I’m shocked that I haven’t seen one protest yet. Is the media suppressing them? If there aren’t any, why?

  • agent_nycto@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    Ok so everyone wants one, right? Feels like it’ll be dramatic and big and change and fix everything, even if it gets violent.

    But there’s problems with that, not only in execution but also results.

    One problem is the US is massive. It would take almost as much planning as a moon landing to effectively organize a protest that large, even if you only do the continental 48 states. Some of those states alone are as large as some European countries, some are larger, so the size alone gets in the way of things.

    Then you have the problem with getting all the people protesting to agree to a cohesive protest. Where to protest, what to protest specifically about, and to have a solid list of demands. Trying to get that amount of people to agree on anything alone would be huge. Like my mother says, it’s like herding cats.

    And then there’s the matter of getting that info out there. Occupy wall Street and BLM did have a comprehensive list of demands but the media pretended they didn’t. Almost all media is owned by like, six corporations, so even getting the instructions for that protest would be incredibly hard. And lest people forget, those media companies are final, so most of the media in other countries hearing about this will have just as much information surpression and do already. So it would be incredibly hard to get a comprehensive plan, demands, and instructions out el to everyone.

    Also don’t forget that we have the technological spying that didn’t exist before. Cameras are everywhere. Not only in your phone, but on almost every street. People even put those Ring doorbells on their homes and that company sells it’s video footage to the police, and doesn’t turn off, so any protest could be monitored and nipped in the bud. We have whole agencies devoted to surpressing protests and entire handbooks in infiltrating them.

    Then there’s logistics and provisions. Most Americans can’t afford to travel, much less take a week or two off of work, or a month, to protest long term. We can barely afford to keep ourselves fed with what we’re getting paid, and if we were protesting in one specific location, most of us couldn’t take the time to get there much less afford to. We have to feed the majority of almost an entire continent in one location for an extended period of time.

    And if it was one specific location, the hospitals, hotels, grocery stores and restaurants would be so overwhelmed that they couldn’t handle everyone.

    Speaking of hospitals, if, as in when, the police and military attacked the protest, most people could never afford the medical treatment to be able to get patched up, much less their lives saved.

    And speaking of the police and military, we have the most militarized police force on the planet. Our police don’t have just batons, they have live rounds of ammunition and full on tanks. And they are more than willing to use them on civilians, especially in protesters. Look up Blair Mountain and the Kent State shooting. Not only could this crush a protest, but people would have to be ok with the idea they would very likely die.

    And our prison system, being for profit, would salivate at the idea of getting more slave labor en masse, and the current administration is more than happy to detain people over trivial things. So everyone would have to be ok with life imprisonment if they didn’t get shot.

    On top of that, not everyone is on board. About a third to a half of the country is in favor of what’s happening and have a cult around Trump and Musk. A lot of people voted for this and are in favor of it, because they really, really hate the liberals, Democrats, gays, minorities, etc. There’s a whole media pipeline for this that they listen to, especially young people who normally are the type to protest this stuff. So there would be resistance from civilians on top of not everyone being in favor of the protest.

    Then there’s the problem of what that protest would actually accomplish. Even if you pulled it off, because of the supply issues, it would be short lived. Maybe a week or two, being surpressed by the military and police, and demonized in the media. The oligarchs would simply wait it out. It wouldn’t enact long term change, even if everyone could agree with what they want changed in the first place. So it might not be effective even if it was pulled off.

    And the primary opposition party, which should be doing anything, has adapted a strategy of self preservation. Concede to the fascists for now, bide your time, then come election season tell everyone that you are the better and only choice (because winner takes all so they are the only alternative) and hope for a blue wave in four years. Can’t make any changes if you’re not in power, so do what you can to keep it now and believe that if things get bad enough now people will come crawling back. So very little actual support for a protest would come from on top.

    And then, if we look at history, a lot of rebellions needed other countries to support them in order to be successful. Most of them had outside influence from other major powers. The other major powers right now are either in favor of the government, turning fascist themselves, or if they did intervene would risk starting a war with the US which has the biggest military in the history of humanity. So not a lot of help would come from the outside, if any.

    So while we also would like a massive protest, there are huge issues in the way of effectively pulling it off.

    So what’s been happening has been local efforts. You might not hear about town hall protests or stuff in individual state capitals in other countries, but those smaller fires are burning. There’s been economic protests, like the backlash against Tesla and the no buying day, which apparently was started to get people to dip their toes into a national protest. There’s been a lot of smaller community organizing, which hopefully adds up. I think and hope there will be more individual direct action, perhaps more Luigi strategies on specific individuals, as things get worse. Maybe more guerilla tactics, French resistance style efforts, are what is going to happen rather than a massive protest.

    Tldr: We ARE doing stuff here. We hate this more than anyone. The change will have to come in less exciting ways than a big, national rebellion, so sorry you’re not getting as much of a spectacle, we’d like that, too, but there’s a lot of prep work that would need to be done to pull it off that needs to happen first. We aren’t sitting by and letting this happen, and we are working towards fixing things.

      • agent_nycto@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        Yeah my guy I’m pretty sure we’re one “this election was cancelled Trump is president for life” legislation away from it being official.

        • Letsdothisok@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          After trumps 4 years are over, I hope those filled with fear, like yourself, see the light and seriously ponder where the roots of your fear come from, or rather, WHO they come from.

          • macaw_dean_settle@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            They come from the concern that stupid, willfully ignorant, and brain washed people can affect our lives in a negative way. And I for one have had enough of it.

