U.S. Politics

Damien said:
We have to be real about what impacts the direction of the country and effectuates real change. It isn't just a few protests a quarter. It just isn't And it never has been. People need to KNOW that. Not because they shouldn't protest, but because they have to be prepared for what comes next.
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You have said, I don't know how many times in this thread, "no one's doing anything." Okay, fine. What do you suggest? What do we need to do that's going to get our country back RIGHT NOW instead of weeks from now or months from now?

Trump is in the White House until 2028. The Republicans control Congress and will until 2026. I hate it as much if not more than you do but they were voted in there.

You say protests are useless "unless they result in immediate action". Okey dokey. So what's the plan, Stan? What do you got up your sleeve? What should we do that will result in "immediate action"?

I don't think anyone who was involved in the Civil Right movement or any other protest I mentioned thought that change would happen right away. But it DID happen. I remember watching MLK's "I have a dream" speech he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. I saw it on our old black and white analog TV. I was too young to know what was happening but I remember the effect it had on the adults in my family. I remember watching my Mother cry. A few months later President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the American Civil Rights Act into law.

It was the Women's Suffrage movement that gave women the right to vote. It took decades but they did it. Good thing they didn't quit.

But sure. "Protesting is basically worthless unless it results in immediate action." Okay. So tell us what we need to do instead. If you have any suggestions, I would dearly love to hear them.
 
SDcomics said:
What do we need to do that's going to get our country back RIGHT NOW instead of weeks from now or months from now?
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The answer to that is probably only immediate, wide-scale, violent revolution. Is that realistic? No, I don't think that's going to happen. But barring that, what can we do? I wish I knew. Knowing 'this isn't working' and knowing 'what exactly will work' are two entirely different things and I think I've been pretty good about not presenting myself as having all the answers. Within the last few pages, I've seen you basically agreeing with almost everything I'd been saying two months ago. That doesn't mean I expect you to be able to solve all those problems I brought up back then, either.

I used to think education would help. Protesting often seems, NOWADAYS - as opposed to 30-50 years ago, to galvanize people on both sides. People that already don't agree with protestors just get angrier and more violent when they see the protests. Not saying stop, but we have to be realistic about the impact. So I used to think that we'd evolved, socially, past protest and more into direct action in the community with other people. But at the same time, the country has become so divided that it mostly doesn't feel like you can build any kind of humanitarian coalition because trying to tell your neighbors that their chosen politicians are killing people you care about seems to just make those neighbors laugh and call you a cuck, or something.


SDcomics said:
You have said, I don't know how many times in this thread, "no one's doing anything."
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Let me be clear; I don't think most regular people CAN do very much. Saying that no one is doing anything has a double meaning here. It's a statement of reality for regular people, and an indictment against politicians. The people that would like to do something have to convince themselves that -anything- is better than nothing (and in some ways it is - but not in this sense). The people that absolutely can do things - won't. For whatever reason. Whether it's Schumer and Pelosi still playing at the good cop/bad cop dog and pony show with the Republicans, the media that refuses to call a spade a spade, etc etc. People with the power to move things are gluing them in place instead. Regular people aren't getting much traction against that by showing up to a protest once in a while. I'm not intending to be cruel by pointing that out.



SDcomics said:
but they were voted in there.
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By a deeply corrupt system designed to make sure they get in and hold an undue, disproportionate amount of power. The fact that some of these people, whose entire constituency is the equivalent of a small town in a mid-size state, can essentially hold the entire government hostage is fucking wild and deeply wrong. But every time 'our' guys are in power, they do absolutely nothing about any of it. So yeah, they were voted in - but that's part of the problem that we're apparently never going to reckon with.


SDcomics said:
You say protests are useless "unless they result in immediate action". Okey dokey. So what's the plan, Stan? What do you got up your sleeve? What should we do that will result in "immediate action"?
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If I had to say something other than what's being done, I think part of the issue is protesting the wrong things. Big, nebulous concepts. 'Black Lives Matter.' 'Immigration Reform.' Big things that Trump and his cronies just don't care what you think about. No protest, unless it's like 2/3 of the entire country, is going to get Stephen Fucking Miller to stop being a ghoul, ya' know?

We have, probably, an election next year. Start protesting against your Democrat politicians. That is something that can have direct, immediate action behind it. Enough people on the street against a specific politician will, maybe probably, force them to at least primary -or- admit that they don't actually care about winning elections because they agree with Republicans (if that's truly the case, the United States is already lost and you should move or stockpile ammo). If you force them to primary out of fear, then you can use that momentum to get in good politicians that will actually do things. That is actionable work - a short term strategy for long-term gains. Instead of protesting against police violence, protest against the politicians that continue to do nothing about it and elect replacements that care about it and will do something about it. People like Kristen Sinema and Manchin should NEVER be allowed to run, AND WIN, as Democrats.
That's something we can -actually- make a difference on. Democrat-voters protesting doesn't scare Republicans. But it can scare Democrats.

