I expected the tyranny and the blustering and the mockery of everything they’ve ever claimed America was supposed to stand for what I didn’t expect was the depth and speed of the capitulation at every level
Replies
Especially in the mainstream media.
sep 16, 2025, 7:24 pm • 0 0 • view
I didn’t expect it would be so tacky and the ghouls pulling it off would be so dumb. I thought it would require evil geniuses, but all of these people are so unbelievably incompetent. And yet…
sep 16, 2025, 2:43 pm • 28 1 • view
Heartbreaking on a daily basis
sep 16, 2025, 3:23 pm • 0 0 • view
Same, girl, same.
sep 17, 2025, 4:14 am • 2 0 • view
I admit even my ironclad cynicism wasn’t prepared for this. They literally never put up a fight at all.
sep 16, 2025, 2:50 pm • 20 0 • view
The Sideshow Bob thing of “you’re guilty conscious makes you vote Democrat but deep down you want to be ruled by a Republican” might have been the moment The Simpsons were unintentionally channeling Apollo the most.
sep 16, 2025, 4:21 pm • 9 0 • view
*your 😫
sep 16, 2025, 4:21 pm • 0 0 • view
What I expected, is the level of stupidity with which they are doing it. This CAN be undone, simply because they are incredibly stupid.
sep 16, 2025, 5:50 pm • 2 1 • view
i just thought it would affect me less to watch the walls close in. the dinner table conversations about when to run away before it is too late reopen the box of fear and pain and hate and resentment.
sep 16, 2025, 2:46 pm • 61 2 • view
As a mom of two autistic kids who are deeply impacted and impaired by their disabilities, I am terrified but I wouldn’t even know how to go or where to go should things go THAT way. One of them will barely leave the house. We’d be kicked off a plane. It’s scary to feel stuck. In your own country.
sep 16, 2025, 3:36 pm • 35 0 • view
it's terrifying. i don't know what to tell you, but i am with you. i hope you're in a blue state; hopefully, the logistics of the worst case scenario will prove to be a deterrent in that way. the people who are resisting give me hope. trying to keep that in mind. love to you and yours.
sep 16, 2025, 3:44 pm • 16 0 • view
We are. Check my profile pic. It’s a comfort though I live in a more conservative area
sep 16, 2025, 4:25 pm • 5 0 • view
It has been stunning!
sep 16, 2025, 4:48 pm • 0 0 • view
sep 17, 2025, 10:10 am • 1 0 • view
sep 16, 2025, 5:16 pm • 2 0 • view
Two things can be true! 💔💙❤️🩹💙
sep 17, 2025, 10:47 am • 0 0 • view
Ordinary citizens and a handful of politicians are all that's left of any real opposition.
sep 16, 2025, 7:39 pm • 1 0 • view
Far too many are obeying in advance
sep 16, 2025, 7:09 pm • 4 1 • view
What really got me (as a non-american) that so many companies seem to see this like a rebranding decision. "we stand for tolerance and freedom... oh, change in politics. No more rainbow flags."
sep 17, 2025, 8:41 am • 4 0 • view
...and that there is no coming back from this. After they showed that their "beliefs" are only what brings the most money, that they not only throw people under the bus but are surprised that you would judge them for this? They never can claim "beliefs" again.
sep 17, 2025, 8:41 am • 3 0 • view
It’s been stunning…I thought we were stronger…I was wrong
sep 16, 2025, 3:39 pm • 0 0 • view
A listener once asked Hank Green if he could eat moldy salsa if he scooped the mold out of the jar first. Hank said no, because visible mold only happens when there are already mold spores all through the jar. Trump is the US’ visible mold. He appeared because institutions were full of mold already.
sep 16, 2025, 3:23 pm • 26 5 • view
Shit I scoop the mold off the top and eat the salsa all the time I'm screwed. I like the analogy though! I have folks in my life who say 'he's so old, he'll be gone soon and then all this will go away' and I'm like 'did you not see that he won the popular vote this time? '
sep 16, 2025, 3:36 pm • 6 0 • view
I have to say it's not a surprise after watching the last 20 years of watching this shit show.
