So many solutions

"Resistance theater" is a great term.

It's also a term describing the protest non-voters.
- "I'm not owned, you're owned!" as the poster turned into a corn cob

So when are you planning on going out to actually prosecute that revolution you're memeing about? Because I'm seeing a lot of memes and not a lot of stringing fascists up by their ankles.

"Me" is also one of the "grey NPCs" sooo

How'd "not voting to punish the dems" work last time?

It's really weird to blame individuals for the failures of an organization. They can plan and change and strategize. The random voter your screaming at is a void. Stop being angry at the void, be angry at the thing that can actually change and do something.
voting only works if you also put in the work after the fact. When biden got elected, suddenly all the political fervor of the previous ~4 years vanished. And, assuming we get out of the current morass in one piece, it's likely that all the uproar going on now will similarly disappear once "our guy" is in the oval office again.
Voting is the least any person can do, but without pounding the pavement and going out and doing the legwork, it's just a bone they throw to us so we shut up. It happens every time, in every presidential election I can remember, and yet there are still people out here saying "but dae vote or dont complain!!:!:!:!:!"!"!"!?!!:!L!". It's insulting.
There are few, if any, actually effective political movements that relied solely on officially approved political avenues to achieve anything. The Civil Rights movement in the US didn't merely vote until the federal government deigned them worthy of being treated like human beings; they got out in the streets and demanded equality. The Indian Independence movement didn't succeed by only appealing to the official colonial political apparatus using whatever methods were allowed them. They went and earned it.
So, whenever the liberal voting bloc is ready to stop letting themselves be politically infantilized by the electoral process, get at me.

I've got a solution, get rid of Facebook and Fox News in your Maga people's lives. Put parental controls on their TVs if you can and try to convince them that Fox News was bought out or something. It's the constant deluge of bullshit that's causing this.

MAX FISHER: The places where Facebook usage - not general internet usage, but specifically Facebook usage - was significantly above the average for Germany, the number of attacks on refugees was also well above the average.
SHAPIRO: That's author Max Fisher, who writes about this research in his new book, "The Chaos Machine." It's not just that violence against refugees went up in places where people used Facebook a lot. The researchers also looked at outages - Facebook disruptions - and they found that when the platform went offline in a specific place, attacks against refugees in that community dropped.
FISHER: Extended time on social media is addictive, and it changes your behavior, and it changes the way that your mind works. And it does that in a consistent direction towards more outrage, more extreme ideas and a greater hatred of us versus them.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1122786134

You could wipe every reactionary television station, radio station, magazine, social media, and newspaper off the face of the earth, but capitalism's internal contradictions would make their resurgence inevitable.
So long as wages are suppressed, social safety nets withered, wealth inequality balloons, education decays, retirement age grows, and healthcare becomes unattainable, the backside into fascism is inevitable.
How do you think fascism took hold in Germany, and how was it mitigated?
Your analysis falls into the same trap as other liberal analysis - that our means of changing our politics is a function of "changing people's minds" in "the marketplace of ideas". Liberal analysis champions the notion that "ideas" are what turn the wheels of history. In reality, it was Soviet T34s blasting Nazis into mist that mitigated German fascism - not some completely unachievable and unpragmatic scheme to break into retirement homes across the country and put parental controls on grandpa's favorite flavor of right wing pundit TV.

Just remember to always vote for the least worst, because there is no good, so that's the best you can do. And fascists are always the worst, by a mile.

Me in my 20s: "NO EFF YOU! NO COMPROMISE!"
Me, tired, in my 30s: "1 vote for Kodos, please"
- 80% of Democrat voters: "yeah I know they're owned by corporate interests and won't actually make good on any of their promises, but if I don't vote for them the Republicans will get in"
  80% of Republican voters: "yeah I know the GOP is mostly about making themselves rich, but I hate Democrats more than I like the Republican Party"
  Votescolds: don't you dare think of trying to upset this perfect beautiful balance that will play out every election for the next thousand years. In fact if you even suggest it you're probably a Russian psyop

NGL memes like this just read like Doomer Cope and Fascist propaganda.

