People, RISE UP
People, RISE UP
Originally Posted By u/serious_bullet5 At 2025-05-05 02:29:05 PM | Source
77 comments
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The problem with that mindset is that you will never win at violence with nazis. They are much more skilled and ruthless.
You will never be able to match them and if you try you will lose the very thing you wanted to protect.
What you need to focus on is a pragmatic action like in an RTS or game of chess. Strategic thinking.
How can you turn the tides of this Cold Civil War or at least contribute to its, desirable for us, outcome.
The current issue is that the left cannot agree what the desired outcome is and hence cannot effectively act if they cannot agree on what they want.
Right have simple agenda and thus it is simple to rally people around it. Good old times. Can there be something more straightforward?
Left have some several nebulous proposals no one quite fully understands. Of course enemy capitalised on these mistakes creating their own simple narrative what left intends to do that is clear and easily digestible therefore much more vocal and viral.
As if this wasn’t bad enough the left then proceeded to furiously engage with this false narrative trap bait.
Democrats have ~45% in spite of their actions not thanks to them. Just because conservatives are so insane that even their incompetence seems better for many
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1. Violence is a Losing Game Against Nazis/Far Right
- Attempting to out-violence or out-escalate hardened extremists is futile. The far right often thrives on street fights, militarized posturing, and martyrdom. Engaging them on their terms risks legitimizing their narrative (e.g., "leftist mobs") and alienating the broader public.
- Alternative: Focus on asymmetric tactics—legal, cultural, and institutional strategies that undermine their influence without playing into their strengths. Examples:
- Deplatforming: Removing their access to social media, financial systems, and public spaces (e.g., what worked against the Proud Boys post-January 6).
- Counter-mobilization: Mass nonviolent protests (e.g., labor strikes, voting drives) that dwarf their numbers.
- Intelligence and preemption: Monitoring and disrupting extremist networks (e.g., antifascist research groups like Bellingcat).
2. Strategic Thinking Like an RTS/Chess Game
- The left often gets bogged down in reactive, emotional, or ideological purity battles instead of long-term strategy. The right, meanwhile, plays a patient game (e.g., Federalist Society stacking courts, decades of libertarian/religious think tanks).
- Key Moves:
- Localism: Focus on school boards, county elections, and state legislatures (where the right has dominated).
- Narrative Control: Stop engaging with bad-faith right-wing framing (e.g., "defund the police" was a gift to the right). Craft simple, positive messages (e.g., "Healthcare for All" beats "Medicare Expansion").
- Coalition Building: Prioritize shared goals (e.g., abortion rights, labor rights) over divisive internal fights. The right unites evangelicals, libertarians, and oligarchs despite contradictions; the left can unite labor, minorities, and youth.
3. The Left’s Messaging Problem
- The right’s narrative is simple: "Restore traditional values/glory." The left’s messaging is often fragmented (e.g., "Abolish ICE" vs. "Immigration reform") or easily distorted (e.g., "CRT" panic).
- Solutions:
- Simplify: Pick 2–3 universal goals (e.g., "Democracy, Dignity, Fair Wages").
- Humor/Memes: The right dominates meme culture; the left needs its own (e.g., "Dark Brandon" worked because it was playful and resilient to backlash).
- Pre-bunking: Actively define your terms before the right can (e.g., "DEI = Fairness for Everyone").
4. The Right’s Insanity is the Left’s Only Advantage
- The left often wins by default (e.g., Republicans nominating unelectable extremists). But relying on this is dangerous—it’s how Hitler rose (the center-left assumed no one would vote for Nazis).
- Proactive Steps:
- Electoral Pragmatism: Support the least-worst viable option (e.g., mainstream Dems) while building progressive power locally.
- Discrediting the Right: Amplify their extremism (e.g., Project 2025’s unpopular policies) without seeming hysterical.
- Alternative Institutions: Unions, co-ops, and community networks can build left-wing power outside electoral politics.
5. Cold Civil War Dynamics
- The U.S. is in a "cold" conflict where the right seeks to exploit democratic systems to end democracy (e.g., gerrymandering, voter suppression). The left must:
- Play the long game: Focus on voter registration, judicial appointments, and constitutional safeguards.
- Deprive the right of oxygen: Economic policies that reduce despair (e.g., student debt relief undercutting incel/white supremacist recruitment).
Final Thought:
The left’s biggest weakness isn’t policy—it’s discipline. The right marches in lockstep; the left overthinks. To win:
- Unite around a few clear goals.
- Stop feeding the right’s outrage machine.
- Build durable power (not just viral moments).