sep 16, 2025, 4:38 pm • 0 0 • view
I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think capitalism and hundreds of years of American exceptionalism have ensured that many people and institutions have taken the position of “I have to make sure *I* will be ok in this mess and fuck everyone else.” FWIW, it’s still managed to surprise me.
sep 17, 2025, 2:15 pm • 3 0 • view
Could it be that at heart, right leaning Americans are just a bunch of fucking pussies.
sep 16, 2025, 5:38 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm with you; it can't easily be explained except that it's the same cowardice, greed, and psychological accommodation (Lifton's "doubling") that opened nearly all German doors to Hitler. And the same denials -- "oh, he's just talking". No -- he's just the worst of humanity.
sep 17, 2025, 2:42 pm • 0 0 • view
sep 16, 2025, 8:00 pm • 0 0 • view
But let’s have another 5 WWII movies a year so we can collectively jerk ourselves off over that ONE time we were on the right side of history about fascism.
sep 16, 2025, 10:55 pm • 2 0 • view
I think it's the combination of Biden being Jimmy Carter II and him winning the popular vote that led moderate pundits to basically believe he won the country fair and square, and to shift to treating it like the Bush years now
sep 16, 2025, 3:02 pm • 8 0 • view
The Bush years were, if not nearly at the same scale, also rife with illegality and insanity that was waved off because of 9/11 meaning "America is conservative country now". I think that's basically the logic behind elites going along with everything
sep 16, 2025, 3:04 pm • 12 0 • view
yeah. even as the most doomer of our friends, banging the drum of "this is happening. this is what this is. wake up. you are wildly underestimating what is about to happen," this has been unbelievable. it's not even a failure; it's active collaboration
sep 16, 2025, 2:48 pm • 211 14 • view
Now Americans know what it’s like to be subjugated by America. It sucks, but you kinda get used to it.
sep 17, 2025, 8:00 am • 3 1 • view
RFK Jr. Liar?
sep 16, 2025, 6:08 pm • 0 0 • view
Half of our government have been bought by a Russian king, this goes back a LOT further than you realize.
sep 16, 2025, 10:44 pm • 2 2 • view
I am not American, but knowing that historically capitalists have always supported Fascism if given a chance... I assumed it would go like this.
sep 16, 2025, 3:38 pm • 11 1 • view
I didn't expect the elites to take such a dive across the board. It seems like even trump-sympathetic normies hate what is going on. The ostensibly liberal institutions aren't acting as roadblocks as much as actively facilitating the authoritarian take over.
sep 16, 2025, 2:45 pm • 50 2 • view
Why, what do you mean? Oh. bsky.app/profile/sahi...
sep 16, 2025, 6:05 pm • 5 1 • view
I think that there’s a lot of “elite” capitulation but also a whole lot of people who aren’t but the media attention (including here) focuses on the former.
sep 16, 2025, 3:42 pm • 14 0 • view
We need way more psycho benevolent leftist public figures and officials who stand up to bullies and go aggressively after them daily and publicly. I see about 3 or 4 of them as of now. We need 300 or 400.
sep 16, 2025, 3:46 pm • 3 2 • view
I keep getting viscerally reminded that liberals will always side with fascism because fascism does not threaten Capital.
sep 16, 2025, 4:00 pm • 16 2 • view
what's worse than the capitulation is the sheer volume of active collaboration
sep 16, 2025, 3:30 pm • 69 8 • view
👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼
sep 16, 2025, 3:44 pm • 6 0 • view
Same. That’s also been the most depressing & infuriating aspect of the shit show. People w/actual wealth & power are bending over for this insanity.
sep 16, 2025, 6:33 pm • 2 0 • view
💯
sep 16, 2025, 5:51 pm • 0 0 • view
politicians are not workers, is not in their class interests to make a better world for everybody
sep 16, 2025, 2:42 pm • 9 1 • view
There wasn't another option, now that they have the unwavering loyalty of all 3 major branches of government, & have purged the career, non-partisan, civil servants.
sep 16, 2025, 4:25 pm • 2 2 • view
I wasn't prepared for the naked stupidity. I expected more effort in pretense.
sep 16, 2025, 2:57 pm • 22 1 • view
It turns out, fascists going mask off and unpunched was a bad sign.