I'm not saying 'there, I fixed the whole problem.' I just think it's a better strategy that results in actual change more immediately than protesting these big things that none of us have any control over as long as the government is run by people that would rather deploy soldiers to shut you up than actually take anything you're protesting about seriously.

SDcomics said:
I don't think anyone who was involved in the Civil Right movement or any other protest I mentioned thought that change would happen right away.
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As I said, many people in those movements are on record as being against the movement accepting incremental changes. So they very much did want changes right away. They just didn't get it. But again, it's also incredibly dismissive and reductive to boil down the entire Civil Rights Movement into 'they protested and won.' People fuckin' DIED during the Civil Rights Movement.

SDcomics said:
I saw it on our old black and white analog TV. I was too young to know what was happening but I remember the effect it had on the adults in my family. I remember watching my Mother cry.
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Imagine a world with the Internet where your mother already knew exactly what was being done to black people in the United States and had already chosen a side? My point is that the world is different now than it was, and what used to work doesn't seem to be working anymore. That doesn't mean I know what will, mind you. But if we keep thinking 'it worked 60 years ago' - then we're no better than establishment Democrats.

Also keep in mind, it's always the establishment Democrats and goofy Liberals pushing so hard on 'peaceful protest is the only way.' None of the things you named were won solely with peaceful protest. Suffrage included SO much arson. And again, you're talking about a time in history where there was a need to drive people toward even knowing there WAS a movement, that there were people that they could identify with. The Internet has largely destroyed the need for 'protests as a form of awareness.'


Hopefully that all helps explain my position. I suspect you're being a little.. less than sincere.. asking me what we should do, because you really just think I'm being negative and defeatist. But there, those are my opinions on the situation for whatever you do or do not think they're worth.
 
The call thing is interesting. Living in a blue district in a blue state my assumption was that there wasn't much more I could do to sway elected officials.

There's another reason I protest that I forgot to mention. The rest of the world is already turning their backs on the U.S. If we're going to have any credibility in the future we have to show the world that there are large swaths of the populace that do not agree with the actions of our government.
 
Chooch555 said:
There's another reason I protest that I forgot to mention. The rest of the world is already turning their backs on the U.S. If we're going to have any credibility in the future we have to show the world that there are large swaths of the populace that do not agree with the actions of our government.
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Absolutely valid.


Chooch555 said:
The call thing is interesting. Living in a blue district in a blue state my assumption was that there wasn't much more I could do to sway elected officials.
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It depends on your representatives. If everyone you can potentially legally vote for are already doing everything they can, then realistically there probably -isn't- much more you can do. Even the call thing won't really work because they're doing the thing you're calling and asking them to do. It really only works if they're not. Which, to be fair, is most of them.
 
Damien said:
So I used to think that we'd evolved, socially, past protest and more into direct action in the community with other people. But at the same time, the country has become so divided that it mostly doesn't feel like you can build any kind of humanitarian coalition because trying to tell your neighbors that their chosen politicians are killing people you care about seems to just make those neighbors laugh and call you a cuck, or something.
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The internet destroyed coalition-building and community.

I firmly believe we don't get Donald Trump without the social internet. Twenty-five years ago, if your buddy told you he liked Trump, you'd have called him an idiot, and he'd reconsider. Now we all have our own personal realities fed to us every second of every day. If you meet up at all, he'll just look back down at his phone and continue getting radicalized.
Damien said:
Let me be clear; I don't think most regular people CAN do very much. Saying that no one is doing anything has a double meaning here. It's a statement of reality for regular people, and an indictment against politicians. The people that would like to do something have to convince themselves that -anything- is better than nothing (and in some ways it is - but not in this sense). The people that absolutely can do things - won't. For whatever reason. Whether it's Schumer and Pelosi still playing at the good cop/bad cop dog and pony show with the Republicans, the media that refuses to call a spade a spade, etc etc. People with the power to move things are gluing them in place instead. Regular people aren't getting much traction against that by showing up to a protest once in a while. I'm not intending to be cruel by pointing that out.
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Regular people are the only ones who stood up to Trump. We voted him out. We indicted him. We convicted him of crimes. Normal people did that. The elites in his orbit have either looked the other way, fought for him, or kicked the can down the road.

https://bsky.app/profile/anjalikdayal.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3lxulqnegr225
Damien said:
The Internet has largely destroyed the need for 'protests as a form of awareness.'
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Ironically, the internet has destroyed the possibility of protests as a form of awareness. If you tune your algorithm correctly, you won't hear about a mass protest at all. Hell, if you follow major papers like the Washington Post or New York Times, you might miss them, too. The No Kings protest was the largest protest in American history. It didn't get a sliver of the coverage that the miniscule Tea Party protests received in 2009.
 