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Are people not paying attention, or just love to blame Democrats? They’re not asking for compromises. They’re making clear demands and getting voted down. Most recently, the House Judiciary Committee voted on the deportations. Democrats insisted that citizens be exempt from deportation. Republicans voted them down. This is what happens when you have full Republican control of our government. Keep bitching about the minority party fighting for you, and this is here to stay.
You want fresh blood in the seats? Me too. Vote in the congressional midterm primaries next year. We all have a say in who sits in those seats, but only the elderly retirees show up for the vote.
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And they’ve been sitting on their hands for years even when they did have power. They routinely allow this shit to happen and it’s a little late to say them asking if maybe US citizens could be exempt shows how great they really are. Like, they should be demanding that any deportation needs far better scrutiny, and that would right there take care of the citizen part while also protecting so many others. It’s basically the meme we’re commenting on!
They aren’t protecting the US from shit, and it fucking shows. Your country is bad and you should feel bad, not be making excuses and complaining about Democrats not getting respect for unsuccessfully doing the bare minimum and then saying “guess that’s that.”
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Democrats should have demanded the removal of most of the republican party from office via the 14th amendment. Refuse to cooperate with this illegitimate government.
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There will never be enough fresh blood.
Even if the democrats were all progressives and had 100% of the entire government things are too fucked to be fixed before the collapse.
Also, I vote in every primary and they always lose. Turns out we’re just a conservative country.
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100% of Dems voted in favor of Trump's first 2 picks for his cabinet, despite spending hours upon hours grilling them and talking about how unfit for the jobs they are.
It was only after they started getting outraged calls in the thousands per day compared to the usual 30 that they started voting against Trump's cabinet.
Look at Schumer and Pelosi. Or the party appointing a man practically on his deathbed over fresh blood to one of the most important positions in the party. A man who had to resign 4 months later, IIRC.
The Dems only offer up any real resistance when they're forced to by us. Otherwise, they vote no, voice a few complaints, and then go about their day like it's any other.
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It’s our job to replace them in primaries if they don’t represent us. It’s also our job to inform them of our stance on issues, just as it’s their job to vote in line with those requests.
You just said they do their job, like it’s a bad thing. There are Republicans getting lambasted in town halls that go right back to DC and do whatever Trump wants. How is that the same to you?
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You forgot to add the corporations raining down money on both sides to keep things this way.
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imagine functioning as controlled opposition while not even being controlled opposition. those desk jobs are way too fucking nice
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We all need to do what we can do to fight back including civil disobedience. One of the most powerful but unfortunately forgotten ways of fighting back is protesting. The powers at be don’t like it because they have no control of the information. Reddit perm banned me for being too outspoken. So here I am. Please people rise up and get loud!!!
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Absolutely. Republicans aren’t afraid of losing their seats with 5M people in the streets nationwide. We need a lot more of us to scare them into dissent.
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Ever since Trump won I sloooooow walllllkkk everything at work. It's been great for my mental health. I can't give up my job because I have a family to feed. But I can slow down machinery at work and cause lots of inefficiencies. Fuck you, trump voting industry.
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They're not doing anything because they are complicit. The DNC and the majority of Democrats are completely fine with fascism as long as it does not impact themselves.
It's not even a question anymore, every single House Democrat proved it recently by voting in favor of the "Take it Down" act.
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It’s not even a question anymore, every single House Democrat proved it recently by voting in favor of the “Take it Down” act.
everyone voted for that except 2 republicans lol
this includes AOC, and i think bernie sanders, some didnt vote at all
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If you assume that Republicans will ever compromise, it makes an ass out of you and me.
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Every single day it seems more and more that a French style revolution is the only solution
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Unpopular opinion: The problem is the people, roughly 30%-40% of them but continuing to grow, and their inability to cope with modern propaganda herding techniques through big data, social networks, and now AI.
What we have today are governments, whether they be two party or more, being divided into the ideological parties, those willing to operate within the framing and intent of their constitutions, to those willing to game it. Those willing to game it and those attracted to oligarchs and easy lobby wealth only seem to have an ideological factor to them because they adopt the political ideologies of least resistance - which they will gladly go back on, and have done so as their attempts to game the system have led them to the sort of voter menagerie they have now.
People blaming the "democratic party", in this context the US democratic party, are ignorant enough to not realize that a "party" in the US is just a donor list to finance candidate race's for congress and that it is very easy for a corrupt candidate to run for the "party" in states where it is beneficial for them to do so - as long as they can cajole that list of donors long enough. This isn't like some other countries where being part of a party actually means something. In the US, both parties have a significant degree of corruption, and it was already arguably an oligarchy.
