They might have to eschew morals and start gaslighting the populace to regain influence.
Wait…
That’s how long it will take to rebuild US foreign policy, 60 years. I hope Rand is correct, fuck the GOP.
We Lost the House and Senate for 60 Years.
I sure fucking hope so, you piece of shit.
What’s really happened is we’ve had our global dominance thrown away. We took the lead because of WW1 and WW2. It’s not because we’re great. It’s not because we manifested our destiny to become the leader of the world. It’s because factories in Europe were bombed to smithereens. That’s what allowed the U.S to achieve financial dominance. Now we’re in the fall.
"Fuck the people this will harm, what about my political party!?
Hopefully! The world would be a far better place. Globally and domestically.
Conservative policies just have their own heads up their asses sucking Trump’s rich spoiled cock
What will probably happen is a one or two term slump. What’s different between then and now is the internet and social media, which fills most people’s brains with a deluge of noise. In addition to the effects of misinformation daily telling people that the moon is the sun, most algorithms prioritize novelty, and nothing’s more novel than the most stupidly wrong-headed take. We constantly hear the opinions of people who should be laughed out of the room! We sit and chuckle, but there’s tens of millions of people who have poor media skills who it can actually influence.
Good. Fucking good. Also fuck with Social Security while you are at it and secure your fucking grave permanently.
First time ever that I hope Rand Paul is correct. Don’t threaten me with a good time Rand Paul!
I hope this leads into demolishing republican party and moving on from the clearly faulty two party nonsense of a system. You can’t keep functioning if you’re on the verge of becoming authoritarian regime with oligarchs.
The Republican party deserves to die for allowing Donald Trump to rise to power. The Democrat party deserves to die for being useless to stop them. America needs a whole new fresh start with new parties
or better yet, no parties at all and force some of our morons to actually learn their candidates beyond just party lines.
Idk, I’d totally be in favor of ranked voting; with several parties that correspond to music genres where people could identify the party’s values based on vibes. Ex: Acid Polka Party, Nu Delta Blues Party, Hyper Uplifting Metal Party, etc.
That will never happen.
We were within 2% of stopping them. If you bastards had got on board, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Let’s blame the voters instead of our shit policy and campaign that promises them nothing much more than republican lite
I blame the owners of news and social media. How can people make good decisions if they can’t perceive reality?
Why not both.
Would that not be better than full fascism?
Either way leads there eventually. You’ll see it soon enough.
I don’t understand what you could possibly mean by this comment. We, as in the American electorate, directly chose fascism. What the fuck do you mean that we will see it soon enough? We didn’t take the path you say also leads there eventually, the only way to tell where it leads is theory. We are never going to see the real world impacts of the choice we did not make.
Fascism and fascism light still lead to fascism. You can take the long road home or the highway to hell, but either way goes there.
Democrats and republicans act as adversaries. What you should look at is what kinds of things do they consistently vote for and against in unison.
After 18 months of republicans and democrats signing bombs that are tearing apart poor families sleeping in tents - how do you not see that they are both your enemy?
If the democrats really wanted to help people, why have they never gone scorched earth with helping people the way Trump is using the power to hurt people.
Help people so hard that they could never vote against you again? Universal healthcare - don’t want it? Too bad it’s free now. And it’s way more efficient than private.
Tax cuts for the poor and middle class while taxing the wealthy? Aww sorry I know you’re mad the billionaires pay more because you’re still waiting for that money to trickle down, but you pay less.
Free secondary education and day care for parents? Here’s chances to make your life better without drowning in debt and payments now enjoy making a better life.
But no. The democrats say “fuck the people” every time they have a chance to make a difference because they are the same as republicans. They only vote for war, tax cuts for the wealthy, and benefits package/pay increases for themselves.
Where are they now to save the students whose visas are arbitrarily being revoked? Where are they in the name of free speech? Doing 24 hour self promos in the chamber that accomplish exactly nothing and then running to MSNBC to brag about talking for that day straight.
It’s a clownshow and I am befuddled on how most people do not see through this.
No fuck yes. Blame them.
Are you saying that trump won because his policy and campaign was stellar.
Trump won because his base acted instead of passively watching. They took over everything and all the left could say was “don’t roll with them something something pigs”
The voters and especially the non-voters are to blame along with the politicians. Why shouldn’t they be responsible for voting against their own interests or sitting it out after having seen a Trump presidency?
