I’m not in the US, but it seems to me that the Republicans keep breaking norms and procedures, including politicising impeachment and ignoring illegal, immoral and plain bad conduct.
They also seem to be fine with not applying the same standard across the isle.
On the other hand, either Democrats follow new precedent, with even more devolving, or they keep the old decorum and get their asses kicked by Republican foul play.
What ways out of this spiral are there?
Something that might be useful is a general strike (see https://sh.itjust.works/post/9745322 and https://sh.itjust.works/post/31602246 also). It would be nice for more people to be unionized in preparation for that. I suspect that it would be better to start unionizing for jobs that more people have (like Personal Care Aides or people working in a retail store or fast food restaurant), since after having a union contract is more normalized it’d probably be easier for people like medical doctors or pilots or lawyers to have a union contract.
I’m personally interested in electoral reform (see [email protected] and [email protected] also), such that I wouldn’t have to worry as much about coordinating with other people before I vote. However, it’s guaranteed that someone will always be dissatisfied with the results of an election that isn’t unanimous, so that might not be a complete solution. A more general solution might be to handle more things locally with voluntary organizations. Another option could be to generally devolve power to local institutions (like to a state government or municipality) or to create more independent institutions that are directly accountable to the government of the United States but can act autonomously (like the Federal Reserve System) so that less is dependent on the Congress or the President, and then to reduce the authority of more powerful institutions. If some states withdrew or were expelled from the United States of America that might help (since the power of an expelled state and a post-expulsion United States of America would naturally be more local, and the power of each would also affect less territory).
Emigration or civil war, I’d wager. My home country will be a fascist state during my lifetime, as I’ve been saying for about three to four years.
You are correct in your noticing Democrats have been the party of decorum - and that’s the penultimate refuge of the incompetent before violence. So, now we’ve established that the two-ply paper-thin veneer of legitimacy has unraveled, what should we do?
There are ways out of this. None of them are easy.
Vote with your wallet, vote in primaries. Go to community board meetings. Speak up, even if you’re afraid of what anyone might think. More people will respect you for trying than you’d think, but don’t waste the opportunity on something trivial.
Don’t do business with anyone with destructive politics to the point where it causes you personal/professional inconvenience and costs your money. Support local communities. Talk to the guy on the street corner you always see but never approached. Maybe they can tell you something. Talk to the guy that makes your sandwiches at the store, your bartender, your barista, your cleaning lady, your laundromat people. Hell talk to your drug dealer/street pharmacist. Talk to your coworkers and don’t be scared. If they snitch then you will know indicators better for next time, and trust me - you will survive the mistake. Maybe it’s BS, maybe you’ll realize there’s an angle to help yourself and everyone else. Never do anything unless it helps more people than yourself, and doesn’t have an obvious negative externality that you can account for.
Go to rallies, go to meetings. Show support in public for people you believe in, someone standing up next to you when you stick your neck out counts for more than you can possibly understand. Put yourself on the front line facing armed police. Make the point that you won’t break, and that they can’t scare you. Remain nonviolent until you have no other option, but be prepared when they invent reasons to hurt you withing reason - and remember that they may have thought they never had a choice (even if they did).
This is going to get ugly.
The next time someone annoys or inconveniences you, or says something provocative, ask yourself why, and ask yourself what personal hell they are living in made them do that?
If this sounds a lot like religious nonsense, that’s exactly what it is. That stuff was (arguably flawed and wantonly misinterpreted) attempts to give people a map going forwards. We’ve been putting in an abysmal effort to do better for not only ourselves, but everyone else, and now everyone’s hurting. Some people you can’t help, they’re so stuck into their monomaniacal vision of reality that they don’t care who they’re hurting, even if it’s ultimately themselves through consequence or some other metaphysical mechanism whether you believe in it or not.
Find a community, build a community. Be a leader and set a better example for everyone around you.
It may already be too late but your actions going forwards from here will determine what survives, and whether THAT is worth saving.
And remember - it’s not just humans. There are many other living beings on this planet that don’t have the technological capacity, legal status or physical ability to make themselves heard, and our status demands at very least the acknowledgement of some form of responsible stewardship.
Good Luck.
To all of us.
