If you’re one of the folks that didn’t vote, then please feel guilty for the absolute moron you got. Regards, Europe.
Life is political. Don’t bury your head in the sand.
If you haven’t noticed that a lot of things in your life are political, I feel sorry for your lack of grasp on reality. The taxes you pay are political. The laws you have to follow are political. Decisions on how your kids go to school are political. How you work (you payment, your job- and personal safety) - guess what, it’s political. If the CDC will protect you against the next pandemic, if the FDA will protect you against being poisoned - it is all political.
Tune out reality at your own risk. You should have paid attention to this ages ago.
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You had an upvote until the doomerism. Now is the time, it’s never too late.
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Our political situation is currently quite extreme, read up on fascism specifically the “legal stage” of fascism
Politics is life.
You might as well ask to avoid gravity.
honestly, regardless of what you do, vote in the midterms. It’s the only way to mitigate somewhat what’s been done. it’s November next year and every seat is up for grabs in the house, and 33 seats are up for grabs in the senate.
As a “peon” there isn’t much you can do until then about it. So really it all depends on if you wanna be blindsided by the changes or live in blissful ignorance.
We’ve tried telling people to vote in midterms for about half a century. Any better ideas?
Vote in the primaries. That’s the most important part. The Democratic establishment has failed it’s constituents and is clearly interested in serving only themselves and the wealthy. At this point it’s not just a matter of beating the Rs. We need actual progressives that care about the working class running the Democratic Party if we want any hope at bettering this country and not simply slowing down the current trend to the right. We need more folks like Bernie and AOC in the ranks. And that only happens if folks get involved in the primaries and support the most progressive candidate they can. Simply showing up and punching D on Election Day won’t get us anywhere.
This is the best answer.
I’ve been paying REAL close attention for the last 20 years and things have devolved so much I’m pretty much ready to stop paying attention and live in blissful ignorance as things collapse around me. But I still plan on showing up to vote every 2 years. It’s our duty. It’s the only thing I can really do. I thought trying to fight misinformation online would help, but clearly that isn’t working.
So yeah, live in blissful ignorance as much as you can to maintain your mental health, but show up for the only actual things you can do to actually make a difference. At least then, if total collapse happens, you can take solace in knowing you maintained your duty as a citizen.
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Pretending it doesn’t exist hurts the most vulnerable.
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Depends. Are you a rich, white, straight male? You will be fine and can ignore everything. But if you are any shade of brown, an immigrant or belong to any minority group or are female or have loved ones belonging to anyone of these groups, then you should pay attention as they might genuinely be in danger.
Are you a rich, white, straight male?
Good list. Need to add “healthy” to it, too.
Somewhat redundant. He already said “rich.”
A terrible diagnosis can deplete savings rapidly in this shitty country.
You could also Steve Jobs yourself with a treatable but deadly disease
This is probably my fav comment here because he absolutely could have been saved. What a shame.
I’m not riding his dick. I just think Apple was less awful under his leadership than under Tim Apple. I know the software would be in better shape.
upvoted and downvoted.
I’m not so sure I’d call someone that would have to dip into savings for healthcare all that rich. Well off, maybe.
okay so perhaps “feeling lucky”
Rich white dudes have great health insurance.
Before they started killing Jews it was the disabled
Eh, if you are rich you can travel and get socialized medical care in a real country
If the US keeps its current direction of antagonizing any place that isn’t a dictatorial shithole, the OP’s freedom to travel can get restricted very soon.
I keep hearing this “if you’re a straight, white male, you’ll be fine.” I’m a straight “white passing” male (half Cuban, with no Latin origin names).
When people say this, I ask, “what about my friends? What about my family? What about the people I love?” Does that not affect me? Are we supposed to ignore their plight?
I don’t see what we can do to combat Trump short of organizing and fighting back. We all know how good the left are at that.
If you can get out do so and I hate the idea of more guns on the streets but if at this point everyone that’s at risk or has loved ones at risk needs to be armed as much as possible and have a go bag ready to go. If goon squads are coming for ya don’t go quietly with them.
I don’t see what we can do to combat Trump short of organizing and fighting back. We all know how good the left are at that.
How do you think we got anything good at all, ever?
The left lost its way. BLM and Floyd protests were the closest we’ve gotten to the anger the left displayed for the Vietnam war.
Did you just stop reading after the first sentence?
Also, bullshit. You think climate change doesn’t affect us? The damage to NATO? Threatening Greenland?
I get your point that a lot of hate is directed at immigrants and minority groups, but you don’t need to be dismissive to such a large group of people, many of which are on your side.
Don’t try to make extra enemies. No war but class war.
Rich, white, straight, christian male. Given recent events, that second-to-last part is especially important :/
I think rich, white, straight males should also pay attention due to the power that class holds in driving social norms.
don’t tune it out. there are people being deported, people afraid for their rights and their lives. people not paying attention is how we got the Holocaust
the answer heavily depends.