But within the democratic party, due to the aforementioned biases, it has less members willing to outright game the government and more of those operating from an ideological basis. An ideological basis is basically the only thing a government can be built around, once parties start getting in that don't operate from an ideological bases, you are just voting on who scams you. Yet nowadays the portion of those action from an ideological position within the US government is no longer the majority. There was even a rift in the Republican party a few years ago, and because it is inherently the party dominated by those most willing to game to government instead of serve it, it was MAGA that won out.
More to the point, an ideological basis limits what candidates do to working within the constitution and actual good faith.
So people blaming the democrats are people who have a deluded world view, blaming a governing minority party who by their very nature will operate in a handicapped ideological fashion versus a dominant authoritarian insurgency willing to do anything to game the system and make it that much more subservient. They are the sort of people who think they will still get fair elections for the midterms and subsequent elections, and they don't realize their democracy is now over and that what they will need is either secession into a new governing entity (not going to happen any time soon, because today's Americans can't comprehend things like the UK being able to leave the EU and the EU and UK continuing to exist and having that be the normal way federal and state interactions could occur, never mind the shadow of debt being a chain to the central government) or a Civil War (and while Americans will virtue signal all the way to kingdom come, it is in their ignorance, those countries that were democracies but are today authoritarian states, that shows most of society will be quite willing to bend the knee - if US society were for some reason different than the rest Trump wouldn't have gotten so far).
At a personal level, what people can do and will do is resistance, and be honest, let me ask you, supposing 1/3 of the US was doing the same effort, the same investment at resisting that you, personally are doing right now, given that 1/3 are inert "undecideds" more likely to get caught and the other 1/3 is MAGA, and keeping in mind that the authoritarian government is operating outside of society and is choosing to game it, what change would you really affect? How about we make it an even easier question? What if the authoritarian was a foreign monarch in Europe with an ocean of distance between them and you, if the most advanced form of travel was by ship and there was no AI, no big data, no social network herding, no instant communication, if your actions right now were representative of what the rest of society was doing, how much of a change would they be likely to make?
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1/3 of people don't vote. They are disenfranchised or politically apathetic. 2/3 of people are propagandized or coerced into voting for parties that don't serve anything besides capital, greed, and their own lust for power.
We need a new system. The concept of "political parties" is harmful to human progress. We don't need people on imaginary teams playing tug of war with each other while the world burns.
What we do need is strong and principled leadership, that is not poisoned by capital or team politics, that is motivated towards improving the planet and actually working to solving critical issues instead of worrying incessantly about "cost" at every single step.
There's no need to play the blame game, but if we want a future that is not undesirable, it necessitates positive action and a willingness to identify what is blocking or stagnating us as a species.
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Let's talk it out!
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The elephant in the room is that people are stupid and politics is about winning them over by any means. There are only winners and losers and nobody cares how you win when you get immunity and can start doling out lucrative government contracts.
The jackass in the room doesn't realize that you have to really manipulate the dummies and do some serious showmanship so that you can get the real policies you want implemented that give more money and power to your side whilst simultaneously pulling the rug out from the other side, draining their capacity to resist by barraging them with stupid bullshit that consumes their money, power and influence for things that generally have no impact to 99% of people beyond a psychological one.
77 comments
I swear to God, people spend more time blaming Democrats for not fighting Republicans well enough than they do Republicans for doing things that need fighting.
The ire has to do with the representative government where the representatives are not representing.
Which would, in fact, prevent Republicans from doing things that need to be fought.
When representatives in democracy aren't representing. You kinda lose democracy.
That's because after watching mitch McConnell do literally fucking anything he wanted for years, Democratic leaders and the DNC have the audacity to whine about not being able to do anything.
All so Cuck Schumer can suck off Netanyahu.
I hate republicans, and conservatives in general. They are worse than vermin. But democrats deserve a ton of hate for how badly everything is going. The DNC allowed this to happen, Biden failed his oath of office, allowing Trump to even get on the ticket. The Supreme Court straight up granting immunity to Presidents meant that he could have and should have done everything in his power force them to reverse that because that shit isn't in the constitution.
McConnell managed that because Republicans vote in lock step on basically everything. That's not the DNC's fault.
Democrats tend to follow rules. That's kind of their thing. When society prefers those who aren't following rules, and explicitly and implicity give them power, the power imbalance is undeniable.
Unfortunately, if Democrats stop following rules, it will make them not worth giving power, power corrupts and all that.
So while it's very nice to push all the blame on them, the only group of people who actually responsible is that quarter of Americans that still didn't lost their minds. Their job was to elect nit monsters and continue to push them to the right direction. Instead they elected monsters into all the power and now are surprised why monsters have all the power.
Americans love to complain but hate to take action.
I mean, what's the larger problem: the operator of the orphan crushing machine, or the guy that won't try to stop them because there's a 'no trespassing' sign on the lawn?