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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?

  • Sorolainen@sopuli.xyzsuomi
    4·
    3 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·
      3 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.