...please do not pretend I am speaking of some election-rigging conspiracy. I am speaking only of what Trump has already said he will find a way to do: eliminate mail-in balloting, absentee balloting, and early voting, while making Election Day a non-holiday that is your only chance to vote—with ID.
I am 83 years old & I always just went to my polling place to vote, until Covid. I started doing mail-in voting & kept it up because it was so easy. But I & many others like me will again go to our polling place & vote if ways that make it easier are done away with. I blame this on my civics teacher
What about Congress upholding his disqualification as an insurrectionist on 1/6/25? Is there no hope there?
I think he will either be too dimented, or some other health issue will kill him before 2028. 🤞🏻
‘Health issue’
Or whatever 😉 I don’t want secret service coming for me 😂
I mean… you chose ‘Q’ as your handle… the most controversial letter of the decade.🤣
But good point. I will change that.
There might be a legit reason for that. It’s part of my name. Nothing to do with the Anon trash.
Algorithmically, you are already on a list though. It’s a ‘buzzword’. Motivation means nothing to code.
One of the only things I trust the Republicans to have done is the research necessary to know their political rivals have no hope of winning elections as they—MAGAs—plan to engineer them. I bet they got that analysis right. America would have to be almost a smoking ruin for Democrats to win in 2028.
I'm sick of folks pretending we're still in a political environment where Democrats can make political moves to right the ship. No—they can't. I'm about to publish an essay I've been working on for a month that shows that we're no longer in an information environment where politics can be practiced.
Id love to hear your thoughts someday soon on if you think Dems can pull off upholding his disqualification on 1/6/25, or negotiating a peaceful disunion between Gilead and blue states. So trump-musk can destroy Gilead and refugees have somewhere in America to flee to
I know people don't want to hear this. But the fact is that we are at the tail end of an information war that is more or less over. It began in 1995 and was won by the MAGAs. What Democrats would need to do rhetorically to return to a stalemate are things they won't do and I don't want them to do.
I really look forward to reading your essay🧚
Democrats need to let Trump voters (red states) feel the full force of his policies while protecting their constituents. Even help them do it where possible. If there are cuts ensure those blue state dollars come home for replacement programs.
California apparently is preparing to do just that with a litigation fund of 250 million. All blue states should do the same. It’s civil war by other means & we better prepare for it. Tens of millions of us still care about the truth & recognize it. We are NOT NIHILISTIC like MAGA
What’s scary is I’m a 🔵 in a red state
Right there with you
Don't send our blue dollars to the federal government...
There's about when I started to really notice it, but it seems to me the roots reach back farther.
Democrats would need to start spreading disinformation systematically—disinformation intended to harm certain vulnerable groups and attract the votes of the worst people alive. They'd need to fund a huge network of unscrupulous propagandists. I want no part of any political party that would do that.
Any solution that requires conventional politics will fail, because the framework no longer exists for such practices. It was destroyed. Any solution that presumes getting more truth to the American people will change things will also fail. The framework no longer exists for that. It was destroyed.
To be very clear, it is equally a wholly unacceptable option to obey in advance. I'm so opposed to the idea of obeying in advance that I'm not even sure Democrats should agree to participate in the government anymore. I think a fascist cult cannot be negotiated with like it is a political party.
What I have proposed in the past is a combination of grassroots activism and letting these monsters start destroying themselves with their overreach. Democrats should consider leaving D.C. and going to their home districts to roll up their sleeves and try to protect their people from what is coming.
Sometimes the very worst that can befall vile people is a sudden run of success beyond their wildest imaginings, giving free rein for their own worst faults to undo them, & enough proverbial rope to hang themselves.
I've seen no evidence yet the Democrats will have any ability to protect us from Washington. I haven't even seen any evidence that they can slow the fascism that's now upon us. They can participate in public hearings where they say true things, but the truth does not matter anymore to non-Democrats.
Sadly, I'm entirely with you in this thread. It feels bother completely a facing if the truth and also defeatist. I'm still reading. Thanks for your analysis, always.
There would be something honorable in them refusing to pretend we still have a functioning government rather than a fascist cult. There would be something honorable in them saying that they will do everything they can to show up in person and protect those who are about to be targeted by it first.
I think they are afraid for their own lives
Maybe by being on the ground with their sleeves rolled up, working alongside their communities as the market collapses and people start losing their jobs and homelessness soars and people start dying from bird flu by the millions, they can show America that they care about its people—not plutocrats.
But this will never happen because the democratic party is entirely based on risk management rather than foresight, leadership or decisive action. We've seen it with how they try to 'manage' Trump, Putin, etc, even after that horse has left the stable, starved in the wilderness and rotted to bones.
It's easy to get fearful but that won't help. We have to keep trying. I am going to try to have conversations with MAGAs and hope we can win something in 2026. The problem though is how many Dems didn't vote. It really is depressing.
. Shouldn't have raised taxes all those years . Shouldn't have hired all those bureaucrats . Shouldn't have established a permanent Lawyer-Class monitoring us . Shouldn't have built the Warfare State & the structure of Forever Wars/ world-wide Empire/ Imperial Presidency . "You" were warned. .
