US Politics Feedback Thread - Page 322

On February 20 2025 00:51 KwarK wrote:

You prefer fascism. You wouldn’t do the bare minimum to prevent it. You can’t wait to pick up the baton against trans people and immigrants and as an immigrant I don’t really appreciate that. You’re one of the Americans responsible for this.

On February 20 2025 00:55 Simberto wrote:


I know of exactly two ways in history a fascist state stopped being fascist.

Massively losing a war to an outside force who commits to an occupation to remove the fascism and waiting for the fascist dictator to die of old age and hoping the state turns democratic afterwards.

None of those two really work well if the US is that fascist state.

I guess Trump could die of old age pretty soon.

I guess if you include communist dictatorships you could also wait for economic collapse. But even that doesn't always work, see NK.

On February 20 2025 01:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Both the Democratic leadership and the voters are to blame. Neither group is blameless. Democratic leadership should have been more persuasive, and voters shouldn't have been so stupid and misinformed. (You wrote that voters voted for who they wanted, but many didn't actually do that. To follow your shopping analogy, it would be like the Democratic store selling an item for $10, the Republican store selling the same item for $20, and the voter saying "I want the cheaper option" but then shopping at the Republican store. The Democrats' sign should have been bigger, but the voters should have also taken the time to read the current signs.)

On February 20 2025 01:54 Gorsameth wrote:
Voters were warned that Trump surrounded himself with the people who wrote project 2025, the blueprint for a fascist takeover of the government.
They voted for Trump.

Either they are stupid and misinformed or they were ok with the prospect of a fascist takeover of the government.

On February 20 2025 01:25 Zambrah wrote:


I want to be fair here, voters are stupid and misinformed, but its the job of society and the people who run that society to make their populace not stupid and misinformed, this suddenly libertarian mindset that Democrat supporters adopt in these moments is wild to me.

Like yeah, Americans are dumb and dont know shit about their government, thats just a fact, but I have a hard time blaming individuals for the failings of their leadership.

On February 20 2025 01:28 misirlou wrote:


One only needs to look at r/leopardsatemyface for a daily dose of misinformed voter moments. Propaganda is a hell of a drug.

Some of the voting blocks being blamed here is pretty much victim blaming. Dems failed spectacularly at their job. But everyone else should've done their part in enabling this barely functional system they got going.

If people want a functioning democracy, and their options are a gerontocracy or a fascist gerontocracy, there really isn't much to get excited for and go vote

On February 20 2025 02:36 kAra wrote:
if i want to enter the USA for vacation, do i need russian or american visa?

On February 20 2025 03:40 KT_Elwood wrote:
REEEEE!!

In Indiana a 28 year old David Cherry has been arrested for "threatening" Elon Musk on Twitter.

FREEE SPEECH??!? ANYBODY???

Police had a search warrant for his home, and took his legally owned assault rifle, handgun, ammunition and body armor.

THEY ARE GOING AFTER GUN OWNERS! THE FEDS ARE COMING!

On February 20 2025 06:34 Zambrah wrote:
Fascists have historically been very susceptible to voting, the power of voting has definitely been a bigly successful and useful tool in how we've handled fascism in the past.

On February 20 2025 06:01 Acrofales wrote:


So let me get this straight, your choices were:
1. Vote Democrats
2. Inevitable Fascism and pray Mexico invades and saves your country.

You tried (1) and failed so there is now literally nothing more for you to do. Oh well, better hope Mexico can help. If voting democrats once every few years can't stop fascism, nothing outside of WW3 can.

It seems that for someone as smart as you are, that is an incredibly dumb take.

On February 20 2025 06:38 Gorsameth wrote:
I get that your being sarcastic but yes, it is.

Once Fascists are in power they tend to not want to leave, and once in control of the state they have access to the state tools of violence.

Not voting Fascists into power is the best way to keep them from power, because then all that is left is a coup and those are tricky when you don't control the military, via not being in power and not being able to appoint those in charge (and firing those who won't bend the knee)

On February 20 2025 06:39 Zambrah wrote:
Fascists not being born is actually the best way to keep fascists out of power, its also about as realistic as voting solving the fascist problem.

Heres the real actual answer to how we deal with fascists,

Violence.

Surprise! Its violence. Violence is genuinely the answer to "how do we deal with the fascists?"