sep 16, 2025, 6:41 pm • 5 0 • view
And all to a bunch of whiny schmucks! It's freaking embarrassing!
sep 16, 2025, 4:28 pm • 3 0 • view
It’s pretty gross
sep 16, 2025, 3:40 pm • 0 0 • view
it’s stunning.
sep 16, 2025, 2:57 pm • 1 0 • view
Everyone thought someone else would stand up, very few actually stood themselves. We didn’t do anything after Sandy Hook or Dobbs, if we can’t move for murdered child or women losing control of their bodies what would it actually take to motivate people?
sep 16, 2025, 2:48 pm • 18 2 • view
I haven't dared to dream that the Dems would actually be an opposition party for a while now, but I never thought they'd be this much worse than useless
sep 16, 2025, 7:11 pm • 1 0 • view
This country was clearly dry kindling, just waiting to go up in flames.
sep 16, 2025, 10:25 pm • 1 0 • view
I did and every time I said anything like that people told me I was just being a bummer.
sep 16, 2025, 2:41 pm • 16 0 • view
Democracy fails very slowly then all at once
sep 16, 2025, 3:32 pm • 2 0 • view
This. This is what's fucking me up. So many people and organizations just EAGER to throw me into the grinder, not even to save their own skins, not even pressed. Of their own accord, before being asked. And to think, I thought it was safe to transition.
sep 16, 2025, 2:53 pm • 41 4 • view
Each week of the destruction of America has me grasping new depths about how stupid it all is
sep 16, 2025, 6:55 pm • 0 0 • view
Truthfully I did not believe the Oligarchs were legitimately stupid enough to think an Authoritarian would meaningfully share power but here we are...
sep 17, 2025, 6:25 am • 3 0 • view
maybe being philanthropic is really only trickle down
sep 17, 2025, 12:37 pm • 1 0 • view
Home of the Brave was just a slogan for $0.99 hamburgers.
sep 16, 2025, 3:34 pm • 3 0 • view
😢
sep 16, 2025, 6:25 pm • 0 0 • view
That's been the real disappointment. The fact that the republicans were even electorally competitive & that little of upper civil society are offering much resistance makes me think America is already gone. 🤷♂️
sep 16, 2025, 6:26 pm • 4 0 • view
Perhaps Vance can write a companion book to Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage”: “Profiles in Cowardice.”
sep 16, 2025, 4:18 pm • 3 1 • view
The myth of American institutions being made up of rugged freedom-loving individuals is not holding up well.
sep 16, 2025, 3:02 pm • 30 3 • view
i have to say. i have been shocked by SCOTUS the most. I thought at least 4 or 5 of them would drag feet at every turn possible. those third country removals broke my brain.
sep 17, 2025, 5:54 am • 0 0 • view
It's like on November 6, 2024 every person of any stature in America woke up and decided they have to behave as if he actually had a gun against their head whether or not he did.
sep 16, 2025, 10:30 pm • 3 0 • view
I’m not really surprised. A lot of this country has been itching it be a fascist shit hole since the towers fell.
sep 16, 2025, 8:53 pm • 2 0 • view
And all of the preemptive capitulation too. Not even a token fight. Just immediate kneeling when there's actually evidence he backs down every time you fight back. It's astounding cowardice.
sep 16, 2025, 2:56 pm • 53 2 • view
Honestly I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking they're capitulating because they want to. There are too many instances when saying "no" has worked by now for me to think people aren't aware of how easy he is to push over. I mean, his nickname is TACO for God's sake.
sep 16, 2025, 4:43 pm • 20 3 • view
TBH I started out with the assumption that they'd decided they wanted to, not because they were scared of any consequences. A warped version of "more flies with honey than vinegar" rather than "a bully tries to intimidate you, take them down once and they'll never try you again"
sep 16, 2025, 4:53 pm • 4 0 • view
And it's always from within the SAME institutions! * News orgs and cable owners who fought back? Left alone * Colleges that fought back? Left alone AND didn't have to pay him * Law firms? Left alone, didn't have to pay him AND don't have to do free pro-bono work for him It's so, so, SO dumb.
