in the absence of competent advisors... or how to succeed in politics without really trying

[dubkitty]

no point to it. everybody knows what’s happening and that we’re fucked absent some kind of miracle. why spend my time bitching about things i have no power to change? it only makes me more depressed.

[01010111]

Because I travel to/from the US with some regularity, I definitely have a tin foil hat attitude about this. I have deleted all my social media. I've purged my phone's messages and photos. I even delete my cookies regularly and mainly use private browsers and VPNs. There's too much risk in these times of rising nationalism, racism, and isolationism.

If we're talking on a private line I'll talk about personal opinions, but I'm not offering anything political/personal up on the open internet anymore.

[Pepe]

I'm not offering anything political/personal up on the open internet anymore.

That's not the worst thing, my friend. I feel you!

[Blackened Soul]

Don’t blame you at all. I took my last name off my fb account.. turns out you can just use 2 letters for your last name.. I’m pretty happy with my googling me results… white pages crap (I am going to look into if you can scrub that.. an essay I wrote 20 years ago and a bit of band and song copyright stuff..

[Chankgeez]

I think we're all just sick of it at this point.

[Pepe]

And at this point I don't really hear or see anything that looks like a real countermovement. At least in the German news we don't read much more than what Gavin Newsom, Barack Obama, Adam Schiff and some people from Hollywood are saying against it.

The Black Lives Matter movement was incredibly huge in comparison to the reaction of the people who are sick of and suffering under these really terrifying political threats in the last months. Had only a fraction of that happened in a democratic country in Europe, be sure to see cities flooded by demonstrators every week. Are demonstrations oppressed, or do pictures and news of them just not reach the European media?

I hope that doesn't sound snotty to you. It's all completely baffling for people like me.

[dubkitty]

it baffles me too. i can’t explain it, other than that the BLM folks KNEW they were under imminent threat, while the average person here has no clue. news is managed very well now that billionaires control all media.

[Blackened Soul]

it baffles me too. while the average person here has no clue. news is managed very well now that billionaires control all media.

Yeah… merka! Nazis are the good guys! Feed, breed & consume!
https://youtu.be/Bp2tQ75pTD0?si=QkGTYYRBWkEe8nLX

[dubkitty]

there’s also the fact that the BLM summer resulted in very little substantive change. how much do we have to destroy before you do something more significant than killing off the Aunt Jemima brand?

[Chankgeez]

And at this point I don't really hear or see anything that looks like a real countermovement. At least in the German news we don't read much more than what Gavin Newsom, Barack Obama, Adam Schiff and some people from Hollywood are saying against it.

The Black Lives Matter movement was incredibly huge in comparison to the reaction of the people who are sick of and suffering under these really terrifying political threats in the last months. Had only a fraction of that happened in a democratic country in Europe, be sure to see cities flooded by demonstrators every week. Are demonstrations oppressed, or do pictures and news of them just not reach the European media?

I hope that doesn't sound snotty to you. It's all completely baffling for people like me.

Nah, you're not snotty.

Unfortunately, there's not much of a countermovement. Too much to protest against; I think people're worn out.

Obviously, Newsom is positioning himself for a run. There's a great lack of Democratic leadership though. They really dropped the ball on their pushback of what Trump/Republicans are trying to do. It's almost too little too late.

I believe the average European is more politically aware than most U.S.Americans. With Trump's first run, he drew a lot of people into politics who previously had no interest. Now more people are interested, but they don't have a balanced view of politics. It's almost completely partisan.

Demonstrations just aren't happening here currently. People seem to realize (as dubkitty pointed out) they're not that effective in this political climate. Definitely perplexes me as well. It's not a good feeling.

(more maybe later?)

[coupleonapkins]

And at this point I don't really hear or see anything that looks like a real countermovement. At least in the German news we don't read much more than what Gavin Newsom, Barack Obama, Adam Schiff and some people from Hollywood are saying against it.

The Black Lives Matter movement was incredibly huge in comparison to the reaction of the people who are sick of and suffering under these really terrifying political threats in the last months. Had only a fraction of that happened in a democratic country in Europe, be sure to see cities flooded by demonstrators every week. Are demonstrations oppressed, or do pictures and news of them just not reach the European media?

I hope that doesn't sound snotty to you. It's all completely baffling for people like me.

The National Guard has been deployed (and the cities they have been deployed to have sued the administration in charge) to a few Democratic-led cities to beef up supposed crime influxes (the opposite is true), but more as a front to allow immigration raids to continue unabated (at least when it comes to protesting, the same can be said as well for anyone who sees free demonstration as a threat).

Likewise, there has been no uplift in the Democratic party, unless you count everyone who still concedes to being a Democrat throwing their hands in the air and pointing in the other direction. See also: people losing their jobs for their political viewpoints with each new day (even Jimmy Kimmel!), but moreso ordinary citizens who are working two jobs just to make ends meet. As this point, the only plausible shutdown that would matter to both sides would be the destruction of capitalism, but we all know that's just not possible when it costs money to even be alive, no matter which party you are designated to lean towards on election day. Also, all the zillionaires would probably whip us all back into the grind within a matter of days. I recently rewatched Children Of Men & I was like, boy, that looks like paradise!

As far as forum traction, if it gives you any bearing on the unhappiness overall, one I have frequented for 15 years finally closed down due to politics taking over a majority of the threads (as well as AI bots, but that's another story), and a second one had to enlist twice as many moderators just to weed out the amount of politics that overtook even the most benign threads on a daily basis, which, at the very least, it's still around at all.

[K2000]

The next national protest (that I’m aware of) is October 18 (no kings March 2). I went to the first one and was surprised at how many people were there. Lots of older people. Not a huge amount of Gen Z, there were some though. I agree that marches don’t really change anything, especially not with this administration which isn’t usually receptive to grass roots pressure . It’s good for morale, for making connections, letting people know that there is popular support for resistance. If you want to do something with tangible results, doing voter registration seems like a helpful thing to do.

[Gone Fission]

First No Kings was, by the accounts that actually covered it, quite large in total. Increasing oligarchy owning increasing amounts of the media and trying to own more of it at a time so trying to felate the appointees who could bring antitrust on down . . .

It’s getting hard to tell whether compliance in advance is out of fear or shared goals. Functionally, it makes no difference. If tens of billions or more don’t constitute “fuck you money” . . .

[dubkitty]

demonstrations aren’t going to do anything but make the participants feel good and give the cops more chances to strike. remember, the March on Washington didn’t pass civil rights legislation…it took the Watts riot to do that.