Do you want to be politically informed and able to make accurate statements about things that are actively happening? Great, better cut some hours at your job and take up a research position for politics in your spare time.
Do you want to be politically uninformed and yet still say shit about things you aren’t familiar with, haven’t researched and do not understand? Great, take more hours at your job, make shit up, listen to what weird internet people who are totally trust worthy and not running a grift at all (trust me bro) are saying online because it makes you feel better about yourself.
Do you want neither of these? Being uninformed is perfectly ok and reasonable, if you approach it with the correct attitude, you cannot hold an opinion on something you are not familiar with, it’s as simple as that. Refer to science and the establishment for most things, because, after all, they haven’t fucking exploded and killed everyone yet, so they must be doing something right.
TL;DR this is my personal opinion, informed by years of consuming political content, and my general interest in sociology and psychology so take this with the correct amount of concern. I would ignore pretty much anything and everything coming from the political right, it’s either bullshit, a lie, or AI generated these days. Very, very rarely do they actually manage to tell the whole truth.
I would also advise distantly observing the far left, as they tend to do nothing more than yelling, screaming, and bemoaning inconveniences. The general left is a bit better about this. But they also have the “we dont really do anything” problem also
Otherwise, be very careful, be extremely critical of the content/media you consume, and be sure to establish your own independent worldview and political beliefs, you don’t have to have identical beliefs to me, or anybody else here, and that’s the beauty of modern western politics. Or maybe find some organizations around you that you can get directly involved in, to make a difference in the lives of people around you.
Yelling at people about things on the internet is one of the least effective ways of doing anything. It’s a great platform for satire, since that’s what satire thrives on, but otherwise, do something else, it’s more productive that way. You need a truly incredible reach to be able to make a difference online.
Excellent response.
I’m trying to limit myself to watching for actual threats to my family. Basically a couple of things. Watching for the same stuff that tipped us off on COVID and watching for camps actually being setup on US soil.
Trying to ignore all the ragebait and most of the news. I think I see manipulation similar to what I saw on the first trump election now targeted left. So, pants on head crazy.
Heads down and try to only pay attention to the important stuff.
I’m trying to limit myself to watching for actual threats to my family. Basically a couple of things. Watching for the same stuff that tipped us off on COVID and watching for camps actually being setup on US soil.
the best thing you can do is to keep the people around you safe, healthy, and happy. Aside from that staying politically informed on the macro level is going to be beneficial as it will guide you through the landscape more clearly. But unfortunately, that’s the harder part these days.
Heads down and try to only pay attention to the important stuff.
This is pretty much the meta for now. You can’t fight if you aren’t physically or mentally capable.
I imagine you’ve seen the articles about the federal government buying land in NJ and TX for camps? That was happening before 1/20. Almost immediately after the election that shit started.
I have heard about land being volunteered for use in Texas as a political stunt, have not seen anything about land being purchased for that purpose.
Pay attention to “events that actually happen” and “things that people in power say.” Pay far less attention to “kvetching and predicting.”
If you stop paying attention entirely, you’re going to end up with a whole lot of Shocked Pikachu Face in your future.
If you stop paying attention entirely
This is the part which normalization works to accelerate. Every message is crafted to rally supporters and repulse opponents; enough to get one to tune out and stop paying attention. Do it long enough and whatever they want to do will be done without any scrutiny.
This is one of the reasons the consolidation of mainstream independent media is a serious problem.
I read something long ago that I can’t find anymore that said something to the extent of, pay attention to the movement of money, troops and people. I struggle to understand what stuff that the news reports on means, so I like the deeper stories that report on an expert’s opinion of what somebody said means or shows like 60 minutes over the Nightly News. I avoid the bloggers and vloggers since they are not experts on the important topics.
I’ve literally seeing the rights of myself and other get taken away in the last week. I’m moving cross country to get out of the state I’m currently in because it does not recognize who I am.
They want to open up people like me to descrimination and hate crimes. I’m wondering what will happen with my job if this stuff keeps happening.
There are real world consequences to politics and people sticking their heads in the sand is the reason literal fascism is on the rise.
If you are privileged enough to feel you don’t have to worry about politics that generally means you aren’t the current target.
WA? DE? At least there’s a few states you can still be ok in…
Worth noting that iirc the lorax doesn’t actually do anything except speak up for those who needed help and protection. He didn’t win immediately but his efforts weren’t in vain. The lorax (or at least the movie?) shows you many ways you can be a part of changing the world. You dont have to be Ted, you don’t have to be the Lorax, you don’t have to be granny norma, or Ted’s love interest, or the people who spoke up first when Ted planted the tree. All of these people made the world better with their own contribution. You should consider it, though.
The Lorax failed as every single Truffula tree was felled. Then the person who destroyed everything passed the work of rebuilding off to someone else.
It is a great story as a warning, but a terrible example of avoiding destruction.
The movie?
. . . Get out.
