It actually helps their cause that there is a new study now - according to their disinformation machine this is just another “opinion” and proves their point.

KGB manuals written decades ago in the Cold War outline this tactic for destabilizing nations and getting populations to stop holding their government accountable, it’s the relatively simple process of just amplifying every argument, every side of every social issue, every scandal and every news story from the most extreme framing and to make sure you’re turning even the most reasonable idea into two extreme sides screaming nonsense at each other.

Since most people now get curated, atomized perspectives of the world, they don’t have a baseline to refer to for truth, so this effect has been distilled and enhanced with the internet and algorithms. Many people just read stories with competing, extremist language all day and tune the fuck out. They don’t know who or what to trust anymore, because everyone is shrieking that everyone else is lying, so they default to just whatever their mainstream media reporters tell them and stop feeling involved or connected at all. This is how state-media takes over a nation and cements the rule of the manipulative ruling-class.

I already said I agree with the assertions, I just don’t agree with the bleak, hopeless, roll-over-and-expose-belly-for-master resignation. We’ve struggled through worst in the past, and generally if you look at all metrics, our quality of life and freedom has only increased over the last several centuries and most unrest and destabilization are just the pendulum swinging, but that pendulum doesn’t wind down, history shows it gradually moves forward.

We still owe it to the people who will come after us to do all we can, we still can see change in our lifetimes towards better outcomes we can still help push the needle, we can see grand outcomes when we actually try, we can still involve ourselves to the extent of our ability and comfort, and/or we can have individually great experiences and set aside what media shoves in your face all day, learn to diet and just focus on the problems for a certain amount of time every day.

Go socialize, meet people, create love and safety around yourself with others and see sights in the world while you can.

Yes, shit is going to get bad, maybe worse than anything we’ve seen so far. But the mountain of skulls we live on to have gotten to this next struggle shouldn’t be wasted.

There should be a word, and I’m sure it exists in German or something, for when you agree with someone’s assertions but simultaneously know for a fact they’re just doomer-venting and sound like an edgy teen trying to describe why they wear black.

do we literally have to wait for the next administration to do anything with all the evidence being recorded right now?

Honestly, it may even be longer. But the tide will shift.

America has had some dark periods in the past that historians can speak to with more authority, but this might be the biggest one that every single citizen is witness to and involved with, so the stakes are a lot higher, whatever happens here can lead to widescale public instability. It’s not sustainable, so one way or another it will break.

But there are enough clowns desperately clinging to their circus right now that even after the big orange one kicks it, which could happen any moment, it’s going to a shit-show of power-struggling and back-stabbing and maligned plans. It could take a decade to see the US start to stabilize.

(This is best case of course, it’s also possible that this is it, and the US is going to be the Russia of the Americas, a rusting, closed-down, run-down hermit nation run by organized crime, embargoed and sanctioned and only able to sell its own dwindling natural resources, and old weapons stockpile to rogue nations and rebel groups who can afford antique F23’s and ancient M1 tanks.)

I know deeply how infuriating this was to watch, and I’m pretty sure that as bad as it feels now… things will get worse before they get better, and then when they get better a lot of serious shit is going to happen to every masked asshole in that video.

I’d hate to die alone bleeding out on my steering wheel because of a fat, stupid, mentally deficient ICE agent who hates women decided I would be a stand-in for his mother that day.

It’s going to start any minute, at least in terms of ads and stunts and attention-seeking social media things. But as we get closer to mid-year we’ll see a lot more chaos and carnival stunts, culminating in November when it will be full on “raw dogging a warp jump with no navigator” level of chaos and bullshit to wade through every day.

I don’t know who’s running, but I know how i’m voting. With a few exceptions, all incumbents must go. Every last rotten piece of ancient, withering meat who hasn’t made any attempt at reform or pushback is out on my ballot, and this should be our goddamn ANTHEM.

We do have a better choice, and that’s more grassroots, state and local involvement. The Democrat party is just a container, we can pour out the contents.

But in order to do so, we need to destroy what’s holding the contents inside, which is years of state power and representation absolutely tuning the fuck out of anything that isn’t the 4-year WWE spectacle and circus. Imagine if we got involved enough that we could repeat what happened in New York in every major city, every governor seat, every state congressperson or senator.

We would kick the goddamn legs out from under this entire rotten system without having to throw a single molotov cocktail. But this approach requires getting a lot of people with the attention-spans of retriever puppies to learn some boring shit and actually leave the computer and socialize.

It’s time to dismantle the Democrat party.

I would love to live in such a simple universe. Like, where people are desperately trying to get the prize itself, like it’s some kind of Duck Tales mcguffin that you have to get in a wacky race with a dozen other competitors to acquire physically.