sep 16, 2025, 4:19 pm • 4 0 • view
The worst strategies
sep 17, 2025, 3:08 am • 1 0 • view
Go back to last summer and read all the coverage of Project 2025
sep 17, 2025, 10:28 am • 1 0 • view
Like a cyclone 🌀 and speeding up.
sep 16, 2025, 4:10 pm • 0 0 • view
Fuck what did we do this time?
sep 16, 2025, 7:32 pm • 0 0 • view
Even before he was sworn in. It was shocking.
sep 16, 2025, 9:10 pm • 0 0 • view
Oddly enough, the grand jury appears to be one of the few institutions that's actually doing what it was made to do. Actually taking some steps to slow down federal overreach in DC
sep 16, 2025, 4:12 pm • 6 1 • view
I have to imagine that everyone kept waiting for someone else to stand up to this shit. And then nobody did!
sep 16, 2025, 4:15 pm • 0 0 • view
Yeah, like, did I expect a lot of capitulation? Yes. Most people aren't gonna stick their neck out. I did not expect across-the-board hagiography of someone who hated their very existence or just how *proactive* all the institutions would be in buckling.
sep 16, 2025, 2:46 pm • 128 5 • view
The whiplash of understanding what’s happening and then turning off the phone to be calm and present with your kids is neck breaking
sep 16, 2025, 2:45 pm • 109 5 • view
I try to turn away from the world and be present for my family but increasingly life with my family feels fake; maintaining the wall between between our home and the world requires so much effort that I can't pretend I'm not at some level investing in denial. Very hard.
sep 16, 2025, 3:22 pm • 57 6 • view
I've been trying to be more disconnected ... but then my teenage daughters start a whole discussion about it in the morning before school ... and of course all/most of their info is from TikTok, so I have a hard time staying out it. 😐
sep 16, 2025, 4:56 pm • 12 0 • view
Right we need to be informed among our sources to correct them when they get news from sources that are increasingly bad both in content and volume
sep 16, 2025, 7:22 pm • 9 0 • view
I tried to shield my daughters from the manipulation that I know now was a mistake as they are being gobbled up by it hope they pull themselves out of the nightmare soon
sep 17, 2025, 12:26 pm • 0 0 • view
Best of luck; that sounds awful! My kids are safe for now but these are definitely hard times for parents
sep 17, 2025, 2:59 pm • 1 0 • view
I like to think that I raised kids to think for themselves maybe things need to get really bad for them for them to realize they are losing themselves and will have the courage and strength to pull themselves out of it - difficult to watch 😔
sep 17, 2025, 3:17 pm • 1 0 • view
Well I guess if you chose corporate greed as the pillar to prop up your freedom, you're pretty much fucked.
sep 16, 2025, 2:56 pm • 3 1 • view
You and Kamala Harris. “I believed that on some level, there should be many who consider themselves to be guardians of our system and our democracy, who just capitulated.”
sep 16, 2025, 6:16 pm • 2 0 • view
Same. I naively thought that leaders of universities and businesses understood that kowtowing to authoritarianism was bad for their business interests.
sep 16, 2025, 8:04 pm • 2 1 • view
The prospect of being first in line at the new money trough of "this is what we are now" proved irresistible. As it might for a surprising number of us Bluesky moralists, if we were to find it persuasively on offer.
sep 16, 2025, 3:46 pm • 0 0 • view
Imagine going home to one's spouse & saying "They offered me a senior position with a $70K per year increase and more to come if I sign that little statement, but I turned it down because I'm too moral to debase myself like that."
sep 16, 2025, 3:46 pm • 0 0 • view
A lot of people I know think I'm crazy for seriously entertaining the idea of buying property in an EU country so that we have an escape if necessary. They say "The rest of the world will go as the US does anyway". I don't see that. I see most other countries saying "Hey, sucks to be you guys"!
sep 16, 2025, 3:47 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm donating heavily to my European alma mater in the hopes they'll one day look favorably on my son.
sep 16, 2025, 3:50 pm • 3 0 • view
My kid is actually the biggest reason I haven't considered moving yet. Their friends are here and they are happy with their school. I'd really hate to interrupt that. Many places in Europe /have/ succumbed to some of the Trumpist philosophy too, but not the anti-democracy parts of it.
