I’m an American who has been living abroad for 20 years. I’m shocked, as I watch my home country being dismantled by oligarchs who sold US democracy. And I talk to other Americans and they’re just like “Oh, well, both sides, you know?”
Do y’all not realize what you’ve done? The US literally has no allies now, no rule of law, and no democracy. You’re living in an authoritarian dictatorship now, run by clowns.
How are so many Americans just going on with their lives like normal?
Remember the Arab Spring? Massive protests in multiple North African countries, mostly peaceful regime changes. Those protests were hundreds of thousands of people - less than 1% of most country populations. Most of those nations were still going about their daily business like normal. Complaining about the awful government. Complaining about the disruption of the protests.
It’s really had to get people out of their daily routines.
In the US, there’s the extra issue that a significant part of the population are actually happy with recent events because they think it’s going to work out well for them, personally. Some of them think that the chaos is exactly the overthrow of 4 decades of terrible government they’ve been hoping for, and they don’t care what comes after.
Bread, circuses and two minutes of hate.
Exactly. The point of all the forever wars and having the CIA overthrow legitimate governments was all in service of bread and circuses.
Even ostensibly “liberal” people are still sucked way more into their personal lives and their “dreams” than they are what is actually happening. I said to my mother recently that she has been “playing house” while the country has been falling apart around her for decades and that all she “did for her kids” was for nothing because she never stepped up to make sure the country didn’t fall apart, thinking that as long as she made enough money and got her kids a good enough education it would “save them.” She spent her life making me feel like her stupid fucking six-bedroom house with a pool that she lived in alone was more important than my life, especially with how much she bitched at me to get a job, any job, any time I was struggling, including when I got fucking cancer. I pointed out that she herself could have been in a much better financial position if instead of selfishly living in it alone she could have been renting out rooms or the whole damn basement to others at reasonable prices and helping alleviate the homeless problem instead patting herself on the back for giving a homeless person ten bucks. All I got were excuses and explanations and no accepting that maybe, jut maybe, she could have been more involved in politics or more compassionate in opening up her home. She even balked at the idea of me suggesting that she ought to be getting ready to Anne Frank this shit and prepare the house to house people who need to hide from Trump’s fucking goons. I said cool, so you’ll be remembered as a Nazi because you’re complicit in being too fucking selfish to share your house with people who literally might be murdered or deported. Your ass would have kicked Anne Frank and her family into the street. Needless to say, whole conversation did not go well. The boomers were so privileged and coddled that they literally got to achieve their dreams while choosing to ignore things like politics entirely.
These people are out of touch and fuck-nothing is going to wake them up. It’s going to take fascists on their doorstep coming for them and by then it’s way way too fucking late.
But this is not new, is it? This circus has been going on almost for ever with all administrations. And why do you expect people to bother since they never got actively involved in the decision making ? All are being manipulated by big corporations and lobbying.
This attitude is exactly the problem. The current situation is new and unprecedented. Not seeing the difference is the type of ignorance that allowed this to happen in the first place.
I’m not convinced this is new or unprecedented; we’re somewhere between the robber baron gilded age thing in 1920’s America and 1930’s Germany. Not saying either one is a wonderful place to be, but I’m not sure we’re on new ground.
It’s the next chapter, but it’s always been where the story was going. The oligarchy has been running things since at least Reagan. Now the mask is off. Now it’s reaching the suburbs. You think being under the thumb of the rich and powerful is a new experience in America? Check your privilege.
It’s not new, but there’s still a degree of how bad it is. I only know personally, I didn’t change because I felt uncomfortable with something, I changed because it got so bad there was essentially no other choice. It was change something or die.
Now that’s only personal problems, but I think it applies society wide. People are still not at the breaking point, but the worse it gets, the more likely it’ll be reached. Once enough people feel so bad about it that it’s either dying or change for them, that is when real change will happen.
Wow that’s wildly wrong. This is absolutely a new and terrifying situation unlike any other presidency in us history.
What’s the alternative? I want to protest, but if I miss work then I might lose my job, which would cost me my health insurance and likely my house. I want to get back on social media and show people where I stand, but these MAGA people are rabid and will come after me for it. I’m ready to step up, but not while Trump has half the country behind him. I’m waiting for a numbers advantage. His approval rating is tanking, and once it gets low enough, I think people like me will be more willing to take bigger risks. Until then, we’re doing what we can while keeping our heads down.
Half of the country, more like 10% it’s the media pumping those numbers up.
You can still start getting organised while keeping your job, let the people who have the means will and time do their part, and do your part, your part may be smaller but it will still end up making a difference.
Even calling your representative will amount to something.
It depends on where you are.
Where I live, that number might be more like 1%. At My parents place, it’s more like 95%, based on the number of Trump signs that have continuously stayed in yards since 2016.
There was a party a little ways into rural territory and a lot of us went and the hostess was terrified when we started talking bad about Trump because the window was open and the neighbors were hard Trump people with guns.
I’m not a Australian and have never been to America.
It seems like I’ve experienced this feeling with America, and with Australia, more and more over the last decade.
I suspect that the answer to your question is yes, voters do not understand nor particularly care what is happening.
The vast majority of voters base their position on vibe-based reasoning. Low information voters, if you will.
There are many individuals who have upped their meds such that they do not have daily panic attacks. It’s not that people don’t know, it’s that they feel powerless. Some have gone to stand in streets with signs, only to go home to face the same problems unfixed by their actions and then have a panic attack.
Non controlled substance example, a buspar increase, additional hydroxyzine increase, and added blood pressure med. That’s not advice, that’s simply 1 example you’re not seeing happening. And it’s a common combo such that it’s pretty non-identifying, like metoprolol with baby aspirin.
