions are going to save democracy.

The ultimate responsibility of keeping a functioning democracy lies with the people. Complaining about failing institutions or parties is no more productive than armchair political activity.

Confront people about their choices and how they let this happen. Hold people accountable for all the election promises and obvious outcomes the new administration implements.

In a democracy, the correct approach is to hold the majority accountable for their leader’s actions, especially when the leader is doing exactly what they said they would do. Non voters are also complicit by standing by silently, so I’m not opposed to holding them accountable too.

Trump didn’t lie. This was all out there for everyone to see.

Anything else is just denying the reality that a majority of Americans are sheep and don’t know what is good for them.

I don’t like that reality either, but here we are. It’s time for these people to lie in the bed of their own making.

Hold Trump voters and non voters accountable for the consequences of their actions and inaction. It’s the only way forward.

This is what the American people voted for. They voted to give their money away to people who don’t need it.

We’ve been warning people of this for more than 8 years now, trying to soften the blow. At some point we gotta realize that protecting these people might not actually be helping, it might just be enabling the grift by providing convenient cover.

Maybe we ought to just step aside and let these voters suffer the full consequences of their actions. Democrats need to learn that unlike them, many people only learn about consequences by experiencing them.

Sure, many others who voted against will suffer the consequences too. What are we going to do about it? This is how democracy is designed to work.