Picturing chemists and researchers climbing over each other to be the last one holding the sacred golden disc.

I am probably part of the 0.001% of people who actually had interest in and read exit polling from 2024, because it contains data that makes a lot of people very uncomfortable, particularly on the left who have blamed repeated losses on voter turnout.

The problem is not turnout, the problem in American democracy is the subversion of the broadest swath of people, the tuned-out, overworked, misinformed liberal majority in America.

The last several federal elections have had the highest voter turnout in American history.

What they didn’t have though was people who had any involvement in the issues or understanding how the political system works, and apparently no attention spans at all. Many millions of the people who voted for Trump were people who voted for Obama or supported Bernie Sanders, and that should spark a massive conversation about leftist/democrat messaging, but is largely glossed over. And a massive swath of the voting was literally hinged on the price of eggs at the time, and the well-known effect of voters making their decisions based on current economics and the party currently in power.

A lot of this came from forces foreign and domestic doing everything they can to salt the discourse, poison all the wells and boost all the weirdest, worst nonsense on both sides so that average people who only get their news and information from two hours of facebook or twitter scrolling every week had no idea what was going on.

So yes, “just vote harder” didn’t and won’t work going forward. Our chance at turning this around though is that people right now are a LOT more unhappy with our politics than they were in 2024, everyone in 2024 were far more comfortable and didn’t actually believe the stories about Trump being a fascist dictator, and tuned out his previous administration because attention spans broadly are melted. Right now if elections were held, or canceled, Trump will get wiped out one way or another.

The GOP’s only hope of retaining power is literally a fascist takeover, they know it, they’re just too dumb broadly to pull it off so I have a good feeling midterms are going to be a violent spank in the ass, and Trump will likely not finish his term. This country has actually survived many similar periods. If enough people can get their brains disengaged from the slop then we have a chance.

it will give cover for gerrymandered red-states to reduce their efforts to make voting available and visible to their citizen.

I think you’re absolutely right, as it draws near we will get a steadily increasing narrative how elections are rigged, there’s massive corruption in voting systems (the paper is chinese!) and many other distracting nonsense claims.

But what they have overreached on over and over again is they are broadly very stupid people, and they can’t grasp the scale of this country and the people. I’m sure there will be election shenanigans but I doubt it will be enough to turn the tide. If they try to cancel any elections outright, while people are this tense and ready to riot, there will be widescale violence. Which the administration may want, but no town mayors or state governors want. The states still hold the cards here.

I find it very strange

You’re getting too close to the truth, you better watch out, they might get wind of your investigations.

Advanced tactic for people who aren’t afraid of dumb people and are social enough to make friends: get to know your right-leaning neighbors anyway, make them like you even if you’re a different race or culture. It’s far easier than most people think. Run to them for help. Make them confront the situation they would normally feel removed from. It’s amazing how often these people flip when they’re in the middle of it.

You decided to feel preemptively offended. Don’t play dumb(er).

Our problem here is one that has cropped up in history over and over, which is a huge, stable, liberal, comfortable population benefitting from their state’s imperialism become aware of a schism in their country’s direction, they see two sides:

One side is screaming that the country is collapsing, burning the country’s flag, lecturing about human rights.

The other side is declaring glory and success for the mighty Empire, worshipping the flag that keeps everyone safe and comfortable.

We can argue day and night about what events and specific things started the schism and how aware the population was about the atrocities, but at the end of the day, the majority of a comfortable population is always going to veer away from change and accountability, they will always lean towards the nationalists who basically say “You don’t need to feel bad or worry, our country is fine, we’re all gonna be okay, just go back to work, pay your taxes.”

This has happened over and over, and eventually always has the same end. I wish to fuck more of my countrymen would learn about history.

I don’t play stupid games.

The fantasy that this is all entirely the fault of outside influence gives everyone a nice, comfortable “out” for not having to get involved or feel like they’re not doing enough.

They’re not doing enough.

This is fantastic, part of the reason the right has been so emboldened in being anti-society and anti-humanity for a while now is because they have a tight-knight community who take care of each other. This is what we need to do to cancel that effect out.

For every right-wing piece of shit who screams racist epitaths out their car window and gets fired for it and ends up making a half million dollars, we have to make sure we’re taking care of people who get fired for posting videos of ICE murdering innocent people or quoting Trump’s own words without editorial.

The challenge: not digging into these people’s past and history and finding “problematic” things that make other users hesitate before donating to pushing the needle back where it should be.

The algorithm may only feed us rage-bait and the worst news because it gets the most engagement, but it needs to be repeated that Trump’s efforts have been shot down or blocked over and over, almost every day, by judges and the existing institutions. He can abuse the powers he has, but he can’t bend the entire judicial system or he would stop burning through thousands of lawyers.