What's your plan if Trump wins in November?
I'm feeling so uneasy with everything I've been seeing. I keep thinking about what we will be this time next year, and if shit hits the fan, what is your plan? I'm queer and was politically active in 2020, so I would potentially be considered a political enemy.
The only blueprint I can think of is what you do in an active shooter situation; Flee, Hide, Fight.
I know there's that romantic notion of "don't be a coward, get out and protest", but I remember the brutality of the 2020 protests firsthand, and even then I thought "thank god I'm going toe to toe with the CPD and not the CCP". Next time is going to be different. The president now has authority to send drone strikes. Protests and riots don't stand a chance agains missiles and live rounds.
Flee- I have an Uncle in Montreal who my family could potentially use as a way to at least temporarily escape the chaos. The hope I'd have is that Canada and other countries would accept American refugees, however that's not a guarantee.
Hide- If borders are closed, lay low and move away from major cities if possible. If civil war breaks out, try to get away from the violence even if you think your side will win. Todays losers may be tomorrows victors.
Fight- If cellular data/ social media algorithms can keep track of you, and surveillance can make sure there's no movement, this would be the last resort of desperation. I guess if possible try to either find a group for safety in numbers, or conversely go guerrilla as groups of resistance would make easy targets.
Sorry my mind is running and I'm getting scared.
you guys have cried about your guns for two hundred years in case of this exact situation
i think the gun people might be voting for trump
Never underestimate dem/liberal gun ownership. We are just quiet about it and don't make it our entire personality.
I can't be the only one to roll my eyes at comments like this. Like in one respect I get it, we want to say we will fuck up the fascists. But on the flipside, what the fuck are you guys actually suggesting here?
Bear in mind per Propublica reporting that the right-wing extremist groups want to incite a race/Civil War. They hate the fact that there is such a stark contrast in violence between the left and right and it's making them look TERRIBLE.
Bear in mind firearm manufacturers are actively trying to break into the leftist market to sell more guns. Pretty obvious.
Forgetting the evidence that guns for all intents don't make you safer. We need to use our brains before bullets, lest we've all already lost.
I’d say it’s a reaction to where ammosexual conservatives talk as if they have all the guns and would therefore win instantly in the civil war scenarios they masturbate over.
Fair I can see that. In the event they threw the first punch a la Fort Sumter, it may take a while for the left to spin up but I have no doubt they'd get steamrolled as they always do, from the Confederacy to the Third Reich.
After all, we'd just have to wait for their heart meds to run out.
For real, diabetes and war marches don’t exactly pair nicely.
You seem to be taking an "either / or" approach here. In my opinion the left should do everything possible to avoid violence, and also own guns in case these efforts are unsuccessful. It doesn't need to be one or the other.
It's really kind of a matter of definitions to me. In my view, there exist situations where a firearm is about the only way to prevent super bad outcomes for myself. Those situations are uncommon, there are many good ways to avoid them usually, and I hope to never find myself in one. But by definition, if I find myself in a situation like that, having a firearm available is the difference between having agency and having none.
Some people feel that the likelihood of such a scenario is so small that it's a bad idea to prepare for it. Maybe this is how you feel? I do understand that point of view, I simply disagree. I don't really understand points of view that seem to argue there is no scenario where firearms are useful, or that we're magically "past that" as a society (and to be clear, I'm not sure you're taking that stance). To take one example, just look at the response to Hurricane Katrina as an example of how flimsy our law and order really is. Once a situation is bad enough to overwhelm the existing structures we have in place, all bets are off and rules for behavior evaporate. We've seen this happen, in our country, in our lifetimes, more than once. I don't understand the derision - why eye roll?
Fair points.
I view it mostly as either/or chiefly for two reasons:
The statistics to me suggest that the possession of a firearm generate greater alternative risks than the probability of the positive use-case we all imagine in our heads. For me, I am not in a bad neighborhood. Nobody is out to get me. Despite how bad things have become, we are a long ways away from some civil war. So to me it's a net-negative.
Any time focused on firearms is time taken away from focusing on preventative measures to shift this country in the right direction. One more phone conversation with a friend or relative on the fence to alter their vote to me is far more impactful at preventing what we all come to fear.
I roll my eyes because some people get very gung-ho akin to the whole "fuck around find out" vibes of righties that I cannot stand. Big talk almost yearning for civil war when they're focusing on the wrong things.
Ah, those are reasonable points of view to me. I think responsible gun ownership is fairly straightforward and the statistics look that way because of the extremely irresponsible folks who don't take it seriously, and because suicide is usually included. Proper gun safety really only requires diligently following a few simple rules, make those consistently followed - habitual - and the additional risk drops to pretty close to zero.
But I concede that owning a gun does - at again just a definitional level - create a path of escalation which is almost always inappropriate to pursue, which is not available without that gun, and that's inherently risky too. It's not a decision to be taken lightheartedly, but we all face risk at varying degrees and have to make our own decisions about what are good and bad tradeoffs there.
There are a lot of folks (of all political persuasion, which is not to say it's evenly distributed at all) who are definitely LARPing, and I think their idiot rhetoric is foolish and potentially harmful. I just think the quiet gun-owning left shouldn't be automatically associated with that group, and if I remember the original comment right, I don't think the poster indicated any hidden desire for violence.
I agree that we should be discussing and insisting on action for way more substantive and impactful stuff, guns are a ridiculous wedge issue that will never be "resolved", and our limited time is definitely better spent trying to force improvements that would benefit and be popular with a majority of people.
