Posted by /u/Theory_of_Time
Our democracy is at immediate risk, and history is repeating itself. What Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing mirrors the actions of past authoritarian regimes. It took just 53 days for Hitler to dismantle Germany’s democracy. 53 days. He used executive orders, erased marginalized groups, and silenced opposition—while too many stood by and did nothing.
Trump’s executive order erases transgender and intersex people from legal recognition—just like Hitler erased Jewish and trans people from legal records before persecution began.
Elon Musk now has access to the U.S. Treasury’s financial system—just like Putin’s oligarchs seized control of Russia’s wealth to consolidate power.
Trump is erasing vital medical information from our government and silencing opposition—just like Hitler suppressed science and banned opposing views.
Trump is dismantling government agencies, firing oversight officials, and gutting institutions like USAID and the Department of Education—just like Hitler replaced government officials with loyalists to eliminate accountability.
We are on day 15, and we are running out of time. We have to make change, or our democracy will be gone.
Democracy was at immediate risk last November. You’re looking at a tangled mess of metal and meat after an 80mph head on collision and saying “we need to swerve or there might be a wreck”
Congress is under sole Republican control. There will be no impeachments. The presidency is under sole Trump control. There will be no restraint. The Supreme Court is under sole theological control. There will only be partisan rulings to further a Christian nationalist state.
Our only hope is to hunker down and make them work for every inch, and then flip Congress in 2 years. Which probably won’t happen because…I dunno, something going on with Syria will cause people to protest vote or abstain from voting out the fucking fascists that are here.
A lot of those people are pro-facist, they just want a leftist facist regime instead of the right facism we got.
What do you call a person that is pro-universal healthcare, pro separation of church and state, pro individual liberty, pro LGBTQ, pro education, pro women’s rights, and pro-government accountability?
You’d call them a fascist I guess, but you’re diluting the term.
Let’s not forget the GOP. They could easily stop any of this as they have majorities. They could have stopped this in the past (impeachment) but they felt it was the best chance for their party.
Those spineless cowards love power and will rubber stamp anything if it helps them.
Expect congress to be set on fire, and DNC blamed then outlawed, soon?
There is some disinformation included in post.
Putin’s oligarchs seized control of Russia’s wealth to consolidate power.
It is Yeltsin who sold off Russia to western financed oligarchs. Putin has reversed much of this, and is far more hostile to oligarchs than west is. In Russia, large firms obey government instead of owning government. He has conducted war with voluntary high paid military where wage growth is very high and higher than inflation due to competition from military pay. You would never see in US an export ban on diesel to keep prices down for domestic consumers, as another example.
The US would be better off today, including its democracy, if Trump and Zionist mega donors had fallen out of windows. At start of Ukraine war, high LNG priced purchases are claimed to have mostly profited the EU importer oligarchs than US producers. Cheering on a war on Russia is a deeply pro oligarchy self destruction. Adding disinformation that our governments a few weeks ago were less oligarchist than Russia, is more warmongering propaganda, that we just started saying when our BFF Yeltsin created it.
I agree with most of what you say, but you’re really talking up Putin, who is worse than Trump so far. How do you believe the Ukraine war should be resolved?
This is not mildly infuriating. It’s devastating.
We are on day 15, and we are running out of time. We have to make change, or our democracy will be gone.
Our “democracy” has been dead since 2008, when Americans gave the liberal wing of the capitalist party a super majority and full control over the government on the promise that they would give us universal healthcare. But instead they came up with endless excuses not to help us.
A representative democracy that does not represent and help the people who elect them ceases to be a democracy.
Also, having a two headed capitalist party is not a democracy. If we cannot vote for communists or socialists that will actually fight for the proletariat then that isn’t a democracy
Ah yes, a “Thanks Obama” meme.
Maybe it was over when Citizens United was ruled on? Maybe it was over when Reganomics set in? Maybe it was over when we failed to hold Nixon accountable for his crimes? Maybe it was over last November when people decided that allowing a twice impeached fascist felon dictator to hold the highest office was an acceptable result as long as a thousand+ year turf scrabble between two theologically opposed peoples on the other side of the fucking planet remained unresolved?
Agreed.
Trump and his partners are clearly trying to rip down the current government. I personally am not opposed to that. What we’ve had in place was a dumpster fire. What they want to replace it with is what concerns me.
Home to all things “Mildly Infuriating” Not infuriating, not enraging. Mildly Infuriating. All posts should reflect that.
So lucky this is only mild. Imagine if it was anything really really bad.