The usual methods of protest are not working. And as much as people like to scream on Lemmy that old methods will work, let’s be realistic. They’re ignoring courts, laws, the us constitution, why would they listen to some “nobody” on a street in a city they don’t visit. I wish to god it were that simple but this is a new order, you’ll need new methods.
In the meantime, who do you call? There’s no customer service line where someone takes your governance complaint and offers a resolution.
Do you know anyone with any governance power at all? Most don’t.
Common reported feelings include: elephant sitting on my chest (overlapping symptom between heart attack and panic attack), feeling ready to “climb the walls”, despair, controlled fear, suffocation, among others.
The feelings are there, but to what effective actions?
Oh yeah, Australia is an authoritarian state due to… COVID laws right? Is that what you’re referring to?
COVID death camps?.. Or something?
We have an election in the next few months and our conservative party will likely win. They’re running a Trump-lite campaign around cutting government agencies.
Moreover we have always been very culturally, socially, militarily and politically aligned with the US.
For example, right now we tacitly support Ukraine but would have been very cautious in expressing that support since November last year. With our current progressive government it would be… challenging it Trump asked us to toe the line and declare Ukraine the aggressor. In a few months however I wouldn’t be surprised if our newly elected conservative government was much more willing to sing that song.
In my city last year there was a vocal group of conservatives trying to ban books at the library, and prevent the city supporting a LGBTIQ+ festival, and stoke foment over transgender people using public toilets. We import a lot of US conservative politics.
We may not seem like a particularly authoritarian country but we have ever been poised to become such. We’ve always scored very poorly on privacy, and media bias.
I’m Australian but don’t live there. It worries me how far right it’s getting. Australia being a very sporty place means transgender people in sport is a huge wedge that the Nazis can use. I’ve had to “disown” a bunch of family - including my mother, who I thought I learned my values from!
I bumped in to a guy at work the other day, he was in the building as a vendor, so not an employee of my company.
He’d stopped what he was doing to rant and rave about politics to some poor soul he’d happened upon here in the building who was clearly just humoring him.
This guy was parroting everything Trump had said to the letter. As every word from that guy’s mouth was some golden truth.
That’s a third of the country. People like that. Completely lost to ideology, incapable of independent thought. Proud that Trump is winning so hard all the time, and he is, of course, because he says he is.
Consider brexit, an idea so dumb in every way every way, and yet it happened. Many journalists pointed out how russian influence and social media formed peoples votes, how it brought out the worst side in many of my countrymen, how many regretted it almost immediately. Turns out its really easy to get stupid people to hate things.
Turns out its really easy to get stupid people to hate things.
That’s going to be the byline of this entire era of history. Oof.
The fundamental issue really does seem to be education, which is why conservatives everywhere try to cripple and dismantle it. Conservatism in the US spearheaded anti-intellectualism, but the ideology everywhere else is not far behind; constantly appealing to the lowest common denominator. This proves that conservatism does not believe it can survive with an educated populace.
I’m guilty of calling them stupid myself, but the only thing that separates anyone from cavemen is education, and the psychopaths and narcissists of society have shown us that our education systems are not fit for purpose, and holding society back from progress. The failure in our ability to educate the majority sufficiently is one of the greatest threats we face.
I’m losing my freaking mind over it. People, news, just going along like this is still business is usual. Real life Don’t Look Up.
I went to jail for protesting citizens united and predatory banking. The news coverage made everyone believe we were just clowns having a party. It felt right, but in the end it meant absolutely nothing.
I have no hope for any government. I only hope that humans will continue to do interesting things despite their government.
They’re utter morons. The trump cunts, the republicunts. They’ve always been this way. And now someone has harvested their crop.
I didn’t do this. I voted for the less evil of the parties, I advocate for the handicapped and disabled, I support LGBTQ+ rights, I give resources to those who can’t afford healthcare or houses. I did what I fucking could.
This is like blaming the individual for pollution. Who’s contributing the most to pollution?
It sucks. It sucks so fucking hard. But we need to keep going and not cease our efforts in the face of despair.
I’m doing what I can. That’s what I can do, and that’s what I will do.
People have to eat.
Fundamentally the US is broken, and people don’t have themselves to support themselves very long.
Medical debt can wipe out your meager gains incredibly fast. The stock market tanking erases your only real savings you may have had.
Under those circumstances, it’s hard to take action when your hustling to survive.
This is actually what causes green plumbers causes now you have nothing left to lose.
Yeah. That’s the part that billionaires and health CEOs should be thinking more about. Plumbers with exceptional jumping ability are being created at a rate that should alarm them, in exchange for amounts of difference on the billionaire’s net worth that they’ll never even notice.
Social safety nets make everyone win, even the billionaires. We just have an exceptionally stupid crop of billionaires.
Some of us understand. Some of us understood before this even happened. But we got the same “Well, both sides-.”
Now I’m just furious.
Calm down. The USA is not by any measure an “authoritarian dictatorship” with “no rule of law”. Not yet. Instead of wailing histrionics like this, Americans would do better to roll up their sleeves and do something to stop the slide.
Make sure your representatives know what you think. Get involved in local politics. Protest. Its precisely because your country is not an authoritarian dictatorship that you (still) have so many options.
Who the fuck are you talking to that is saying, “oh, well, both sides, you know?” The only people I know who are still saying that are people who are wealthy enough to not feel the immediate effects of Trump, or are conservative, white, christian assclowns who voted for Trump. Why are you talking to those kinds of people for an honest read on the US? Those people are part of the reason we’re here now.
Well, they knew Krasnov Trump was a TV show actor/host showman who bankrupted his casinos and still voted for him.