The peons will be some of the most impacted, so it is good to stay in the loop. I wouldn’t obsess over what is going on, but a weekly digest of news is helpful.
The very situation we are in now was greatly enabled because lots of people did what you are doing. Dont lose sleep and sacrifice your health (edit not help), but if you were ever an undecided candidate while Trump was running, or you don’t know what an oligarchy or nepotism is or why they’re relevant, or can’t recount what happened on Jan 6 2021, you NEED to pay more attention.
Sacrificing your servants is the worst thing you could do. Who’s going to butter your toast?
That’s a funny typo, but I gotta fix it.
Honest question, in the pre-Trump days people rightly pointed out that the "ruling class " (Koch brothers, Adelsons, Soros, Bloomberg, etc. etc.) would try to buy influence in their preferred party but also donated to the “other side”.
Those people were called oligarchs.
Now that Trump has taken the reins, the term has turned toward him. If you look at the donors in 2024, the top six or so donated to the Republican party (Elon tops that list) but it’s not THAT far off from previous years.
Aside from the obvious (Trump being a dangerous radical, to put it mildly) has anything changed in the way influence is bought and sold, or is the increased use of “oligarchy” more of a tactic to try and mitigate the damage that Trump can do by calling it out as loudly as possible?
I’m Canadian, and I’ve heard the term oligarchy thrown around in reference to American politics for many years, but never do often nor so forcefully as in the past two months.
Aside from the obvious (Trump being a dangerous radical, to put it mildly) has anything changed in the way influence is bought and sold
The world’s richest man did a nazi salute on stage, in front of at least 3 of the other richest men in the world who all showed up to support the incoming administration.
The owners of Twitter, Meta, Amazon, and most recently Tiktok with the “thanks Trump!” obvious power play have all quite openly kissed the ring and bent the knee.
This is very far off from previous years. The wealthiest of the wealthy are making public displays of loyalty to a man who has flagrantly profitted off of the office for four years straight while actively making life worse for everyone except the rich.
Now he flagrantly profitted off of the office again before he was even inaugurated by launching a cryptocurrency, and his first actions in office are all directly and obviously against the best interests of the people but custom-designed for the well-known interests of wealthy conservative idealogues.
Yes, this is new. And yes, this is very, very, bad. Was America an oligarchy playing dress-up as a democratic republic? Yes. Were there massive donors pulling strings behind the scenes? Absolutely. Were politicians and lobbyists enjoying a revolving door of public and private sector benefits and making bank on book deals? All true.
But now the masks are off, and the worst and wealthiest have taken control with a smile and a laugh. They aren’t playing the world’s biggest and stupidest game of Monopoly. They have the Commander in Chief of the Military with all the checks and balances intentionally removed, so at the very least they’re playing the world’s worst game of Risk.
They aren’t going to make money off of book deals. They will make money off of wholesale looting and dismantling the government, and they’ll blame the inevitable economic and societal problems on us, on immigrants, on un-American citizens, and they’ll do it in broad daylight on 5th avenue.
That’s bad.
On top of what everyone else has said, I’m gonna be that person and bring up capitalism, which I’m defining as private ownership of business (as opposed to state ownership, or ownership by the workers, etc). Capitalism concentrates money, and by extension power, which is never good for people without it. I’ll admit I’m biased as a socialist, but at this point the biggest indictment of capitalism for me is that most of what we’re seeing these days isn’t new: rampant wealth inequality which leads to institutions decaying, followed by liberal and conservative elites being either unable or unwilling to fix problems that are plain for everyone to see, followed by people being radicalized.
The new thing is global warming, which can’t be attributed solely to capitalism but is being exacerbated by it. A handful of people who get their money and power from fossil fuels would rather burn the world to ashes than give up that money and power (yes, they’re probably investing in renewables, but if they treated global warming like the existential threat it is, they wouldn’t be bankrolling climate deniers.
(this should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the Soviet Union or the current Chinese government, they are/were both also results of capitalism failing but neither of those is relevant to democracy failing in the West™ also I’m not a tankie, authoritarianism of every stripe is bad)
Under trump yes it’s both overt and flagrant. Any of his friends, people he owes, people he likes, or those in his orbit get things like cabinet positions, or government contracts, or ambassadorships. This is new under trump. There have always been better or worse candidates for positions and questionable angling, but the “my kid gets this position, her father in law gets that one, this fox news guy gets this” undeniable.
This is in addition to the fact that the connections are now in the open as well. Trump just calls up a supreme Court justice when he’s got a case before them and they answer. Senators, governors, and of course house reps are the same and increasingly industry CEOs are playing the game.
To wrap a brief oligarchy/plutocracy comment, you can even go find a soundbite by trump that says basically “Elon gave us a lot of money, so I guess I’m a fan of electric cars now”. There is no more quiet part, or quiet part loud, it’s just all loud.
They’re now completely shameless, out in the open, and know that nobody is gonna stop them.