I have no idea, but I think something will have to happen that affects the majority of Americans. Another sustained Depression for example. Republicans will have to crash and burn the country down before their voters will turn on them. They have to experience pain for themselves, for they have no empathy for others. They say they do, but they cannot. They say they are Christian, but turn their back on what they say his teachings are. I’m fed up and scared at the same time. I hit retirement age in less than 10 years. Social security won’t be there for me. I did a terrible job of saving, I spent most of my paychecks on frivolous things like bills, rent, and food. I make good money now, but it’s not enough. I know I’m yelling into the void, but it feels good to say it.
Republicans are already poor and victimized. But all they watch is political propaganda (Fox News, Newsmax, OANN, etc) so they blame it on immigrants and trans people instead of the rich who are robbing them blind.
The only way I see out of it is not a way I like or am willing to talk about online. Let’s just say the second amendment is making more and more sense every day.
As a non-American, it’s always looked to me like the Republicans manage to get their shit done whether they’re in charge or not and the Democrats are just there to assure everyone they have a choice in voting and not much else.
The whole thing to me looks like a game of good cop / bad cop. Bad cop comes along beats the shit out you, and then good cop comes along to give you a cup of weak shit coffee as a consolation for your black eye and says something unconvincing about being unhappy with bad cop’s behaviour, before letting bad cop back in to beat the shit out of you some more.
And for every cycle of that, bad cop achieves his goals while good cop just acts as a glorified tea lady that tries to make sure you don’t have any hard feelings about bad cop.
it’s always looked to me like the Republicans manage to get their shit done
This is at least partly propaganda but for sure they succeed in misleading and confusing
The shit republicans get done tends to be
- destroying is easier than building
- misleading is easier than actually doing
- “flood the zone with shit and see what sticks”
- just claim success enough times that people believe it
Find me a philosophy or religious perspective that is unambiguous about brute force.
It’s effective as long as one doesn’t consider the consequences, but the reality of nearly every situation is such that there’s always a better way. Did the US need to nuke two Japanese cities and every inhabitant during WW2? Or were they just too tired, scared of a war of attrition and with the technological option available, they took the easier path?
Mouseland may have been written about Canada but it also applies to the USA.
Republicans getting “shit done”? What a schizo take, unless you mean just generally fucking shit up.
Destroying shit is what they said they’d do. They did it. Therefore they got their shit done.
The problem is that it’s far easier to destroy than build. They suck at building anything. They can’t even build walls. Governing is building. They can’t govern. So they mash the easy button and destroy instead.
“Destroying shit is what we’re going to do” is what the libs hear/see, the average trump voter genuinely thinks he’s actually going to make things better/fulfill his promises.
Libs see the actions for what they are. Farces. Pointless. Things that have no bearing in making anyone’s situation better - unless by “better” it means pissing off the libs. BS like changing the Gulf’s name. Removing sign language from government sites. The only meaningful actions trump takes are the ones to enrich himself and his cronies, remove oversight, or remove challenges to their narrative.
As in “getting their shit done.”
Most of what the clowns promise never gets done. But I agree that their grift is accomplished wonderfully.
War.
Maybe. How are we going to responsibly fight one?
Yep… war or a plane
Join your local advocacy organizations, volunteer and make the difference in your community/local area. It’ll have more impact for you than you can ever do via federal level.
Need to reorganize liberal politics from the ground up. Liberals need to justify their existence and the value of their policies at the city and state level and use that to build a national brand. Democrats in federal government seem to be totally unwilling to push their agenda in deference to political norms, but in my state they get quite a lot done when they’re in power
I disagree. Just by going off margins of past elections the last decade. Dems tend to have more loyal voters in non presidential years.
The two parties tango. The Republicans wouldn’t be getting away with it if the Democrats weren’t beholden to the same moneyed interests.
Did Obama prosecute any of the Bush Jr officials guilty of torture and guilty of invading Iraq over a lie? Worse Obama committed more war crimes.
But why is there a two party tango?
Democrats will implement some policies and laws and then see support collapse as Republicans get voted in. Then people who didn’t vote will complain that Republicans got voted in and dismantled what Democrats were able to do.