Chaotic evil is more showy but that doesn’t mean that lawful evil isn’t also evil.
Na. It’s the Democrats politicians fault. Send more money to Israel.
See, they thought they could control him, like they did Reagan, and Bush Jr. Bush Sr. went along willingly.
But Trump is an overgrown 5 year old, and needs to feel he’s in charge. Like any typical narcissist.
Part of me wonder if this is worth saving. We need to start over.
All things end.
I just wish I wasn’t alive when it happened.
Where’s Thanos when we need him
A quick snap death would be preferable to what’s coming.
Or, better idea, no parties like the founders intended
But bruh if u vote for third party, it’s a win for Donald Trump bruh.
It needs a new electoral system too.
Yep the one that farmers does not select president for whole United States and 6th largest economy of world aka California.
I think they bumped up to 5th recently
It literally was.
That was correct. Until the day the voting system changes, voting third party for anything national will be the same as not voting at all as far as results go. This isn’t good, it isn’t right, but it’s the world we live in and the system we are operating under.
It’s a nice catch 22 innit
I used to be a swing voter before Trump, after this admin, I will never vote for a Republican again. Especially since most support him.
Oh no!
… Anyway.
From your mouth to Satan’s ears!
Republicans should be wiped out. Fools, monsters, and traitors. They’ve done incalculable damage to the world and all those who live here.
Every Republican that dies should be cause for celebration.
Maybe when the MAGA dorks try to convince us this is short term for long term gain; what they don’t realize is ousting the republican stranglehold on the country is the long term gain.
If they do, I’ll remind them of all the times Democrats reduced the deficit for long-term gain, and then Republicans pointed only to last year’s DJIA.
Not one time have I seen a Republican acknowledge those statistics, no matter in what form they are presented. Not once.
Which is not a knock against you, but yet more evidence how how willfully they will bury their heads in the sand if you encourage them to hate people they already want to hate + tell them they are patriots for doing so.
And pray tell why do you not include the Demonrats in your statement? Do you not agree that the Democrats are 100 percent complicit?
Squares and rectangles.
All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.
All republicans are fools/monsters/traitors, but not every Democrat is. Some are. But not all.
Look, I’m pissed too, I want them tf out of power and I want them to face consequences for what they’ve done. But celebrating the death of every Republican is more than a little extreme. The top dogs / those responsible? Sure. But let’s not go calling for the deaths of our countrymen - who are, tbh, blind fools who’ve been brainwashed by propaganda. That doesn’t make them worthy of death. I’d recommend avoiding turning the heat straight to 100 unless you want to watch our country walk an even darker path in coming years. If you’ve convinced yourself that’s the outcome you actually want - of civil war and all the other fucked up shit that tends to come with war - then you’re your own type of blind fool.
I’m sorry. My grandpa taught me the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. He was a smart dude
I wouldn’t disagree. But not every Republican is on board with or even aware of what’s happening. As someone who’s escaped a cult, it’s hard to see through a smoke screen of propaganda, misinformation and dogma when you’re surrounded by it. Getting us to fall into left vs right, black vs white etc camps and fight each other to the death is exactly what the rich elite (our actual enemies) want to happen. I’d recommend Andrew Callaghan’s film “Dear Kelly” for a first hand look at what this looks like in action; how an otherwise innocuous, well meaning citizen can be brainwashed by far right propaganda and how quickly they can lose touch with reality - as well as how they can be brought back from that brink.
People are nuanced and groupthink is holding us back as a species. Hold the grand old party to task, and put on blast all those who have been profiting off of the suffering of others and leading the destruction of society. But don’t lower yourselves to their level and paint everyone on the other side of the fence the same shade, or miss the nuances of how these people are being manipulated, and by whom.
The manipulators are the problem. Not the manipulated.
I do agree they are sheep misled. But a penchant for being a Nazi does not a good citizen make.
This soft approach after the civil war is why we are here again.
This reminds me of the Myth of the Clean Wehrmacht. In short: No, not so many of them are victims and puppets.
There are some cases where people are pulled out of cults by exposure to outside opinions. Anyone among the Republicans that has frequently had that exposure, on some level (for instance, hearing arguments from Democratic senators prior to votes) agrees with and wants the destruction.
Now we’re talking.
Do you not think it’s a little hyperbolic to claim that every single member of the Republican party is a Nazi deserving of only death?
