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I’m sick of hearing about the asshole, and sick of hearing about him getting “slammed” by some celebrity or politician, and sick of hearing how he’s a huge threat so we need to send a sternly worded letter.
Getting upset over this is so draining, especially because there’s nothing we can do to stop him in the short term.
Getting upset over this is so draining, especially because there’s nothing we can do to stop him in the short term.
For me personally, I think the most draining part of the whole thing is that nothing was done to stop him in the 4 years he was out of power.
1,461 days, all of them spent listening to people talk about how horrible it would be if he got back into power, and yet absolutely fucking nothing was done in that time to prevent the horrible things we were warned about from happening.
Exactly. Breathless emails and texts talking about how we have to defend democracy from fascism (by giving them money) but no real action on their part for four goddamn years.
Over a billion dollars raised in a few months for the Harris campaign, and the only people that voted for her were already going to vote blue. Nothing came out of it that helped anyone except the select few who got richer
Fuck every political consultant, and double fuck the ones who thought Cheney was a good idea.
Pretty much the majority of Americans.
Merrick Garland and the $upreme Court slowly snuffed out any hope for America with a pillow over her nose and mouth
People don't feel the need to riot or protest or anything, no amount of activism could provide the painful lessons this country needs better than the chaos and ruin the incoming administration will bring
If we survive maybe we can rebuild in the aftermath, but the time to fight is probably over. Country voted for this so why not just sit back and watch the FAFO happen
That's how I've been feeling anyway, probably not the only one
I worry that by not demonstrating we're fucking around.
But I'm done, almost half of the country voted for this.
My neighbor's voted for this.
I used to want to be helpful and a good member of my community, now I just have regret for my past actions. I'm jaded.
1/3rd of voters voted for Trump, a 1/3rd voted for Harris, and a 1/3rd just couldn't be bothered to vote. It's not that Trump got a groundswell of support (he got +1million more than 2020, not a huge increase), it's that Harris didn't get the same number of votes as Biden got, she got around 7 million less votes than Biden got. It's that Democrat voters didn't turn out in the numbers they needed to.
Americans know nothing of hardship. They take their way of life for granted. And will continue to bury their head in the sand until the sand itself is poisoned.
The fact of the matter is Americans have been lulled into complacency. Both before and after the election. This should all be completely unsurprising.
The 1/3 of voters that can't be bothered to cast a vote have abdicated their voice. Now they have to suffer the consequences of that choice.
The fuck am I supposed to do? I've been organizing, I've been to protests, I've done everything I can to head this disaster off. I'll be fine throughout this and I'll do what I can to take care of the innocents who're going to suffer, but what the fuck else is there to do? Clearly people either want this, or don't care enough to try and stop it. So, fuck it. They can reap what they sow. Maybe this will wake some of them up, or they'll all fucking die of the next big pandemic and then they won't be a problem any more.
Support mutual aid networks locally and keep moving forward. The only way we can solve this is by local support. National politics have become a distraction. Fuckit, help your neighbors and conserve your energy for those you can actually help.
Yep the best thing we can do is make our individual communities as self sufficient, independent, and secure as possible. By doing exactly what you said which eventually might create second power
It’s ok to take a break to recharge for a bit, but know that the right has been pushing on this for decades, and they only win when we stop pushing to protect people who are vulnerable and in need.
That kind of thinking only works when enough people think protecting others is a worthy cause. It doesn't seem like that's the case anymore.
People are uninformed. The reality is that they vote incumbents when they feel good and for change when they feel bad. And, in the end, winning the voter base means being the best at propaganda and swaying how people are feeling. Unfortunately, even if you want to do the right thing, you still have to win people over with propaganda. Pushing for good policy that's too complicated for the average person with the attention span of a small rodent to follow doesn't work. Its why Trump always gets crushed in the debates and still wins elections. People literally think they're voting for the economy which is a net positive for everyone and that Trump doesn't mean the hateful stuff he says. That's how good their propaganda game is.
i see the new administration as a threat to governance of all kinds in the US so maybe it would be useful to preserve the work of those institutions if they are shutdown or damaged so that they can be rebooted when the administration changes
just an idea, i totally agree with your point of view
Yup
Yep. Right there with you, dude. I did my part for over 15 years. The second I heard he won, I started locking down everything I use and run online.