Holy crap. Online democrats are so dramatic lol
I don’t think anyone should be posting this defeatist ass shit from Reddit. For all we know it could have been posted by AI. Yes, shit is bad. It’s probably going to get A LOT worse. But we shouldn’t take it lying down.
Posts like this that just point out how bad things are without offering ANY action are exactly what Trump and Musk want. They want us to look at this crap, feel overwhelmed, and give up. Instead those who want to resist fascism should be planning ahead.
Every single little act of resistance counts.
I know it’s hard. I’m fucking stressed out, anxious, overwhelmed, and just TIRED but I’m working out the little things I’m going to do to push back and it’s making me feel slightly better.
Go watch AOCs video on YouTube about things you can do: https://youtu.be/CVgNJf6CsBA?si=G9lW50VDLiZrx6EZ
Read and print this zine: https://itsgoingdown.org/dont-just-do-nothing-20-things-you-can-do-to-counter-fascism/
Download and read the simple sabotage field manual: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26184
Get someone you know to quit Twitter and/or Facebook. Get the fuck off those apps if you’re not already.
Start saving books, papers, information, etc.
Go to a protest if you can.
Support independent journalism.
Limit your spending. Stop buying anything but the essentials.
Most importantly, talk with the people you care about and trust and build a support network.
This was from /r/50501 It’s not intended to be defeatist. It’s intended to lite a fire under people’s asses and get them motivated. Very good points otherwise!
I keep trying to explain this to people I’m in direct contact with. I’ve been trying to explain this to them since March of last year when it was clear that Biden wasn’t capable of winning. We got a glimmer of hope in August before the convention when Harris was the assumed nominee and she hadn’t actually campaigned yet.
IF you’ve ever got your ass beat. Or if you’ve ever, like, really fucked up doing something physical in the wilderness or in an extreme situation…
Keep… your… feet… moving.
The power of the darkness is overwhelming. Its debilitating. It freezes you in your tracks.
You have got to keep your feet moving. We can’t do this alone. No one knows where we are headed. But don’t let anyone diminish or blunt your pain. We need that pain raw.
Pain tells us something is wrong. It reminds us that we are still alive, that we are still fighting. Pain is the clearest proof that we haven’t given up, that we haven’t accepted the inevitable.
But you have to keep your feet moving. You can’t stand still. If you’ve broken your arm falling down the slope and woke up in a debris field. Its not the fall that killed you. You woke up didnt you? Its the hypothermia that sets in from wallowing or panicking.
And if your feet aren’t moving yet, consider this a kick in the ass, and get going. Buy a drone. Get a P100. If you are out of shape, start the process of getting to the point of being able to run at least one mile (2000m), without stopping. I’m sorry team, we’re not going to be able to garden or shit post our way out of this. Its time to get moving.
Started out thinking this was a motivational metaphor, but then it kind of looked like your answer for the woes of the world is personal fitness? Do you, like own a gym or something?
Have you never seen Zombieland?
Rule#1: Cardio!
The cops will not be on our side. It’s going to be hard to fight them, and harder if we’re unprepared.
Edit: I don’t mind being downvoted, but I am surprised someone disagrees. Let me ask you something: can you name one civil rights movement where the cops were on the right side of history?
I’m struggling bro. But unlike most of lemmy, I make up some of the 5% of people in the US who actually have served in the US military. I know a path that leads through, in some small way, difficult.
And yes, just being physically capable makes a huge difference. It makes a difference to your mental well being. Its something you can do, tonight, tomorrow, this morning. Being physically capable of just… things. Of standing for long periods of time. Of lifting heavy things. Of running from, or into danger: being physically fit can make all of the difference.
Functionally, I’m trying to empower people with things that are accessible, that they can do right now. There are those privileged enough to have safe havens where they think they can run for cover. For most Americans, thats not an option. There is more, far more that I do advocate for. But I’m not going to do that here. Not out loud, and not right now, and probably only in person. I need you to interpret what I’m saying now as code.
But in lieu of that? Bruh you can run. You, or any one else reading this, you can run. Or walk, or crawl, or wheel yourself. You can become stronger than you are. You can read things, now. Important things. Things we might now have access to in a week. You can learn basic electronics. You can learn basic chemistry. YOU, reading these words now, are a capable and worthy individual.
And what these fucking spineless fuckers convince you of, is that you can’t. That you are too weak. That you aren’t enough… And that is what I’m here to oppose.
Well said man well said!
Did you attend today’s 50501 protests at your state capitol?