Oh, that's because that's exactly what it is

No, I'm not, because I'm not an American and it isn't our fucking job to fix the thing the rest of us have been telling you for decades was going to happen.
Yeah... Like, I agree a lot of the liberal "resistance" is useless but also every time I see a leftist online advocating for revolution, I'm wondering when they're gonna kick it off.
- People who are actively working for change in concrete ways don't often call attention to themselves by posting about it on public social media. If nobody in power is working to silence you, you're probably participating in controlled opposition and not much else.
- It ain’t gonna happen until a critical mass of the population has nothing left to lose. As it stands now, revolution sounds great to me, but getting arrested or killed leaves my family impoverished and possibly homeless. Being a cog in the machine is a preferable fate
- Dude... why you gotta call me out like that? I was perfectly content being an online slacktivist, griping about shit I'm not actually going to do anything about and now you've ruined it 😠
Direct action or direct action?

Ooh, anti-democracy propaganda started early this cycle. I guess cons aren't so sure about this one so they had to start this voting supression psyop this time of the year.

I'll vote blue out of harm reduction, not out of hope.
IF there's another real election, and IF the Neoliberals win, they'll do NOTHING to reign in the capitalists that fund the fascists because they're bribed to protect the "free market," just as the Fascists are.
All them winning in 2028 might do is buy a little time before the Fascists are on the march the following cycle. That's why it's ignorant when people claim the only reason we're collapsing is Trump. Reagan set the table for fascism and every president since has furthered that outcome. Whether this happened in 2020,2024, 2028, this was happening.
So vote for the Neoliberals all you want. I do it out of the starfish parable, to one delayed fascist action, it matters, but we're still in a capitalist fascist hell, and until we have something to vote or riot for that will bring the capital markets to cinder, nothing can improve. You should feel like throwing up after voting here.
- When you vote neoliberal democratic party, nothing fundamentally changes, and shit system isn't fixed. When you don't, armed vans are roaming around the cities putting non-white people in concentration camps somewhere abroad.
  You can boast your moral superiority all you want, but those are the choices, and every person with a sliver of morality should spend all their waking second to prevent one of those choices to happen again, more.
  The "everyone is the same, voting is pointless, if you vote you are a sheep that doesn't see the moral truth" posts are doing the opposite of that, and when the opposite is encluraged, you get the worse choice, the one that hates you and actively working on killing you.
Americans have so thoroughly bought into the notion that democracy means an entrenched two-party system, that they instinctively view any suggestion to the contrary as "anti-democracy".
Virtually every other functioning democracy in the world manages to maintain legislative houses with anything from 6-20 parties represented in Government, but somehow you've created a self-fulfilling prophecy where it's impossible for you to have because it's impossible for you to have.
- It's cool in theory. In practice, US is a two-party system, and a regular person can't do shit about it. So you either vote for least bad party and organise and campaign to improve something, or you vote for most bad party and spend the whole time trying to survive while the most bad party kills most vulnerable people.
  It's a shit system, US is deeply fucked. However, you don't go about fixing it by not understanding how it works

Yah I don't have solutions for near-term successes because we're now living in motherfucking consequence.

Our liberal appeals, our lefty identity politics, our scolding and appealing and hand-wringing about all the wrong problems to focus on has cost us everything and I have spent the last decade warning everyone that this was going to happen.

But sure, go ahead and keep sharing memes on Lemmy about how bad orange man is, keep reposting witty twitter exchanges and keep deluding yourselves into thinking "any day now, America is going to wake up and DO SOMETHING" while the situation gets progressively worse.

You don't expect some great plan for getting out of "consequence" you try to avoid it from happening in the first place. A lot of us were screaming the entire last decade that we need to mobilize FAST to get grassroots candidates installed in local and state seats, that we need to protest not brands for not being woke, but we needed to protest EVERYTHING and start hoarding and saving money broadly. You lost the left because the left was about scolding the right and not mobilizing people against oligarchy and corporations. You made it about inclusivity and fringe issues when it should have been about workers. Once you secure the workers and production, you can then fix the social issues... I don't understand how you all thought you were going to fix social issues while the elite capitalists were running the show.

Sure though, go ahead and blame the Democrats, blame Obama, blame dumb hicks who have no education or consistent values and just go along with whatever emotional narrative feels good to them at the moment- you know, instead of USING them like the tools they are. We could have done SO MUCH.