TheSameIdiot said:
if your buddy told you he liked Trump, you'd have called him an idiot, and he'd reconsider.
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What's funny is... Well he was never my buddy... My wife's best friend's husband was the first indication I ever had of Trump being a serious contender. We were talking about politics and he said "yeah, that's why Trump is gonna fix all that." And I literally laughed. Then I realized he was serious and did call him an idiot. But it was me; I was the idiot heh. I actually still see Trump as the failing, bankrupt buffoon.
 
I was in the same boat. I was literally rooting for him to win the Republican primary because I thought his ceiling was 30% of the vote.
 
Ru1977 said:
I actually still see Trump as the failing, bankrupt buffoon.
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Well, good, because that’s what he is.

All this “oooooh he’s the PRESIDENT” stuff is definitely frightening because of what he is trying to do, but his crooked scramble to the seat has not made him less of a failing, bankrupt buffoon. He hasn’t “achieved” anything. He’s not skilled, he’s not talented, he’s not impressive. He just slid in the slime and was more willing to let it fill him than many other people. That’s not a talent: that’s just flexing moral bankruptcy and nepotism in a well of corruption.

As much as I think it is important to take the threat of MAGA seriously, I think it is equally important to remember that Trump is still a pathetic waste of genetic material and only pretends to any prestige or excellence. Indeed, any acumen or charm he arguably once possessed (I’d argue he never had it, but some are more cowed by the illusion of power) is LONG GONE. He’s a weak, doddering old fool. Nothing more.
 
TheSameIdiot said:
Regular people are the only ones who stood up to Trump. We voted him out. We indicted him. We convicted him of crimes. Normal people did that. The elites in his orbit have either looked the other way, fought for him, or kicked the can down the road.
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Let's be clear about this, though: An indictment and conviction doesn't happen without people in power. Regular people don't make arrests, set trials, preside over trials, etc. If ALL you have is regular people, then what you have is the ability to riot, but not the ability to actually move the government in its actual processes.

That's precisely what I mean by 'regular people can't do very much.' They can't. Period. I suppose unless you are qualifying 'regular people' to include federal judges, prosecutors, the DOJ, the FBI, etc. I don't consider those to be regular folks.

TheSameIdiot said:
Ironically, the internet has destroyed the possibility of protests as a form of awareness. If you tune your algorithm correctly, you won't hear about a mass protest at all. Hell, if you follow major papers like the Washington Post or New York Times, you might miss them, too. The No Kings protest was the largest protest in American history. It didn't get a sliver of the coverage that the miniscule Tea Party protests received in 2009.
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100%. Everything is 'the algorythm' now. But that's to my point; if you are the kind of person that doesn't like what's happening to the country, you -almost certainly- don't need a protest to draw awareness to those issues because your entire feed is built around showing you those issues. Your friend group probably cares about those issues. The silly toy collectors you spend time talking to care about those issues. We exist in a bubble of knowing this stuff. If you are inclined to care about police violence, you already knew it was a problem before the BLM protests. If you are inclined not to care or to side with the police, then no amount of protesting is going to reach you anyway.
 
Damien said:
Let's be clear about this, though: An indictment and conviction doesn't happen without people in power. Regular people don't make arrests, set trials, preside over trials, etc. If ALL you have is regular people, then what you have is the ability to riot, but not the ability to actually move the government in its actual processes.

That's precisely what I mean by 'regular people can't do very much.' They can't. Period. I suppose unless you are qualifying 'regular people' to include federal judges, prosecutors, the DOJ, the FBI, etc. I don't consider those to be regular folks.
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I'd argue that prosecutors and investigators are normal people. Most judges, too.

The good news is some folks in power are finally fighting back. Big Boy is on the case:

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com%2Fpost%2F3lxuww5nphc2j
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com%2Fpost%2F3lxuwy67yd52e

At this rate, he walks to the Democratic nomination. I'm good with it. We need a pitbull.
Damien said:
If you are inclined to care about police violence, you already knew it was a problem before the BLM protests. If you are inclined not to care or to side with the police, then no amount of protesting is going to reach you anyway.
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I think you're right for the most part. I also think there's an extremely... stupid? Proud? Ill-informed? Group of voters who go to the ballot box every four years (they ain't voting in the midterms) and decide basically every presidential election. They're proud non-partisans. This group, maybe 1–3% of Americans, was swayed by the BLM protests.
 
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