I did not unfortunately, however, my partner did.
I stayed at home and am in the process of panic-downloading all of the relevant data for 4 grant/ research projects I’m associated with, maybe 60 million dollars in funding total.
In an alternative timeline, I could just expect these data to “be there” and would be able to access them at our leisure. In light of whatever fuckery this shit tsunami represents, well… we might lose access at any point.
I wasn’t able to either because the state capital is so far away and I have kids in school, work so I don’t starve, etc. These are the differences between us and Europe I feel. The population is so scattered and has no safety net.
Yeah, my state capital is a 4 hour drive away. Frankfurt to Berlin is a 3 hour train where you can get work done or read a book. You also can’t get fired in Germany for calling out sick to protest.
The US working class has very little power left. No unions, no solidarity, almost no rights, and no one in government that actually fights for us
Look the last time this shit went down, being in a small down didn’t mean you escape it.
As important as protest can be (especially in getting people involved), its ultimately performative. There are however things you can do. Do something, anything.
The people : Waking up exponentially
Presidency : Rogue and evil
Congress : Lethargic and corrupt
Army : Serving the Constitution
So, act swiftly, wisely, things will change, a lot.This is it. Definitely not all veterans, but all the veterans I personally know still remember that they took an oath to defend and uphold the constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic.
What are we supposed to do? We’ve passed the point of peaceful protest. We can no longer organize quickly or effectively. The popular forums have all been taken, and while new ones are emerging, it may be too late by the time they grow. Maybe if TikTok hadn’t bent the knee, but it was always going to. Calls for violence will be quickly dismissed, as they always are, by rational, hopeful people. I’m not saying that violence is the answer, anyway. Any violence now would lead to disorganization, be crushed, and ultimately just fuel the system.
You can’t talk your way out of this. You can’t legislate your way out of it. What needs to happen can no longer happen. So what will happen is what always happens…the changing of power. My trans friend is desperately trying to reach out to our state representative, and I wish there was something I could do. Another friend just got his dream job as a librarian, but it’s a shame how things are going.
I often wonder what the SS or the KGB would have been like with today’s data networks. What can we do? Wipe your social media presence, or sterilize it. My opinion is you’re better off deleting it until the window for them to legally delete your data has passed and then rejoining. Who knows what long gone chats or deleted posts might hit you in the future. Consider who you’re connected to, and get them to do the same. Every time I hear my roommate say, “Okay, Google,” my anxiety spikes. She’s gay.
What are we supposed to do now? The government, the media, and social platforms have all been captured. We’re conquered, caged, and trapped in the net. And the net is only going to shrink. We still need our circuses, but they’ve got everything they need to track and monitor us, our phones, computers, ISPs, social media, apps, even our friends’ apps and browsers.
If you’re staying and not actively fighting, scrub your data while you still can. Find a phone you can install a secure OS on (one that isn’t locked by verizon or ATT and) Get rid of Google, get a VPN, remove everything from your main computer, invest in an encrypted hard drive, and download your favorite shows and books. Tomorrow, they might be wiped. VPNs could even be outlawed for personal use. Get what you can while you can, but keep it off your Windows hard drives. Think about deleting your streaming services. (I’m serious) What you have watched could be used to profile you. If you plan to protest, leave your phone at home. Don’t discuss these things, even jokingly, on any platform that isn’t encrypted—not even Discord. You don’t know how bad this will get. No one can know. We were taught ONE major genocide event in schools for the most part. We found our own lessons on fascism. There were dozen if not hundreds of genocides and power changes that just get forgotten.
There’s so much, and maybe I am over reacting
The first revolutions weren’t fought on social media. Imagine how our ancestors must have felt going days or weeks without any sort of information. It might have actually been helpful by forcing them to orginize themselves.
The key thing to remember is you have to be decerning in who you listen to. You don’t have to engage with people who are there solely to drag you down. If you can ignore the noise and make the connections you need that should be your focus. That will build unity, and it won’t matter how many bots or bad actors are thrown your way because the connections you make should be like a net, strong enough to support your cause but also letting the disorganized opposition slip through.
TBH dude, data privacy only exists when you destroy your technology. If you are on a cellular network, or drive a car, you are tracked. Your home is registered with the state, the traffic cameras know where you go, your phone sends signals that can track you, and they can since 9/11 get your call data.
The trick here is to simply learn how to protest in a world where you are tracked. Your ideas are as good as mine to figure out how to do that. I genuinely don’t believe you can anymore.
Did you attend today’s 50501 protests at your state capitol?