Right now, America's remaining middle-class liberal population are like a ripe nest of honeypot ants out in the Sahara. There are massive forces looking at that ripe basket of wealth waiting for any and every opportunity to chop into that nest and start scooping out whatever they can before it's all gone, and it's going fast. That's where we're fucking at right now. The middle-class is being raped and gutted and we're here on the sidelines saying "Is our platform inclusive enough?"

Fuck all ya'll. You were dumb and this is what happens when you're dumb. First you checked out and didn't care what was happening, then when you started to care, you just divided in a thousand splinters arguing about the dumbest shit imaginable for performative Lefty Points that can be redeemed at your local concentration camp for the benefit of feeling smug as you wait for deportation.

But sure, go ahead and keep sharing memes on Lemmy about how bad orange man is
It's not an orange man bad meme. It's a liberals ain't doing nothing meme, which is actually a true and valid problem. We have to find ways to sabot the gears of the autocratic oppression machine. As Helen Cox Richardson notes, if you got an artistic bone in your body, get to artting!
Also Knitting Cult Lady did a video ( on YouTube ) about how Orange Man's orange makeup is the same thing as Queen Elizabeth I's make-up (white leaded paint, which, yes, did poison her) to signal that she is a living god. In the queen's case it was a means to get England to recognize a woman as a legit ruler (rather than pressuring her to find a husband to take over).
Orange Man does it because he wants to be a cult leader (which is essentially the same thing), and we don't find his facepaint absurd enough to throw him from his podium or think of him as a clown.
This is how we know human beings are the evolutionary equivalent of a lowest-common-bidder project, the minimum amount of reasoning necessary to build a rocket and touch the moon. Otherwise, we are still brutal animals, and apes as silly as the ones in the jungle.
- I don't even take issue with this meme in this post, it's actually closer to reality than anything.
  It's the constant, daily "LOOK AT WHAT HE SAID AND LOOK AT WHAT THIS PERSON SAID IN REPLY" or other kinds of fake, delusional satisfaction-porn that we all spread and pat ourselves on the back for that bothers me. I don't mind the propaganda, we need everything we have, but I don't like how it's being circulated in places where it's just reinforcing people's belief that we're actually scoring points.
  I feel strongly that if the average LemmyLefty were to see just how strong the country's conservative base really is, and just how tuned-out and apathetic the average American voter is, any how many there really are, they would despair the way I have and sound just as angry and cynical as me.
  And then hopefully, after the despair passes, they will start tackling it seriously like the real problem that it is, from a more realistic ground-floor than letting themselves get distracted over every identity-politics hit-piece and emotional appeal designed to make people lose rational thought.
Everything you claim should be done is what Bernie Sanders supported and that got us nowhere.
It's really easy to get up on your high horse and claim that leftist identity politics is the problem instead of looking at the systemic failures of American democracy. Lobbying, Gerrymandering, media outlet control, anti-intellectual propaganda, voter disenfranchisement, an underfunded education system, the electoral college, a packed supreme court, etc.
This isn't a case of 'if you can stop being righteous and just hate gay people for a moment we could have had universal health care.' This is a case of the democratic process unravelling in its end stages as the popular candidate lost the vote four times in the seven presidential elections.
- Everything you claim should be done is what Bernie Sanders supported and that got us nowhere.
  Imagine if Bernie just gave up the first time he lost an election, he would have bowed out in 1972 when he only got 2.1% of the vote in a Vermont Senate special election.
  Instead he's been bang on consistent with his views for going on 60 goddamn years now. The rest of the left could learn a lot from that.
- Never forget that thousands lined up to vote for Bernie during covid, putting their health at risk and he ultimately... dropped out.
  Real leadership quality there. I'm sure his candidacy would have been enough to stop the fascists.
- if you can stop being righteous and just hate gay people for a moment we could have had universal health care.
  What's really sunk is this widespread, infectious binary thinking. It's not even natural, it's a product of media and propaganda.
  If you all think "focusing on workers" as a priority is the same as "hate gay people" then we have no hope. It means our minds are not capable of holding simultaneous ideas or making priorities anymore. It fucking sucks and I don't know how to explain things anymore to people in ways that don't trigger this kind of "all or nothing" "love or hate" "black and white" thinking mode, and it's getting worse.
  You wanted equality? Then you should have looked at how the average dumbass white, straight american views it... as a secondary issue. Then used their primary issues to leverage our society to the issues we wanted to see. Now we lose everything because we couldn't work with the problem we had and instead tried to solve all the problems at once. It's dumb and sometimes I want to give up and let you all have the fascist hellhole nightmare you all seemed to secretly want so you can continue to be victims of the establishment and not have to get off your asses and DO something for your community.
It was always going to happen. The universe is Entropic, and this is how that manifests. There is no escaping decay, our fathers had a good run.
- It's kind of like the difference between dying at 35 because you didn't tie your shoes and tripped on your front steps, versus dying at 85 shaking your fist at the world and saying "I did all I could do!"
  If nothing else, I am beyond angry what they did to NASA and the 50+ missions that just got scrapped. I wanted to see the surfaces of other worlds if nothing else at all.

