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Rattled by a horde of MAGA trolls, here’s what I learned about today’s social media miasma.

Last Friday I made a post on Bluesky and X, concerning U.S. President Donald Trump’s description of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor.” It occurred to me that, numb as we are to Trump’s stream of blather, the importance of that remark was being overlooked. It was an overt declaration by the president of the United States that he does not recognize Canadian sovereignty. That’s scary.

So, my post: “For a US president to refer to the Prime Minister of Canada as ‘Governor’ isn’t just rude. It’s a hostile act.”

The post got little attention on Bluesky. On X, for whatever reason, it went berserk. Over the weekend it racked up close to 3,000 reposts, over 29,000 “likes” and more than 5,000 replies. Those replies came almost entirely from Trump-loving trolls, piling scorn and abuse on my concerns. “Yeah but it’s Canada so who gives a fuck?” said one.

Do the responses represent a genuine glimpse of U.S. opinion on Trump’s bully-boy act?

  • MudMan@fedia.io
    663·
    4 days ago

    This quote from a political scientist they interview for the article is one of the most baffling statements I’ve seen in a while. I keep staring at it.

    “You know, it’s sad,” Givens says. “I was one of the first Americans to study the far right in Europe. I’ve looked at various aspects, anti-immigration stuff, anti-discrimination policy, the roots of racism. I did a video for PBS called ‘Can democracy survive racism?’ This was back in 2019.

    “And now I’m like, ‘Damn, I didn’t think the U.S. was going to be the first to fall.’”

    It is simultaneously nonsensical and the essence of “this explains a lot”.

    • Australis13@fedia.io
      27·
      4 days ago

      Even some of us in Australia could see it coming. Back in 2023, one of our former PMs interviewed a member of a CIA taskforce that had created a predictive model for civil wars. Normally it’s used on other countries, but they tried applying it to the US and you can guess what the results were.

      https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/americas-coming-civil-war/id1674095396?i=1000626742633 https://open.spotify.com/episode/0MVeiDPgEtLRMsg3kMHV2K https://www.audible.com.au/podcast/Americas-coming-civil-war/B0CH8QQ4N2

      • MudMan@fedia.io
        29·
        4 days ago

        Yeah, Americans are very keen on the idea that the situation will resolve violently through civil war (or revolution).

        I’m skeptical. More likely they will quietly submit, as they have so far. Non-US countries should consider the entirety of the US a hostile regime until I’m proven wrong, the same way they do with Russia or Belarus.

        • Australis13@fedia.io
          23·
          3 days ago

          Honestly, with the way Musk is tearing through departments and the cybersecurity threat his team poses, none of the US’s allies (e.g. Australia) should be sharing intelligence with the US any more. If we’re smart, we should be treating the US as having been compromised by hostile foreign powers.

      • Gorgritch_Umie_Killa@aussie.zone
        3·
        3 days ago

        I’d forgotten that episode. Time for a relisten, Turnbull has done a good job with that podcast.

        He probably needs another host though, someone else to bounce off to liven him up a little.

        I heard Shorten is about to become quite a lot less busy…

    • Rentlar
      13·
      4 days ago

      They searched the world for clues of downfall by authoritarian fascism but ended up right back at home.

    • Sorolainen@sopuli.xyzsuomi
      4·
      4 days ago

      While the situation in the US is indeed very dire, I would say that places like Hungary did fall first. I am also afraid that the US wount be the last to fall. Many countries in Europe are shaky at the moment.

      • MudMan@fedia.io
        19·
        4 days ago

        Oh, it absolutely won’t be the last, but the source was always in the US (via Russia, perhaps). European fascists recently held a summit and the standout quote, from Marine LePen, no less, was “Donald Trump has shown us the way, and the way is strength”. Orban said that “The Trump tornado changed everything, yesterday we were outcasts, today we’re mainstream”.

        The rise of the far right worldwide is in no small part driven by US social media profiting and enabling the grotesque drive of misinformation and radicalization that was deployed first in the nromalization of the Tea Party and the justification of the war on terror nonsense and then weaponized during Brexit in the UK.

        It was always going to be the US first. And with US backing as a wealthier hostile actor, others will likely follow. Keep an eye on Germany to see if the US implosion acts as a driver or a deterrent. Not everywhere will behave the same, but the dominoes are thudding down now.

        And all of this comes down to the last US election. As far as I’m concerned, anybody who could have voted for Harris and didn’t is a fifth-columnist, as is anybody who could vote for a non-fascist party with representation in Europe and doesn’t.