Come January, a lot of us are going dark, homies. Stay safe, lock up those banned books.
History is about to repeat its boots all over your faces.
I get the inflation and low-information voter angle, but watching Trump win by such a wide margin was just straight disheartening. At least with Hillary losing, you could complain about the electoral college and how few votes could have flipped it. Trump ran the table this time. His people showed up, and ours didn't. Democrats are completely lost. They can't craft a narrative that sticks in people's heads to save their lives. "Weird" got traction, but "weird" doesn't do shit for working people, who are struggling with no end in sight.
Plus, I'm waiting to see what happens. Trump is older and angrier, but he was always lazy. I'm hoping he spends all his time golfing and rage-tweeting while accomplishing very little. He'll cut taxes for rich people and appoint shitty judges for sure, but hopefully he gets bored quickly and focuses on personal grift over wrecking the country long-term.
Trump doesn't need to do much because he's got a whole team behind him to get things done. He's just some shitty Trojan horse
My concern is more the host of ghouls following him in with a plan this time around. They'll destroy our institutions and feast on the corpses to fatten themselves even more. The damage George W Bush did to government organizations by outsourcing to private industry will seem like small potatoes.
Trump was semi-ineffectual during his first term because he was an outsider candidate. It was Jeb’s turn to get the RNC nod, but Trump won and spent the first year plus of his four trying to wrestle power from the entrenched Republican establishment and define his own administration and agenda.
Not anymore. We’re still weeks away from Jan 20 and the Republican talking heads are already murmuring about recess cabinet appointments. He’s got the party wrapped around his finger, and loyalists running the RNC, complicit Supreme Court, a House majority leader in his corner, and an affable Senate majority leader.
I hope he gets distracted trying to unfuck the effects of his policies or bogged in culture war distractions, but honestly there’s a lot of damage he can do solo as the chief executive.
The older I get and the more things I witness like Citizens United happen, the more economically rightward both parties become, the more ruthless the Republicans become to be rewarded by The Base, the more feckless the opposition becomes. The more we vote and Democrats do nothing, or just enough Republicans win to stop them. We vote and the people we vote for suddenly go "oops I was actually a consevative the whole time!" The more time passes the more I realize organized violence or riots are really are more than likely the only things that will actually change anything. The older I get though the more I realize that will never happen.
We're all far too "civil" and hope voting for the oligarch lite will save us. We're far too propagandized and are denied the only real changes we need to how we vote to stop this trend. We will have to be pushed until it's really really really bad for anyone to actually organize a revolt. By then it will be far too late.
Apathy helps the oppressor, but engagement hasn't shown to have much of a positive affect either. :/
Why do you believe organised violence/riots help? Not that I have good ideas, but I am pretty sure that violence will further cement Trump/GOP rule.
I think if anything the riots/strikes would be better than actual violence. Basically any direct sustained threat to their incomes will force some kind of change.. anything short of that and these people will just continue to buy elections and buy the people who run. Threats to life might make things worse, but I think the "ownership class" need to be reminded that they can only fuck around so far until they "find out." The only meaningful changes in society in relation to the owning classes came from violence.
Well pass on that knowledge then cause I'm just getting starting. We got a world to save and not a whole lot of time to save it. Do whatever you can to put rockets on the elbows of those who are oppressed and misrepresented. The time to realize the monopoly on violence, and why that is was yesterday. It is now time to disobey.
I'm going to go ahead and respect democracy. Trump won fair and square. He should be able to implement his policies because that's what the majority wants.
I'm afraid that his policies will be unethical, illegal, and un-American with no checks and balances. I can't do anything about it now though; I already voted as blue as I could.