I’m sorry but if nobody within the establishment steps up we have about two weeks until an armed resistance would probably be necessary. At 53 days we will be failing and shody Network States.
Armed resistance became necessary as soon as Trump won the election. All that is left is to find out if it comes from within the government or from outside it.
we have about two weeks until an armed resistance
Bruh you need to be on it today.
We were protesting. I am just a wage slave. I’m not Congress, who would be the people to do something but they are in on it.
Sounds like you are on it. I am too. We’re in this together.
Make sure your stuff us encrypted. I estimate we have at most 2 months before it is beyond repair.
I thought we’d have two months or maybe more to get this far.
I’m banking on hours/ days, not weeks/ months.
We need a guide for helping people de-google, de-big-tech, encrypt, VPN, and to secure themselves.
Here’s your guide: hit your cellphone and laptop with a hammer until it’s a fine paste. Then dump it randomly into 3-4 different trashcans. Drive a beater.
We honestly just need a guide for kicking Musk and his DOGE teens to the curb yesterday.
Bruh. We were given one. It had none-stop coverage for weeks and completely dominated the news cycle.
At the end of the day, all are flesh and bone.
Armed resistance, as it always has, can only actually come from the military. They are bound by oath to constitutional defense. So… maybe?
But IRL, if you look at history, civil unrest does not stop these things. They are stopped ultimately by wars with foreign militaries. All successful revolutions have monied and powerful interests backing them. You and I aren’t doing anything without joining a state sponsored militia. That’s just how the game of history is played. I opt out. I’d rather live in the woods than fight in a civil war.
I was there with my fellow veterans watching the capitol get stormed (on live stream). At the time the only thing we thought that could stop it, should it go any further, was the joint chiefs.
You and I aren’t doing anything without joining a state sponsored militia. That’s just how the game of history is played. I opt out. I’d rather live in the woods than fight in a civil war.
You make the decisions you feel like you need to live with.
No war ever fought was fought for or benefited the working class. It was always to benefit someone else. Even when the socialists did it, they did it as a vanguard party, and that vanguard ultimately did it to benefit themselves. Sometimes they have the ancillary benefit of redeeming some horror in our past, like slavery, but people are naive if they think the north went to war with the south to eliminate slavery, or that the Americans won against the British without French help, who mostly had victory against the British on their mind, not American independence.
Instead, society changes when material conditions change. It rarely changes through ideologically motivated struggle. It changes overnight because someone invented the lightbulb, discovered a new continent, or a new farming technique, etc. Entire empires have fallen practically overnight because of the switch from peasantry to steam powered industry. Nothing can prevent it, and barely a drop of blood need be spilt, because it’s inevitable.
Trump CANT stop green energy development, because now it’s cheaper than coal. That’s a material condition change. That’s the best kind of resistance you can do.
Democracy was never a good idea. Trump won democratically. People are easily manipulated by populists.
Unfortunately republics and totalitarian states are also bad ideas.
And anarchism doesn’t work.
So just ride the wave of history. Let it take you. This is what it’s like to be alive, fighting one monster just to make something that will one day become a different monster. Infinitely recurring. Enjoy the fight, that’s what being alive is about.
Democracy wasn’t a good idea? Might want to check your notes on that one.
I do not expect you to but it’s just objectively a stupid assertion.
Is it? Pretty much every philosopher thought so, even the federalists, which is why they made a republic. And it’s always been a bourgeois republic. Democracy pure is a bunch of idiots listening to social media influencers picking good talkers at the margin of 1% every 4 years. It’s always been theater. It’s manufactured consent.
Trump won “democratically”
- electoral college
- Gerry mandering
- first past the post voting
- the Democratic candidate wasn’t even chosen with a party primary
Voter suppression enhanced, and forced provisional ballots that were never counted, was enough for margin of victory. That no one liked Harris, and DNC loved the pro Israel result, had more of an effect on not exposing the fraud.
If what you seek is a new master, I promise you will have it
Sounds like a dmt thought tbh
Why do you say anarchism doesn’t work?
i don’t think there’s ever been an experiment with controlled variables that shows that, and when you control for as many variables as possible, it shows it is plausible
Because an organized state will always overpower it. And history is a story of power.
I always say, show me the theory that allows anarchists to maintain a complex network of nuclear armament. You can’t “anarchically control” the nukes.