Unmute this meme immediately!

We get it. You don't like liberal Dems.

Make your own party. Go. Do something.

do anything please

The only real resolution is the one people don't want to admit to publicly. They can't even write the words out and publish it. It's not even a game of chicken. Nobody lives forever. History has seen the correct treatment to what he is in the past. It should be done now as well.

Sorry to break it to you but the blame lies with the American people. In Europe, when something like this happens, everyone's on the streets and there are strikes everywhere. And the protests almost always turn violent. And we're talking about large demonstrations of millions, not a few hundred/thousands as in the US. In the US, the demonstrations kinda feel like a spectacle, a show that you join for a couple of hours. In Europe it means business. I'm also American, but I'm currently in Greece. I've seen the differences with my own eyes. The public needs to show force, or it has no teeth. I'm not advocating for violence, I'm advocating for teeth.

Unfortunately even Europe is going this way. The right have figured out how to spam nonsense on social media and turn enough people. And how to control media in general, just be on tv and radio as much as possible complaining about everything even if it doesn’t exist and offer up baseless solutions to solve every problem you’ve ever head.
See Farage.
- Even Japan is seeing protests against immigration right now and rallying for building up armies and getting nuclear weapons. Ideas we would have thought completely insane even a few years ago.
  Far-right rhetoric is the key to corporate wealth. As long as the world is divided, people will focus their fears outward instead of unionizing, creating competition or regulating the businesses in their homelands. Wealth inequality is how you make billions of people want to give you money for stupid distractions and entertainment and false security.
  We HAVE to stop buying shit. Seriously, we are feeding our killers and supplying them with every incentive to keep raping us. We have to stop buying doordash and fast food and new games and movies and new cars and phones. We have to start living like we're already in the hard times ahead, because if we can punch the corporations hard enough, they may loosen their grip enough or lose time restructuring their tactics that we can get actual anti-oligarch representation into local seats of power. That's our ONLY hope right now, and it's a longshot that requires each of us to do far more uncomfortable things than we want.
In Europe, when something like this happens, everyone’s on the streets and there are strikes everywhere.
This is not true, most major European countries have a growing Trump like movement and they’re steadily gaining ground. Consider France, the country most notorious for its protests, the left there does like the Americans – keep voting for their version of the Democrats only to get burned over and over in Parliament. In many spaces, European countries do not have as good protection for individual liberties and even social democratic governments are fine with doing things that are sometimes on par with the Trump regime (albeit not being as gauche, lawless and explicitly cruel about it). For instance, the EU is trying to mandate that pretty much all digital communication is put under AI based surveillance (under the guise of tracking down pedos) – the movement against this is very fringe even though it affects everyone. You should also keep in mind that European leaders, all over the spectrum, are blindly caving to Trump whenever he exerts any form of pressure.
In summary, many of us in Europe are better off in terms of not yet living under a creeping autocracy that has become void of any credible democratic influence for the populace. But it’s slipping here too, heading in the same direction, and by and large the general public is not really paying attention.
- You're right, but two things can be true at the same time: Europe is slipping to the right, but it still has a lot more civil engagement.
  But as long as neoliberalism is maintained while it withers, the course here will be the same as the US: Fascism.
I’m not advocating for violence, I’m advocating for teeth.
The status quo is more violent than a riot or political assassination could ever measure up to. I advocate for killing it by whatever means are available. If violence is a plausible tool, use violence. If voting still has any hope of accomplishing anything, do that. Our stupidity and apathy have created a monster that must die.
The final count for No Kings was over 5 million. Glad a bunch of folks that only work 30 hours a week can be at their commin protest point within hours and complain that Americans barely keeping their heads above water have low numbers just because our country is massive.
- 5 million is nothing in country of 300+ million. In Greece, last February, 4 million people hit the streets, in a country of 10 million.