sep 16, 2025, 3:55 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm too rooted here to move. I mean, hell, I'm staying in (a really blue part of) Texas for fucks' sake. My exit strategy, if any, is New Mexico. But I want my kid to have tons and tons of options, and for him, I would bail if it gets bad enough here.
sep 16, 2025, 3:58 pm • 1 0 • view
Well... from that viewpoint, I probably shouldn't be too concerned, since I live in MA. The scenarios I'm really worried about are ones for which being in a "good state" wouldn't really matter a whole lot, though.
sep 16, 2025, 4:27 pm • 0 0 • view
Every time I write a postcard to my electeds I want to sign off with, "Fight, you cowards!"
sep 16, 2025, 2:46 pm • 16 1 • view
You should. In large letters.
sep 16, 2025, 2:52 pm • 6 0 • view
Off to mail postcards and buy more stamps rn
sep 16, 2025, 2:54 pm • 6 0 • view
sep 16, 2025, 2:56 pm • 3 0 • view
The thing that I can’t get over is that he’s absurdly unpopular, but you’d never know it from reading anything in the news.
sep 17, 2025, 1:41 am • 7 0 • view
I actually expected that and predicted it would happen till I bored people. We live in a culture marked by cruelty, even sadism, and the reason people embrace cruelty is because they are weak.
sep 16, 2025, 3:32 pm • 3 1 • view
Gotta protect those bottom lines
sep 16, 2025, 5:42 pm • 0 0 • view
Kamala Harris said something similar in her Stephan Colbert interview, which was itself pretty unsettling to hear
sep 16, 2025, 3:23 pm • 6 0 • view
I’m surprised at the torpor of elected Democrats. It’s like talking to your HR reps at work.
sep 16, 2025, 3:16 pm • 11 2 • view
That’s because they are like your HR reps at work. They’re there to protect the owners, not you.
sep 16, 2025, 6:07 pm • 6 0 • view
🎯
sep 16, 2025, 3:36 pm • 0 0 • view
I say this every day. No one is stopping Trump. No one. He does whatever he wants, Constitution and laws be damned and no one, not one person will stop him. We thought we had laws and Constitutional rights and protections. Turns out we don't.
sep 16, 2025, 7:58 pm • 11 3 • view
sep 16, 2025, 7:59 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm not seeing this at every level. I'm mostly seeing it at the highest levels. A lot of ordinary folks and non-famous judges, teachers, and doctors are showing more guts that we had a right to expect.
sep 16, 2025, 3:57 pm • 13 1 • view
So many going “surely someone else will stand up” when they are challenged. Deeply disappointing.
sep 16, 2025, 6:04 pm • 0 0 • view
I would ask everyone in this thread to consider that if you have been astounded at an inconceivable level of cowardice a triple digit number of times these past few months, perhaps it is time to consider that cowardice might not be the most helpful or accurate term/framing for our situation.
sep 16, 2025, 3:26 pm • 5 2 • view
The elites are not caving or running scared, they want this and are happy to finally take the mask off and be honest about how things are run.
sep 16, 2025, 3:27 pm • 11 2 • view
Frfr
sep 17, 2025, 4:14 am • 0 0 • view
Yeah. I thought polite capitulation was one of the worst things about being Canadian— it’s definitely not the thing I would’ve wished for us to have in common.
sep 16, 2025, 3:43 pm • 4 1 • view
speed...definitely
sep 16, 2025, 9:14 pm • 0 0 • view
Buddy, they have been capitulating since World War 2
sep 16, 2025, 2:50 pm • 57 3 • view
you misspelled reconstruction
sep 16, 2025, 3:37 pm • 27 1 • view
They had it all planned out for decades. Even wrote it down in a book, beforehand, and still got away with it. It’s unfolding step-by-step, as written in #Project25 …then #Project25 was silenced in the media, about 3 months before the election.
sep 17, 2025, 1:59 pm • 2 0 • view
Yes and no. WaPo and LAT pulling their endorsements last Fall was a strong preview of things to come. Which is why it was such a gut punch for many people at that time.
sep 16, 2025, 9:49 pm • 4 0 • view