So yeah.. I'm ready to say fuck it for the next term and hope that he gets stuck on things that slow him down (like laws already on the books that can't be easily ignored, and pressure from other world leaders)
Im not sure un American really qualifies anymore. This is America apparently.
If he did it legally and without simultaneously pilfering the coffers for his own gain then I would agree with you. However, everything he does is a violation of the law and for his own enrichment.
Until Democrats stop being Republican-lite, they'll never learn. And this is what they get. Apathy and disillusionment.
Temptation? I've already gone to "fuck it - burn it to the ground". There's not fuck-all I'm going to do at this point that is going to make any difference.
It's honestly the Democrats that make me feel drained. They're the party that ostensibly represents my political leanings, but they've spent the last year funding a genocide, cozying up to Republicans like Liz Cheney, and abandoning the economic populism that got them elected in 2020. If they were at least winning, ignoring progressives like me would be justified, but nope! They made an 80-year-old man their candidate without holding a primary, replaced him at the last minute with a candidate who didn't even make it to Iowa in 2020, and the walked into their largest electoral defeat since...what, 2004?
Trump is vile, and petty, and cruel, and I'm genuinely scared of the damage he'll do to our country, but that's what I expect from him. The fact that the only opposition party to the fascists is this group of cowardly, selfish failures is so demoralizing. If we can't wrestle control of the party away from these incompetent geriatrics, I honestly don't know if there's any hope for American democracy.
I wish I had a party that even paid lip service to representing my political leanings, but left-libertarians apparently don't exist in the US. I voted for my district's Democrat as that was the closest I was going to get this time around, but even that was a protest vote as I am in a conservative bastion. Even if the Democrat party is wrested away from the corporatists, it will be temporary and the problem will repeat
We need to pass graduated voting nation-wide so we can get some viable alternative parties in here. I would love to have viable candidates ranging the gamut from conservative to communist, as that promotes a healthy political ecosystem instead of the current monoculture two party system. Makes a blight like the Christian nationalists or the Trump cult or the "leftist" oligarchs capable of infecting large swaths of the system.
And honestly the worst part is: where is the dem leadership right now? Where has Harris been since her defeat? People should have accepted blame for this historic loss and stepped down, but instead - nothing. What the hell is this?
They lost, what do you expect them to do? Foment an insurrection? The American people have spoken and they chose 4 years of a fascist, rapist, lying criminal for a president.
I expect them to still show leadership, to try and bring hope to their constituents - and to take responsibility for the election loss.
What kind of leader just up and leaves after a loss like this? Did Bernie just fuck off after everything that happened to him? No, he's still there, still trying to build support and help younger politicians follow in his footsteps. Harris should be doing that or should resign, not whatever she's doing now.
Bernie is in a position where he actually does something. Vice President is a bench-warming position with no real power.
Yeah, this exactly. I voted for Harris and I'm furious at the party for being allergic to victory. By becoming so centrist they are completely crippled. They've done absolutely jack shit for the average man and just sweep it under the rug. The Democratic party completely ignores us. It is utterly stagnant, with status-quo nominees like Hillary, Biden and Harris. I think without true progressives nominated in the future, dems will keep losing, and it doesn't even feel like they care.
He's not even fucking in office yet. I think what's really irritating the media is we aren't all resubscribing to papers again. Sorry guys, this ain't 2016 and we're not going to handle it the same way we handled 2016.
Personally, I'm buying electronics and appliances now so that I don't have to face his dumb tariff price hikes, and I've renewed my passport.
are showing a more subdued response
...That's because, if you're smart, you keep your responses off public channels. Didn't anyone learn anything from January 6? Don't fucking plan in public.
A few of my friends went full-on lockdown mode the second he won and I heard a rumor or two of people buying up hard drives.
I think a few people are going to spend four years offline.
I’m 41. I’ve been involved with activism since I was 20. Things keep getting worse. Time to try something different.
I’m also trying to shift my views to be more like Carlin, where I stop caring about what happens.
Carlin cared a great deal. His whole career was about bringing things to light. He was just cynical and vulgar in his presentation.