People just never really come to grips with the era we actually live in. We live in an era where a spaceship could throw an asteroid at the earth, or where a guy in a garage with an axe to grind could release an extinction level bioweapon, or where a computer program made by a skilled hacker could decimate power grids and kill millions. We are terraforming the earth. We are in a society that is much closer to godhood than to primitive man.
All of those doom scenarios are already possible and have nothing to do with anarchism
They are already possible so we have massive networks of laws and security to try and detect and stop them. That security imposes its will by force onto the perpetuator. Thats not anarchism
Good thing we have laws and police! Man imagine if Ted Kaczinsky had heard about laws! Or if Luigi Mangione knew about the infrastructure and power of the state!
Lone actors are going to do what they want regardless of the law. The law doesn’t prevent you from punching an asshole in the mouth. You prevent you from doing so.
Here’s a thought experiment for you. Are there unjust laws?
lol what about all the lone actors who didn’t succeed. Worldwide. Don’t just cherry pick the losses. And those guys did not bioweapon the earth.
Sure laws can be bad /c/im14andthisisdeep. Now you do it! Can laws be good?
What you’re advocating for is not trying, because freedom is more important than practical safety.
No you’re not trying. You’re leaving everything up to the state. Which requires you to do nothing to maintain the status quo.
The purpose of the law is to protect property not you and not your rights. That’s pretty evident in Trump’s presidency.
I don’t think you fully understand what anarchism is. Lack of hierarchy does not mean no organizational framework. It means there are no hierarchies.
Nukes have no purpose existing to begin with. The best thing to do with them would be to dismantle them and use their resources for other things. I don’t know why you have immediately decided to imagine an anarchist freed territory as requiring nuclear armaments. Or why you think the litmus test of whether a political ideology is valid or not depends on the answer to “can it allow for nuclear holocaust at the push of a button”.
You seemingly have imagined that an anarchist revolution would intend to preserve the functioning of modern geopolitical superpowers. Needless to say, no. Anarchism in practical implantation results in societies that look dramatically different (including extent anarchist free territories). Ones that don’t partake in overproduction and vast environmental destruction. Ones that are concerned principally with the well-being of the people who live within them.
Your second paragraph just proves you don’t understand the nature of power. Why did Russia Cuba and NK need nukes? Because people without nukes are weak to their enemies. So until the anarchist territory is global, it needs to participate in global geopolitics, in which nukes are actually one of your primary bargaining chips.
Otherwise you’re just a piece of land with no government, and most historical invasions take place when land becomes an easy conquest. Because land is materially useful.
The communists had to be militarily STRONG to survive and continue the revolution. And that’s why they tended to kill their anarchist neighbors instead of the other way around. They did power better.
we. can’t. effect. any. change.
democrats have no constitutional power without majority in any of the two houses of congress, or three branches of government. unless you’re willing to start a terrorist campaign, not sure what you think the people can do about it now. this was the danger all along, and no one can say, after trump fucking up the global covid response so badly, they didn’t know what was coming.
the only thing that can move the needle is a general strike, but i have no faith in my fellow democrats to get up off their asses and sacrifice for anyone other than protesting jews in support of islamic terrorism.
Me? I can tell you what my family was doing during the Holocaust, they were first rounded up, having been betrayed to the Nazis by their Catholic neighbors they had known for generations, after getting directions to do so from their parish priest, shoveled into a Ghetto where half died of starvation and dysentery, then put on cattle cars, and taken to Auschwitz, then used by BMW as slave labor to make their airplane engines, out of dozens, only two survived. That’s what I would have been doing.
And here you are, honoring the horror they lived through by supporting it happening to others! I’m sure they’d be proud.
other than protesting jews in support of islamic terrorism.
Exactly, like trump didn’t gain any significant increase in voters, democrats didn’t show up. And now we are here. And now they want to become terrorists. Like you literally just had to show up, why should I trust you’re gonna show up for “the revolution” now?
And fighting the US government is like fighting the weather. If they wanted to, they could literally drone strike you. We are fighting powers that are basically like gods these days. People let that sneek up on them. NOTHING like WW2, which still required the entire western sphere to militarily engage with germany, not some rag tag civilian groups.
People might have showed up for the revolution. There’s a reason for the Obama-Bernie-Trump voter; the democrats had a full eight years to see the writing on the wall and still decided they could win against the populist moment with business as usual and celebrity endorsements.
Real. Still gonna do my part
That first paragraph is so on point. Well said, as much as I hate that truth hammer.
When you say we, I think you should probably replace it with democrats.
Because that’s true. If you’re going to stay part of the system that led to this, there’s nothing you can do
But, you know, maybe find other options.