On February 20 2025 08:15 Acrofales wrote:

I literally asked you what your suggestion was and you said "well, the only proven thing that solved fascism in the past" which was WW2. Everything else has just been shooting other peoples' suggestions down or wondering whether American voters or American politicians are more to blame for the current predicament.

On February 20 2025 08:38 KwarK wrote:

You're failing to distinguish between my broader commentary on the nature of fascism and my personal choices to act within the situation I find myself in. I'll try to make it simpler for you.

From a broad political theory perspective my opinion is that peaceful protest isn't likely to work at this point. Fascism loves violence, it loves having an enemy, and an internal enemy is just as good as an external. The last words of the peaceful protesters will be "excuse me but you're actually not allowed to do this". Similarly voting them out isn't going to work. It basically didn't work in 2020 but key individuals required to overturn the election for Trump failed to do so. They've spent years fixing that, there is no world in which Trump makes a phone call demanding Georgia find more votes and they don't find them. So, with that said, how does it end? The same way all fascist societies end. Fascism is inherently self destructive, violence is oxygen to it, it will fight and fight and when it runs out of enemies it will make more until it destroys itself. In practical terms we're looking at civil war, imperialist invasions, or more likely, both. Certainly it's a bad time to be a non nuclear Mexico. The next few decades are not going to be good for the world.

My suggestions for individuals would be to work out where they fit within that and how they and their family survive. Whether that be emigration, arming themselves, insulating themselves against state power by ceasing to use any compromised communication, or other direct action.

I have made my own plans which I am not interested in discussing with you. They do not involve twirling a baton though.

Your mistake is in assuming that my contempt for the vagina hat wearing "resist" approach makes me compliant. I am more radical, not less radical, than you.

On February 20 2025 10:05 Mohdoo wrote:
I think during Trump's first term, his crew dug around to determine the US military's contingency plans and wargame scenarios relating to a dictatorship taking over the federal government. We know the military uses game theory stuff for contingencies and whatnot, so we can infer a lot based on what Trump has done.

The US military is designed to be entirely subservient to our federal government but I think WW2 and the cold war each individually justified the US military designing contingency plans for thwarting a fascist dictatorship taking over the federal government. A military coup would be enormously harmful to the country regardless of how or why it was done, so I think their contingency plans only trigger in the absolute most dire of circumstances. I think Trump and his team determined the specific interlocks that would trigger a military coup and planned takeover to maneuver around those interlocks. For example, I think Trump ordering the military to kill all democrat senators and congresspeople would trigger some kind of coup protocol.

I think that’s why project 2025 was crafted so carefully and also openly. During Trump's first term, they collected all the information they needed to design the perfect fascist takeover without needing to move slowly or carefully to prevent accidentally triggering a military coup. Without the need for a slow and steady approach, they could design the entire thing ahead of time. And by broadcasting the whole thing somewhat openly, rather than operating in the shadows, it prevented it from appearing to be a credible threat. This allowed them to operate openly and muster all the logistics and manpower necessary to have all the pieces in all the right places to pull it off.

Strictly speaking, the US government becoming a dictatorship does not technically justify a full-ass military coup. The country could still maintain its integrity and military interests without a coup. And the dictatorship would not necessarily last, so a coup could do more harm than good if it was done in anything other than the most dire of circumstances. I think Trump's government plans to conduct this takeover as broadly as they can while carefully ensuring they never step over the red lines that would trigger a military coup.

On February 20 2025 22:08 Uldridge wrote:
I think calling out someone is a Nazi makes no sense. You won't change anything about the situation.
I think understanding why society creates Nazis is way more productive and then you can tackle that problem head on.
Maybe a society needs a % of Nazis, so that we can stay on our toes? Maybe Nazism is something inherently (socio)biological for people with certain genetics. Who the fuck knows. Should there be a place for Nazis in our society? I sure don't want any, but Nazis seem to think they deserve to be here all the same and why not, they're humans after all.

I think this is a very difficult ethical question to tackle. It's basically the same like the integration problem with immigrants. It's needs such a careful way of setting up that, if you're not careful, you end up with segregated community after community that just doesn't work with you anymore (and vica versa) because they've entrenched themselves in their culture, basically importing their country into yours. That only causes friction for many people.