I mean, sure, it feels great to sound like a tough guy on the Internet, but you’re talking about tens of millions of Americans.
I 100% believe in what I said and so do the mass majority of Americans.
The mass majority of Americans absolutely do not believe in putting to death every Republican.
I said Nazis. You said republicans.
That’s a confession
Read up. The person you responded to was warning against celebrating the death of all Republicans. You responded with something about your grandfather taught you the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. YOU are the one that first equated Republicans with Nazis.
Also, I’m a leftist, you tool.
I understand that you feel the conclusion is disturbing. Can you elaborate on what part of their reasoning is confusing?
I suppose the part that leads to mass murder.
Do you think it’s murder to kill a Nazi?
I believe it is justified. But I’m not going to dignify the question of “is it murder to kill a Nazi” with an answer.
We don’t have to go door to door shooting everyone registered R. The leadership should definitely go up against the wall.
But every person that votes R is voting for climate disaster, unchecked pandemics, rolling back decades of medical science, violence against queer folks and other minorities, and other horrors.
They might not be a comically evil person who kicks puppies and steals candy from babies, but they’ve thrown what little power they have behind tremendous evil. When that stops, that’s a win.
I concede I could amend my previous statement that they don’t need to die. We can also celebrate them leaving the party and changing themselves so they’re not doing evil anymore.
Have you ever considered that this hostile attitude you show towards individuals is exactly what the system wants out of you?
What feels like resistance is actually just maintenance of the status quo. The elites have replaced class consciousness with culture war. Instead of hostility towards individuals who have been led to believe falsehoods through information warfare and weaponized insecurity, why not aim that hostility towards the systems in place that intentionally makes people afraid and angry?
If we wanted to get a little more psychoanalytical about it- this hatred of the individual who has been duped is pathological. It’s sort of like the Nazi and the Jew. The Nazi needs the idea of the Jew to maintain the Nazi world view. Certain excesses are only justified if you have an omnipresent internal enemy. By placing the Republican voter as the villain, you put yourself in the position of moral superiority.
By placing him down, you put yourself up. But really, I believe this may be subconscious projection. Because you are just as guilty and complicit in maintaining the system as the Republican voter. It’s hard to fix the cognitive dissonance of that position. All of us work, pay rent, pay taxes, buy products, post online, etc- we are tiny cogs that moves the machine forward.
So the elites have created an easy safety valve for that cognitive dissonance. Blame the others. Your life sucks? It’s illegal immigrants. Your life sucks? It’s Republicans. Your life sucks? It’s the gays. Your life sucks? It’s the Miami Cubans. And so on and so on.
Until the working class unites and redirects the hostility towards the pillars of power that keep us in line, there will never be any meaningful change in this country. This hostility you and other users show towards Republican voters is ironically supporting the very thing you claim to hate. We’re doomed to endlessly loop around a Möbius strip.
Because you are just as guilty and complicit in maintaining the system as the Republican voter
This is false
Your life sucks? It’s Republicans.
This is actually true. The ultra wealthy that keep us in this hellscape are republicans. They have much of the blame. But the low level people who keep voting for them also have some of the blame.
Blaming the queers (for example) is a total non-sequitur. They’re just living life. The republicans are dismantling the government, ending vaccination programs, and rolling back environmental protections. They are for real doing actual harm right now. It is not the same as the imaginary harms “the jews” do. People would make up stories about nefarious evils of jews, but meanwhile the republicans are right there on TV doing evil. There was a nazi salute. There was an insurrection. These are things that happened.
The working class republicans are class traitors. They should realize that our interests align, but they don’t, and they are actively doing harm.
If you have ideas on how to instill class consciousness in the kind of people who vote against their interests, let’s hear it.
Because you are just as guilty and complicit in maintaining the system as the Republican voter
This is false
I disagree. Pick a random Republican voter from this country and you’re very likely to grab someone from a red state. Let’s say Alabama. Their vote is as insignificant as a blue voter in California. So regardless of who you or who they voted for, their impact is nil.
But when we talk about complicity we’re not simply talking about voting. We’re talking about participation in the system. For example, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that in the last few months you have drank a Coca Cola beverage. I don’t mean just their cola, but any of the myriad of drinks they provide. Whether it’s Sprite or Dasani or what have you.
You have contributed to the bottom line of a company that hires death squads to kill labor leaders (this is has been proven in court).