- Look at my other comment. Greece is a country of less than 10million and 4 million hit the streets in feb. For No Kings protest in the US, only 5 million hit the streets. Out of 300 million ppl. That's the comparison I'm making.
I think one of the big concerns is that Trump is looking for any excuse to deploy the military against our own citizens. If he can start something violent in the streets, it justifies declaring martial law and taking over Democrat-run states. But in this digital age, everyone has cameras on their phones, so he needs the citizens to start shit first. He's not brave enough yet to directly contradict video evidence of crimes (although he's getting there).
That's one of the big reasons Americans are trying to keep their protests civil. If we turn it violent, Trump gets his way and we get don't stand a chance against a military invasion on our own land. Like in California, when Trump sent the National Guard to quell protests against ICE in LA, nothing came of it because no one wanted to start a fight. Protestors showed up, but none of them directly engaged with the military. Eventually the whole military campaign fizzled and the National Guard was recalled home.
We're dealing with that again in Washington D.C. right now. Trump created some fake crime emergency to deploy the National Guard in D.C., despite an all-time low crime rate right now. Protestors are showing up in force, but nothing's happening because they're not directly confronting the National Guard. Just standing their ground and peacefully protesting.
I'm all for revolution; I think the only way we'll fix our broken system is to tear it all down and rebuild from scratch; there are too many corrupt officials, on both sides of the fence, to repair it as is. And too many corrupt laws and regulations in place to function effectively. But you can't just go in with violence. It's a delicate situation right now and violence should be the absolute last resort. Trump has no problem sending millions to their deaths for his ideals and he'll gladly invade our own nation to cement his dictatorship. We can't give him the excuse to do it.
I was serving in the US military when Trump got elected the first time, and that was a scary time for us. He spoke very favorably about various dictators and wanting to reshape America like their countries. But he had a majority Democrat government that kept slapping down every BS thing he tried, so his first term was mostly uneventful.
This time around, though, he has a majority Republican government and enough supporters in high level positions that he's surrounded by yes men. He's been a lot more bold. I'm really glad I retired when I did because there's no way I could follow his unlawful orders.
I think that's the biggest difference between the US and Europe. Europe isn't going to deploy the military to break up violent protests and then use it to enact martial law and overthrow that nation. Trump will, if given the chance.
- Sure, we don't have to start with violence, but the person you responded to also said strike. A general strike would topple what's left of the rotting economy Trump created and angering the corporate overlords is really the only hope in a corporate oligarchy.
In other countries still, when tyrants start imposing their will and breaking the law, people just fucking drag their ass out of office by force.
America has the wealthiest, most comfortable middle-class population in the world, a relic from when we had great trading power and were on our way to become the globe's central service, technology and engineering seat, but all that is now going away and there are raiders and orcs pillaging the middle-class.
By the time they're done, America is going to be divided, wrecked and there will be shanty-towns where suburbs and universities used to stand, and all the frogs will have been boiled so slowly that nobody will remember how and why the country used to be profitable.
Right now, that middle-class is still so comfortable that they're not noticing the changes. They are checked out. You all are. The number of people on this site alone who cannot grasp basic civics is more than depressing, it's a sign of how far we've allowed our home to crumble and there will be no short-term solutions. We can start planting the seeds for a better tomorrow by getting involved in community and local representation and spurning the temptations of distractions and new shiny toys, but we will not sit in the shade of those trees. You all think this damage can be turned around as soon as "the liberals rise up" or some perfect, ideal leader suddenly appears out of the shadows.
Motherfuckers, nobody is coming. We let it slip, we stopped fighting the right fights, we let distractions divide us, and this is the consequence. You all should feel bad and be depressed. I have no positive news or bright side to look at. We are fucking maimed.
I’m also American, but I’m currently in Greece.
Oh yeah that definitely makes you a credible voice for "europe".
- I am from the Netherlands, born and raised, and let me just say: the amount of civil resistance against Trump's regime is shocking to me and my Dutch peers.