          • kava@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            we’re watching an unprecedented purge in only a couple months of an administration. led by people who have openly admitted they want to destroy American democracy and institute a dictatorship.

            me personally I think Trump already crossed the Rubicon. but in the very near future there will be an order by the Supreme Court for Trump to stop doing something. He won’t stop doing it. And then it will be abundantly clear to everyone we’re in a new stage of US history

              • kava@lemmy.world
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                16 hours ago

                Roman history didn’t end after Julius Caesar. In fact, Rome would reach its peak a couple hundred years after that moment and then continued to dominate for hundreds of years afterwards.

                It just wasn’t really a Republic anymore.

                Of course that isn’t to say the US will get stronger, I think the opposite. Just that the end of democracy doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the country.

            • Letsdothisok@lemmy.world
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              15 hours ago

              Lol… my god, man! This is good stuff. Real story book stuff.

              It’s honestly surprising to see the level of fear that you and others have been sold. You people need to come back down to earth.

              • kava@lemmy.world
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                14 hours ago

                then please wise one- assuage my fear by showing me how the purge isn’t a purge. release me from this trembling terror by convincing me that the administration is not actually breaking federal law. save me from this horror and show me the light

                what does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment really mean? explain to me please how these ideologically aligned billionaires (who happen to control the white house) that say they want to end democracy aren’t actually planning on ending democracy

                • Letsdothisok@lemmy.world
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                  14 hours ago

                  They’ve never said they want to end democracy. And they won’t try to end democracy. You’ve been caught up in the fear mongering, my friend.

                  • kava@lemmy.world
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                    10 hours ago

                    “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

                    https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/

                    Peter Thiel is the financier behind JD Vance and one of the co-founders of PayPal- later on with Elon Musk. They’re part of the same group of people, along with various other Silicon Valley tech executives, who subscribe to what has been called the “Dark Enlightenment” philosophy

                    JD Vance, for example, has openly expressed his support for Nick Land and cited him as a major influence.

                    Both Yarvin and Land believe that gradual, incremental reforms to democracy will not save Western society; instead, a “hard reset” or “reboot” is necessary. To that end, Yarvin has coined the acronym “RAGE” – Retire All Government Employees – as a crucial step toward that goal.

                    Does that sound familiar?

                    Yarvin advocates for an entirely new system of government – what he calls “neocameralism.” He advocates for a centrally managed economy led by a monarch – modeled after a corporate CEO – who wouldn’t need to adhere to plodding liberal-democratic procedures. Yarvin has written approvingly of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for his pragmatic and market-oriented authoritarianism.

                    They’re essentially trying to reshape the government to function more like a corporation. Something akin to the Chinese or Singapore method of governance. Democracy is not compatible. What’s interesting is that this isn’t happening in secret. They’re out in the open about it.

                    I’m guessing you refuse to see what’s in front of your nose out of fear, which is why you keep saying everyone else is afraid. Me personally, I’m not afraid at all. I’d say I’m more morbidly curious to see how it all ends up. I’m fairly privileged and I’ll be fine no matter what. As long as you shut up and do your job most people will be fine. Just don’t be an immigrant or openly anti-Israel

                    But it’s happening. We’re witnessing a coup right in front of our eyes. They are purging the federal government and Trump has started to ignore court orders- dipping his toes in the water. There’s a lot more to this if you’re interested. There’s many articles out there and you can even read stuff by Vance, Thiel, Yarvin, Land, etc. They’re not shy

                  • folkrav
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                    14 hours ago

                    Vance’s liking of Yarvin Curtis’ NRx philosophy, which openly dreams of neomonarchist technocracy[0], Peter Thiel’s funding and support of both Curtis/Nrx and this administration[1][2], this administration’s ties to Project 2025[3], including the lovely Russell Vought[4], hat’s planned in it for the first 6 months of Trump’s term in terms of getting rid of democratic safeguards, dismantling government institutions and concentrating power into the executive[5], is already well under way to execute[6]… Combine all this with the things he’s been doing publically, like aligning with Putin, and threatening Canada’s and Mexico’s annexation over a couple of pounds of fentanyl and the trade agreements he signed himself 9 years ago, the constant barrage of executive orders, many found inconstitutional, but in such a volume that it’s completely overwhelming appeal courts, and Trump directly threatening judges not to cross him… I don’t know how you manage to call any of this “fear mongering”, when it’s all just things they themselves said and did. The only variable I can see here is how you interpret all of this, and I don’t understand how one can both support democracy and think what they’re doing is not completely messing with its very safeguards.

                    [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZluMysK2B1E&t=1027s [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/technology/peter-thiel-donald-j-trump.html [2] https://www.ft.com/content/a46cb128-1f74-4621-ab0b-242a76583105 [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/02/06/project-2025-author-russell-vought-confirmed-by-senate-here-are-all-the-trump-officials-with-ties-to-policy-agenda/ [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhrhyBwgFFE [5] https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf [6] https://www.project2025.observer/

          • agent_nycto@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            Well, I hope you die in a fire. I’ve got real people who are in real danger, danger I see in person and not just as a hypothetical, and it’s bullshit that you’re trying to pretend it’s some sort of delusion. I’ve had to deal with literal Nazis threatening to shoot people and you’re trying to play any reaction to that as some media based trickery? Eat shit.

            • Letsdothisok@lemmy.world
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              1 hour ago

              You’ve " got real people" who are in “real danger?” Who exactly are they, and why/how are they in danger? What are they doing that is putting themselves in danger?