That’s just one infinitesimally small example out of an infinite number of actions you and everyone else have taken that perpetuates the system of exploitation we live. We are the chosen people that get to live in relative opulence while billions around the world struggle to survive.
So I’ll say it again. You are just as complicit. There is just as much blood on your hands as that Republican voter and yet you choose not to see it because it’s easier to maintain the delusion of moral superiority. Why? Again- reducing cognitive dissonance.
The ultra wealthy that keep us in this hellscape are republicans. They have much of the blame.
Here you get closer to the truth. It’s the ultra wealthy that ultimately decide what happens in this country. I’d go so far as to say they have all of the blame. Why? Because they are the only ones that actually have any autonomy. The research has been done before- American public opinion has zero impact on policy.
No matter who you vote for; over the long term the same policies will be enacted regardless.
If you have ideas on how to instill class consciousness in the kind of people who vote against their interests, let’s hear it.
The first step is to get rid of this atmosphere of hostility. You blame someone for the country collapsing, they get defensive and blame you for the country collapsing. We’re in the post-truth era so it doesn’t matter what is true or what is false. People believe what they do based on vibes. This isn’t an accident but intentional.
It is not the same as the imaginary harms “the jews” do. People would make up stories about nefarious evils of jews, but meanwhile the republicans are right there on TV doing evil. There was a nazi salute. There was an insurrection. These are things that happened.
I think we need to make a distinction here.
What we are seeing in the last few months of this administration is not the traditional Republican party. Trump has hijacked the Republican party much like Hitler hijacked the Nazi party. There is no more Republican party- it’s the Trump party.
The question instead that we need to ask is how was this allowed to happen?
The answer is that wealthy people thought it was in their interests. Simple as that. It’s why for example when you had the Trump inauguration the top tech CEOs all came to bend the knee and sat in the front row. The capitalist system has decided that having Trump at the helm is the most profitable outcome.
Trump worked hard to get to this point- he had to defeat the Republican establishment party. The Mitt Romneys and the George Bushes and the Mitch McConnels. Wealthy powerful people who wanted the status quo to continue indefinitely.
I think one key thing you are missing here is that the Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans in creating Trump. Bill Clinton for example amplified Reagan’s economic policies that accelerated our descent into brutal neoliberal capitalism. As we descend further down, people become increasingly insecure.
People who are scared for the financial future vote for dictators. This has happened before and it will happen again. I believe fascism is like a herpes outbreak. It’ll never go away, but your immune system keeps in check most of the time. The issue is that our immune system is weakened and now it has a breakout.
What we are seeing in the last few months of this administration is not the traditional Republican party. Trump has hijacked the Republican party much like Hitler hijacked the Nazi party. There is no more Republican party- it’s the Trump party.
I’m in my mid 50s, as context.
I:
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just missed being old enough for awareness of key events in the civil rights movement, but:
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grew up in a very racially diverse area, surrounded by people who lived those events
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Lived through through/witnessed:
- the Satanic Panic
- the Tipper Gore, 700 Club/Pat Robertson heyday
- the pre- and post- dont-ask-don’t-tell period in the military
- the AIDS Epidemic and homophobia feedback loop that came with it
- the steady progression as it became more and more acceptable over decades for gay people to be open about their sexuality
- the beginnings of the same thing happening for trans people
- and more changes to and challenges to our social norms than I will possibly remember to list here, all along with each and every step of progress continuously made against the strong opposition of conservatives.
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then watched as the entire Republican party gleefully worked to destroy and roll back all areas of progress the very moment they had enough power to do so. They are shitting up the place and destroying as much as they can, as wantonly as they can.
From the rank and file infiltrating and twisting local school boards and libraries all the way up to the whitehouse, they are making things as shitty as they can as fast as they can for as many people as they can. And it didn’t start 2.5 months ago, you could feel it from the moment Trump took office the first time, though even then it was just a louder version of what was already clearly under the surface for decades. We are literally headed towards some freaky blend of WWII Germany and Gilead.
Everything being done now is something conservatives and Republicans I’ve known have been preaching to a greater or lesser degree for as long as I can remember. They were just better in couching it behind nice words back then, and less of them were comfortable being vocal about it. As far as I can tell, Trump has hijacked nothing and no one.
Resistance to him by Republicans at any level has been weak to undetectable the entire time, coming from a tiny minority of (now ousted) Republicans, and that is precisely what gives the lie to this idea that he hijacked a damn thing.
