'No kings on Presidents Day' rings out from protests against Trump and Musk
Protesters against President Donald Trump and his policies organized demonstrations in all 50 states for the second time in two weeks.
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To be honest I feel like this is a candle that's going to burn bright too fast and the country will quickly fall into complacency.
Prove me wrong, America, prove me wrong.
The cycle of people protesting; politicians not doing shit; conditions getting worse... has been stuck on loop for decades. Yelling and holding signs isn't going to cut it. Until oppressing becomes a significant mortal liability, the oppression will continue.
On this week's John Oliver he ended with a brief segment about messages from people in government positions saying how past protests have encouraged their belief that they were doing the right thing by resisting. Just holding signs won't fix everything, but it isn't nothing.
100%, but is that actually helpful?
Our gold is being hoarded away from us and our livestock ravaged every night: we don't need to encourage the town blacksmith (we've tried that - he's worthless), we need to slay the fucking dragon.
So the question is - who will be in Gandalf's company of dwarves (+1 hobbit)?
I would argue the next step that would really make a difference is economic warfare, such as ceasing purchases of any nonessential goods, and a national general strike. That would have a dramatic effect.
In the meantime, the best option is to organize in your local community to lay the groundwork for such a thing to happen.
Cheers for sharing that!
Hrm, so what do you think? Accelerationism? Don't want no unnecessary violence but don't see sucking establishment dick werkin' to whit.
Honestly, the only thing I see actually working is more Luigis. Gotta have the fucks in charge scared enough to comply, or just outta the way entirely. I'm not advocating violence, obviously, but I honestly don't see anything else bringing about change. Protest doesn't seem to work, and none of the Democrat politicians care enough to actually act. Voting doesn't seem to be worth a damn, but I still do it anyway because it's something I can do and takes like 5 mins. I can't protest because I work, and I can't be loud on online forums where I can be identified because I don't want anyone who knows me professionally (clients) to know my true opinions.
I think "seize the means of production" is an supplement to Luigi. If protesters take over the Xitter servers, for example, they can change the algorithm. Ditto for Faux News. This would catch a great deal of attention. Same with federal workers seizing the US Treasury, DOGE offices, and so on. Make our own t-shirts, manage the diners, run the farms, hospitals minus unreasonable costs, and so forth.
The big problem is getting enough people for it, and coordinating their supply chains to replace corporate-controlled shackles on cooperative commerce. The way Dogey America is going, however, has freed up many civil servants who are familiar with what it means to keep things running smoothly.
There is a chance that we will be able to have a reset of America, depending on how capitalists and cooperatives play their respective hands.
Voting takes you V minutes?! Wish I were that lucky, it was a day long ordeal for me. Feels like the sort of thing you should just be able to do on an app given modern technology.
it was a day long ordeal
Isn’t , or wasn’t, there an agency that was supposed to watch for voting rights? How isn’t this a violation of your voting rights by placing an unreasonable burden in your right?
I also had about 5 minute voting time, maybe 15 round trip from home and back. There’s nothing stopping every state from ensuring this, except for politicians who want to suppress votes or who don’t think they have to care about voters.
Out of curiosity, how are your voting places defined, or for what scale? I’ve always had them at every elementary school, which greatly limits how much of a line there can be, and you only need a dozen or so stations per
Many minority heavy areas in red states are intentionally underserved, including/especially polling places.
Online voting is a surprisingly hard issue
I live in a super rural area, so there's like no wait time if you go first thing in the morning
You're not wrong. I've seen all this before. We always give up and go home eventually. It's the American way.
Remember the BLM protests and their "5 demands"? They tried to copy the Hong Kong protests, but unlike Hong Kong they couldn't even last more than a few days before giving up. Not a single demand was met.
Calling the elephant in the room on this with what I hope is a valid explanation.
America has no principals therefore any movement peters out without any resolution. This is because America is a diaspora of so many different cultures and beliefs and the only prevailing truth is "I got mine". It's nothing to base life on. America has no identity outside of money.
America has no principals therefore any movement peters out without any resolution.
I think this is very true. However, I don't think it's wholly unique to the US. Canada's idea of being a "mosaic" is also based upon multi-culturalism and I don't think that the entirety of the country holds that as a principle either.
America has no identity outside of money.
This is also a true statement. We used to hold other values until every organization that trumpeted them also turned toward the all-mighty dollar (including -- and in a lot of ways led by -- religion).
Canada is different and it's nuanced and hard to explain. If you have time I recommend you look into the ideas of John Ralston Saul he explains very well how Canada differs from America and a lot of it is how everyone here is allowed to be themselves. As you said Canada is a Mosaic not a Melting Pot. That's a large part of what defines our success.
Yeah, spot on. If you try to do some of the most basic decent stuff for the people around us, like make sure the next generation of developing american brains gets adequate nutrition, the first response from half the country is yelling "BUT WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR IT?"
There are many examples of, and there will be many more, a rich dude complaining that some life-protecting regulation "stifles innovation" or "slows economic growth" so we throw a bunch of people under the bus (probably literally in a few cases) so that a few people with more money than they will ever spend can watch their balance go up by 8% next year instead of 7%. And some of us plebs lucky enough to have a 401k will probably get a whole extra dollar or two.