Oh, what BS. Look at the rest of the world and show me a successful democratic Goldwater govt.
But it matters for the record, for history, for eventual (hopefully) restoration of democracy.
Violence may be the only answer. While I agree with most of what you've put forth here, our own history vehemently contradicts the idea that violence solves nothing.
Interesting idea. Just don't participate.
Well this whole thread was a bit of a downer.
. . . so you're saying violence *is* necessary? because I agree. as much as I personally aspire to resolve all my problems without violence, I cannot deny that there are some circumstances where it's not only inevitable but necessary to do violent things.
Yup
Bravo. All of it.
So where are you headed with this?
It cant. We've a long history of just that!
Ken Martin for DNC chair has a 10-point plan. /MN Dems www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnPp... He’s 1 of 4 running Feb 1 election, vote by 500 delegates Ben Wikler/WI Dems
The weird thing is, you'd think that telling the truth about MAGA, Christian Nationalists, Project 2525, and their horrible agendas would be more damaging. What kind of lie can we make up when the truth is worse?
No. Absolutely not. Speak ONLY the truth. When the truth dies, so does democracy.
I don't think they need to go that far. They just need to be willing to shout the lies from the rooftops in no uncertain terms, call out the GOP psyops, put the truth (not just facts) in the table. So far, few are post 11/5.
maybe they should. and maybe people like you should be talking more about these things, so that we can work through them. or maybe . . . just maybe . . . we need to seriously reevaluate how we understand the entire world, in order to allow for a better transition to a just and equitable future.
The world already has science+techn+resources to rise to a higher level, one where nobody goes hungry or dies in senseless wars. A more just and equitable future is just around the corner but, addicted to power&fortunes made out of blood, the 0,01% would rather 💀 the 99,9% than allow that to happen.
But they should do
Oh god, I'm so depressed. But I will not obey in advance.
Don’t be depressed Mande, that is what they want. They want you to feel helpless and powerless. You are not. What is happening in America is happening all over the world to some degree. How we interact with the people we deal with everyday will determine our quality of life.
Party lines are shifting. Populist discontent crosses party lines. Trump got plenty of Bernie bros. Trump and Elon are going to exacerbate anger at billionaires and corporations. We can get the money out, but it has to be bigger than party.
How to deal with the nonsense they spout without becoming the mendacious buffoons they are perfectly happy to be. Riches await the person who figures out a legit solution.
My favorite immigrant is sitting with my 92 year old mother in hospice care. He has a family. He is choosing to sit with her. He gently moistens her limps and speaks gentle words to her. If some agency comes for him, I am getting involved.
It feels absolutely glorious to block the vicious troll reply. I'm not putting up with bots, trolls and MAGA.
Lips..shrug..I'm exhausted. My point is that they are out to hurt really good people. This man owns a small business and works a regular job as well . His wife works. His beautiful children go to school.
He is a good man with a dream. I am willing to fight for him.
Greed. Wealth at any cost. American predatory capitalism was built on genocide and slavery. It’s in the DNA. We need to use the power of our dollar. Walmart and Amazon wouldn’t be the largest companies and able to buy the presidency if we stopped buying shit! What if we started a barter economy?
So you’re saying: what if we did go back?
If that is your takeaway from my comment, then perhaps I should make clearer. We could shift from out of control consumerism, spending with businesses that exploit. IQ45-47 being the personification of the brand of “shit you don’t need”. But imagine if we shopped based on our human values…
Putting people first instead of acquiring shiny new things. Sharing our gifts. Kind of like the idea of carpooling, what we did before Uber. You need a ride? Perhaps we can coordinate to get there together? Instead of buying a Tesla. It’s cheaper too. No car note. Less maintenance. Less insurance
You might enjoy the book The Serviceberry if you haven’t already read it.
Love it! Thank you. Beautiful and Abundant: Building the World We Want by my dear friend Bryan Welch is an excellent read too.
Expense, etc. you get the idea. Or, i’ll trade you two dozen of my award winning fresh home baked molasses cookies for that lovely sweater in your closet that you never wear that my son could. I could go on… we could create a compassionate economy vs an extractive, abusive economy. I dream.
Completely agree
I completely agree with this point. People have refused to understand that we’ve been in a cold civil war for a decade or more and now the worst people have won and they’re hell bent on an anti-Reconstruction to remake government and society on 19th-century lines.
Totally agree. As a 62 year old woman I have seen politics and this isn’t it. This is a fight for our lives. I am so angry and disappointed in humanity right now. I misread the intelligence of people to see the truth.
So we are in USSR United States of Stupid Reality
I can’t wait to read it. This is exactly what I’ve been saying since before the election.
🙏🏻💔
They keep imagining that the right are communicating truthfully.
THANK YOU 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Democrats are too busy trying to stay dry during the storm instead of repairing the crack in the dam. On January 20, the dam will break.
Isn't making it hard for the people who oppose you to vote election-rigging?
He won't be able to eliminate early voting. That's up to states. But mail voting was already way down in 2024 from 2020. That will drop to almost nothing.
Yes, be sure to absolve yourself of any disdainful charges right-wingers might make toward anyone who has the audacity to question election results.