The commenter saying to line them all up is being ridiculous, of course, but they aren’t getting any disdain they haven’t earned, and in any case they aren’t interested in having unity with anyone not like them anyhow, so I don’t see any point whatsoever in this idea that we’re supposed to talk nice and mollycoddle them into some kind of class-aware coalition. That ship has sailed.
a great many edits
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I disagree. Pick a random Republican voter from this country and you’re very likely to grab someone from a red state. Let’s say Alabama. Their vote is as insignificant as a blue voter in California. So regardless of who you or who they voted for, their impact is nil.
They vote in local elections, which are not insignificant, and have real impacts. You have like school board elections decided by a few dozen votes. The conservatives win and start banning books and doing low grade hate crimes against queer people.
You have contributed to the bottom line of a company that hires death squads to kill labor leaders (this is has been proven in court).
We all know there’s no way to be a wholly good person under capitalism. We’re both writing this on hardware that is likely metaphorically soaked in blood. That doesn’t mean that any amount of blood is equal to any other amount of blood.
No matter who you vote for; over the long term the same policies will be enacted regardless.
I don’t think this is necessarily the case. We had a new deal. Trusts were broken up. It is possible to make changes. It’s an uphill battle because of many factors, including the republicans pulling as hard as they can in the opposite direction. The republicans (or more broadly, conservatives and reactionaries. or even more broadly, the ownership class and their useful idiots) are the problem.
The first step is to get rid of this atmosphere of hostility. You blame someone for the country collapsing, they get defensive and blame you for the country collapsing. We’re in the post-truth era so it doesn’t matter what is true or what is false. People believe what they do based on vibes. This isn’t an accident but intentional.
A key difference is they are incorrect. But as you say, we’re in post-truth and facts don’t matter anymore to a lot of people.
This isn’t a serious policy summit because we’re just two dorks on lemmy. In real life you’d have to spend a lot of time massaging people’s emotions so they come a little closer to reality. In my internet-tough-guy persona I just want to shoot every red-hat in the head. I know it’s not that effective, but I’m an emotional sack of meat like everyone else.
And again, they may feel the same way and want to just shoot the queers dead, except that wouldn’t solve any problems. It’s not the queers (or the jews or the blacks) that are voting to remove child labor laws, to remove environmental protections, to keep wages low and prices high. The animosity might be similar but they are wrong.
The answer is that wealthy people thought it was in their interests. Simple as that. It’s why for example when you had the Trump inauguration the top tech CEOs all came to bend the knee and sat in the front row. The capitalist system has decided that having Trump at the helm is the most profitable outcome.
The right wing will always chose fascism and profits over anything else. Given a choice between paying a little more for labor or burning the entire country down, most of the ownership class would burn the country down. They’re not good people. I’m pretty sure that was a key factor in fascism’s rise in ww2- the wealthy class backed fascism because they didn’t want to pay more wages to unions.
I knew a guy that worked for in a smallish factory, and the owner verbatim said “I’ll burn this place down before I let you all unionize.”
Personally, I think they should have broken into that guy’s house at night and murdered him, but I understand not wanting to throw your life away on a class war skirmish that likely won’t make a difference.
I think one key thing you are missing here is that the Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans in creating Trump. Bill Clinton for example amplified Reagan’s economic policies that accelerated our descent into brutal neoliberal capitalism. As we descend further down, people become increasingly insecure.
I said elsewhere that it’s like squares and rectangles. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. All republicans are a problem, but not all democrats are a problem. Some are. That doesn’t mean they’re good. Maybe we want stars. Neither of them are stars.
People who are scared for the financial future vote for dictators. This has happened before and it will happen again. I believe fascism is like a herpes outbreak. It’ll never go away, but your immune system keeps in check most of the time. The issue is that our immune system is weakened and now it has a breakout.
It’s funny because that’s such a self destructive behavior. It’s like someone having an itchy outbreak of some kind, and then they scratch and scratch and scratch until it bleeds and it gets infected. What’s the political equivalent of cones for people’s hands so they can’t scratch?
Honestly I’m beginning to wonder if this site hasn’t been invaded by reddit. Are you saying the democrats are going to fuck all about climate change? if so you are seriously deluded
It has, the mass exodus has enabled their bad opinions to be infected upon all of lemmy. .world is the worst for it.