Eat poo no matter who!

Well... You're not wrong.

But it’s not helpful to doom about these things.
- I dunno, acknowledging the problems seems like a good start
- You're right. Everything's ok.
  /s
- I agree with that sentiment too.
But they are. Think what the message is implying here. Don't do the things that are actually important to actually pull votes to your side. There's no point since it's all rigged. This post is propaganda.
This post is like some political consultant group found things that could sway an election and turn tides and then inverted it to imply those things are just silly
- This post is propaganda.
  So is this reply. Also being propaganda is funny in this case since nothing here says anything about not voting, just that currently the two party system has broken down and no longer feels like democracy (due to how it is not). In this case who would the propaganda be for? The democrats? Not likely, they are not helped here. The republicans? Don't think they care, many don't plan on having fair elections again. Big molotov?

Full Spectrum Resistance, Volume One

Is this like a political compass kind of thing?
- Kind of, it shows that there are a few ways to try to achieve change. So if you keep trying one of those methods and don't see the change you want, it might be time to change tactics.
  The political axes of moderate–militant and liberal–radical may seem equivalent, but they are not. It’s true that liberals are often moderates, and radicals are often militants. But that’s not inevitable and it’s not universal. I’ve worked with plenty of radicals who were also moderates, who sought to make fundamental changes in the power dynamics of their communities using low-risk action to make gradual changes. And I’ve worked with liberal militants, who were willing to fight to make changes within established power structures. In any case, all of these approaches can have a time and place in resistance struggles.
Those damned radical moderates!
- If I'm only judged by what I do and say, I might be exactly that.
  I don't like it.

Still wondering, are leftists just going to share memes or is this suggesting we start building bombs? The message I keep getting is that voting alone doesn't work, that liberals, even liberal protests, don't work, that peaceful resistance doesn't work.

So like... Who here is actually thinking of blowing something up or assassinating someone? Are we just talking big while looking around for someone to move first?

Even then, where are the Luigi copycats? If we are so much more effective than liberals, why the hell aren't we doing anything?

the circles of people organizing and making plans, and the people talking about it in random surveilled spaces form a venn diagram with no overlap. even as the circles of people present here and the people who are fighting in meaningful ways probably do have overlap
- Where are these people? I don't see them here but I just don't see them anywhere. No buildings have blown up in DC, and the people we see who have attempted an assassination are loose lone wolves with conservative/ non-aligned backgrounds. Yes, even Luigi.
  Please, show me evidence of an American black hand.

Tankies love to post these memes about how it's hopeless to resist fascism and there's nothing we can do, but what they like to forget is that we leftists have the option of rising against the state, not just by voting, but also by organising for general strikes, civil disobedience, and armed revolution.

swapping the dems in, if it were even possible (it isnt, especially now) would be like changing captains of the titanic after it hit the iceberg. its still gonna sink no matter what. its by design. the debts too big, and the game is over.

the sacrificial goat was the US, and now a new shithole state rises from the ashes. and its blue print will stretch across the world to all the US's former allies in time.

doesnt matter whos the face of it anymore, there are contingencies on both sides that will make sure this continues no matter who gets popped.

position yourself accordingly.

Of two evils, you have to choose the lesser. Well, for those in power, so to speak, power corrupts or simply leaves no choice, so the choice is not easy.

The greatest evil obviously is limiting the choices to evil – some pure satan shit right there
- Okay, I'll tell you my thoughts more precisely -- let's say a new person came to power and from the shadows a secret government of the world comes to him and says -- "If you don't play by our rules, we'll kill you, rape your little daughter, etc. You understand, you have no choice, puppy!"
  That is, even if someone wants to restore justice, secret families and other people intoxicated with power will not allow this if it is not beneficial to them.
  In the end, there is no point in even choosing while the world is ruled by Satanists.
After the 3rd real life trolley problem people kinda just stop playing philosophy as a protest.

Whys it muted?