Elite centrists have dominated the Democratic party since Clinton. They love to take a “responsible” center left position and try to grab centrists. Unions, minorities and people on the left have no recourse but to continue to vote for them because the Republicans were soo much worse.
Trump’s super power has always been his ability to say anything it takes to get votes yet deliver very little. Because of this he can say appealing things to unions and minorities who have been disenfranchised which undermines Democrats.
The generation of boomers who have lead the Democratic Party since Clinton is literally dying out. These next few election cycles are going to be interesting as the next generation of Xers and Millennials have a different opinion of government and are much more militant and vocal.
These next few election cycles
It’s very hopeful to assume there will be another set of elections in 4 years or even midterms in all 50 states. We should be operating as if there won’t be.
Do you hate Russia and China? How about Iran, North Korean, Cuba and Venezuela? If yes, then politics funding warmongering are certain to prevail. Past US military budgets + interest on those deficits are sufficient to account for all US debt. Trusting the government and media telling you who to hate, keeps them elected. Netanyahu telling you Iran is the US’s enemy, or Iraq has WMDs, is why you hate them and support war.
The DNC can’t save you if they love Netanyahu just as much as the GOP candidate, because the GOP won’t try to balance pandering to anti-genociders. Trump has no qualms in Kent State-ing university anti-genocide protesters. He is better for Netanyahu, and then the Zionist single issue lobby that determines election results.
Your tolerance for war is your tolerance for politicians that will give you war. Progressives for war do not get much progressive stuff done. Though oligarchist bribery money rains when they are close to a majority to get some small stuff done.
UBI is path out of the spiral. UBI redistribute power not wealth, and prosperity grows significantly to the benefit of everyone including the rich. War becomes unpopular because we could all just have more cash instead. Nationalist “war preparation”/tariffs unpopular because we could have cheaper stuff instead.
Right now, not much can done, but ideas will change over time as the people holding the old ideas eventually die from age.
In my opinion, the current shitshow is actually a sign of old ideas dying. It’ll take time, but I don’t believe the Project 2025 will be successful. It’s happening brutally right now, but it will fail, because it’s being done with only very slim support from the population.
Seems like a lot of support honestly.
It’s an illusion. Not that many people care (which was the problem in November), but the ones who do are loud about it.
The issue is one of education. The Republicans have been spewing non-stop misinformation, and the populace is too uneducated to understand the difference. When people actually know what’s going on and understand it, they overwhelmingly oppose conservative policies. Which is why Project 2025 wants to take a sledgehammer to public education.
If Democrats diverted all of their advertising budget toward remedial education of the electorate, I think they’d find themselves in a much better state in 2028.
I’m sure the French were asking this exact question in 1788.
EAT THE RICH!
This is the way. Rise of the proletariat!
France is also smaller than Texas. I would like to see a revolution, but we are so spread out I can’t see it happening.
Not as a united nation, no. I think this is the start of the dissolution of the US as a single entity. The divisions will become clear soon.
Sure France is smaller but it was in 1789, going to Paris at this time would take days or weeks, now in a day or two anyone with a car could move through the US.
The communication is way easier now, it’s much easier to get organized on a large scale.
I would strongly argue that it is more difficult now.
There is mass communication, yes, but 90% of that communication is rolled on over to the government with the exact location, search history, secrets, psychological profile, medical histoey, vices, everything at the tip of their fingers for every single dissident to exploit and blackmail them into stopping.
In those days if a letter wasn’t signed and resistance posters were put up at odd hours, nobody would be able to track down the leader and who was doing it. Now, the surveillance state is so big, it would take a matter of hours to make a full roster of the resistance and have an “accidental” police raid on their house where they are killed “by mistake” and it is ruled a suicide.
The entire success of revolution movements came out of anonymity and the fact that the government couldn’t snuff out the organization and break it up. Now, with technology, it is quite trivial to break anonymity anywhere on the main internet. Long lasting organization is much much harder.
That isn’t even getting into engineered addictive media to keep people occupied and demotivates just enough to not get organized.
Most of the nation has the surveillance equipment they need in their homes.
Does the size matter that much? For all practical purposes both are big enough that you can’t talk to everyone. The rest is surely just communications technology, no?