To be fair, I believe COVID disrupted a lot of that.
If that were possible, then I think it proves their point that people are overreacting to the "fake news media".
But I don't think that will be possible, because it really seems like there's no way all of these piss poor executive orders won't have very tangible repercussions on the working class. It's already starting with govt workers being laid off, all retail chains telling shareholders that they'll be raising prices in response to tariffs, grocery prices continuing to rise, and people having loved ones shipped off to Guantanamo.
IMO, today it's protests, and in a year if it continues on this course, it will turn into outrage. Many many people are at their breaking point, not politically, but just from the ability to survive. He's going to say it's AntiFa, BLM, and Communists trying to stop him from saving the country, but only his core base will continue to accept that. Rhetoric and excuses don't put food on the table.
But I don’t think that will be possible, because it really seems like there’s no way all of these piss poor executive orders won’t have very tangible repercussions on the working class.
I think that's where the rubber hits the road in this country. I don't think any mass movement against Trump will start up until there are large repercussions that are clearly linked to his actions. But unfortunately, the bar has been raised over the years as well because the rich people are mostly for the pain he's inflicting and the country is organized and run by the rich.
It's starting to look like COVID was the test run the right-wingers on social media were worried about, but as per usual they viewed it through the wrong lens. COVID taught the rich that allowing mass disease, pain, disaster, wealth transfer, and death in the country will not make it more community-oriented and compassionate and will not result in any political repercussions for those exacerbating the problems. COVID was a test run for just how much suffering the people of this country were willing to tolerate without getting unruly (which apparently we as a country have a much bigger appetite than I would have guessed), and the lasting narrative of COVID isn't that the Republicans did too little, it's that we shouldn't have bothered doing as much as we did to help those suffering.
It's difficult to see how there will be even a splintering in this coalition before it's way too late to do anything about it.
I don't know why the country and its leaders didn't see that getting him out of office in 2021 relatively easily was a miracle and we're not likely to be blessed twice. I think we have a long, and difficult road ahead of us to ever align this country even slightly in the interests of its people.
I don't agree that covid was a representative "test run" of suffering we're willing to tolerate, because I think 1% of people with 100% suffering (i.e. death) is not the same as 99% of people with, let's say 50% suffering (losing jobs, not having enough food, poor healthcare). Like it or not, for most people, covid was a minor inconvenience. For most people it did amount to a flu. But this presidency is poised to be much more impactful to more people, IMO. And I think that will make a huge difference in how red states react.
Like it or not, for most people, covid was a minor inconvenience. For most people it did amount to a flu.
I think your COVID denialist is showing a bit. The impact of the virus itself isn't what I was writing about. They were running large amounts of con job and swindle programs and engaging in what would best be described as crisis capitalism. That's what I'm talking about. If you seriously think the red states -- the very same red states that voted a guy back in that had run the cupboards bare and sold off whatever wasn't nailed down, used the pandemic to pitch beans to the public, and then tried to stay in office by throwing a coup -- are going to ever come around to acknowledge that they were swindled by this loser and turn on him en masse, I'm not sure what to tell you.
I'd like to request that you please read my posts in full before responding, and don't skim it and assume you understand the jist of what I'm saying. This method is failing you.
I think your COVID denialist is showing a bit
I'm not saying covid was equivalent to the flu, I'm saying that for the vast majority of cases, it didn't progress to be life threatening. That's just the data.
My point is, that makes a big difference when you're talking about people who ignore data and don't have empathy outside their in-group. What they see every day matters more than what anyone tells them, or what theoretical people are experiencing. And once the full economic impact of these executive orders becomes felt, it's going to affect almost everyone far more than a being "out sick" for a couple weeks. They won't have jobs, they won't be able to afford food, it's not something they will be able to ignore.
If you seriously think the red states...are going to ever come around to acknowledge that they were swindled by this loser and turn on him en masse, I'm not sure what to tell you.
Again, his core base will buy into his rhetoric for sure, they'll get grifted to their grave. But his core base didn't get him elected, people voting against inflation did, and rhetoric won't put food on their table, that's why Harris lost.
Those who voted against inflation are on their last leg as it is. 10 years ago 70% of the US was living paycheck to paycheck, 5 years ago credit card debt began to spike, today the general population holds more debt than our entire GDP. Most people simply don't have the luxury of being complacent during this term. Protests today won't fizzle, they'll progress into civil unrest. And Trump has made it clear by the amount of power he's consolidating under the executive branch that he has no intention of ceding power in a future election, so he's going to be the one most people blame for the situation. Not his base, but most people.
I don't remember a flu causing massive shutdowns throughout the country, empty downtowns, bank runs, empty store shelves, rampant price gouging, large bailouts for industry, an entire program setup to enrich the already rich by raiding the treasury, a massive grifter program for "small business", large scale free vaccination programs, etc etc etc.
You're not reading my posts and then claiming I'm skimming yours. The US hasn't seen the type of large scale unrest you're predicting here in a hundred years, and this dude's approval ratings are up, not down.
Everything seems to indicate that people will indeed continue to tolerate things getting worse, and that they will continue to blame the unfortunate for their own misfortune.