I’m kind of coming around on the idea of liberal/progressive gun ownership. Maybe we should start hitting the gun shows and buying them off the cons. If we have enough to scare them, maybe we can get some sensible gun laws passed too, then turn them all in like Australia did.
But only if we can follow the example of Swiss-like compulsory service and training. I have some liberal friends who I do not want handling guns.
Edit to add: I have some conservative acquaintances that also shouldn’t be anywhere near firearms either, but of course they already own dozens.
As a liberal gun owner, I can't agree more. I hate that I have to own a gun to feel safe. I have been within 1 mile of no less than 5 mass shootings, and in 2 scenarios where I had to put my hands on my gun ready to use in the last 5 years. My wife was 100 yards from the shooter at the Texas State Fair shooting last year.
I own guns to protect my family. I also own them in case civil war breaks out and all my right-wing, crazy neighbors lose their shit.
There never is a suggestion. It’s never thought through. It’s all just abstract. Civil war is an abstract thought that can be talked about without anyone needing to consider how it would actually play out.
So how does it work? Do conservatives from Texas take a greyhound bus to california, get out, and start blasting indiscriminately? Do they stop people on the street and randomly ask their political views before blasting?
It’s hard to have a civil war when your enemy is ill defined. People arent going to be standing in fields with blue and grey uniforms.
What is more likely to happen is simply clashes during protests .
Cool so when they come for you, you'll be unarmed.
🤔
Ah yes, I'll have my Mini-14 and 1911 and fend them off as the mighty hero as the nation burns to the ground!!
...
You probably slipped about 20 steps where you could've had more viable impact at preventing that. You also are probably distracting yourself with hero fantasies when you could be more focused on something else.
Forgetting the fact that mere possession of a firearm in your house elevates your risk of everything from a safety accident, domestic homicide, suicide, etc. That are probably all more probabilistic than you defending yourself from roaming right-wing mobs.
Guns dont mass murder people, mass murderers do.
Blaming guns wont fix social injustice and wealth inequality, so you'll just end up creating the next unabomber or OKC bombing.
Shit will only get worse if we dont focus on the underlying issues.
Well, more accurately, mass murders with guns do. I'm not saying we ban guns. But let's not ignore half the issue. It's mental health and easy access to weapons of mass murder. Some gun control makes sense. Doing something about mental health makes sense.
But you'll never see a Republican vote for either. Government provided mental health programs? That's communism! They are fine to let both problems run rampant.
Im ok with barriers of entry, 5 day waiting period, etc.
Im less ok with people carving lines in the sand on a wedge issue and instead focus on ones that has high approval ratings and enact change.
Medicare for all/single payer is widely popular and would greatly reduce mental health issues in America.
Legalizing cannabis will also help.
UBI and the like arent quite as popular, so will be more difficult for those things that curb poverty to get passed, but probably still easier than banning guns in USA.
Sure, but the guns help.
Try for a mass casualty event with some knives. It’s doable, but you have to work for it.
In the hospital we address both the disease as well as the symptoms. If the symptoms aren't controlled, the prognosis of the disease is worse.
A deranged person who slips through the cracks of society can inflict more devastation with a firearm than a knife, as seen time and time again.
So sure let's focus on underlying issues. But let's stop pretending aRmInG tHE leFt will do jack shit, too.
The issue is military and police tend to side with fascists, and fascists know this so it's a 3 way fight
While police will always side with fascists - it's a purely fascist institution, after all - there is some caveats when it comes to the military, and, surprisingly, the prospects of the US military simply joining with fascists does not look promising for them. The problem is that the military-industrial complex has it's bread buttered on both sides by the liberal status quo - it simply has nothing to gain from a fascist regime in any way whatsoever.
The bad news is, of course, is that they might not actually need the military if they just plan on doing it through lawfare as they are currently doing it.
sure, but they're in the minority, and i wouldn't bet on even the majority to win against the national guard and their tanks
Tanks need support personnel.
Ask the Russians how well it goes when the tanks fight alone.
how many PG-7VLs do you have at hand? or maybe do you have a 2A36 howitzer stashed in garage? believe or not, you can't fight tanks with good vibes only
Thank you for explaining to this former 11-H / 11-M the difficulties in fighting tanks. :D
You're not wrong but infantry against tanks that have no infantry support will win every time. Tanks are fuckin blind when buttoned up and will get absolutely wrecked by close in infantry, even without anti-armor weapons. It's almost trivial to immobilize them from up close.
Okay? What's your point? That the national guard will rise up against the system?
The national guard are famously conservative. Which side do you think they'll pick when push comes to shove?
in the real military yeah
but usually the national guard are made up of people who wanted a "military" career without the risk
fortunate sons and all that
My point is you don’t hit the tanks, you hit the support infrastructure. Maintenance, fuel depots, Supply lines. Tanks (or planes, or whatever) don't run in a vacuum. You create a vacuum and stuff doesn’t go. See Ukraine.
Wait so we're getting Jan 6 Part 2 if Trump wins?
I am still sure that the right has more. Like you might have 1 or 2. A lot of those nutjobs have 1 or 2 hundred.
What, are they going to aim 200 guns at once?
Knowing some of the redneck mother fuckers I've met:
They'll figure out how to do it, yes
"I've gon' an' dun it, y'all! I dun made a weapon to surpass Metal Gear, I tell you hwhat."
Arm their friends? Make boobie traps?
Actually, there's this one Demolition Ranch video... lol
Making boobie traps is illegal they can't do that /s
Well they've only got 2 arms at the most (maybe 3 in Alabama) so they can only hold 2 guns at once. Kinda hard to hold an arsenal dual wielded
Your absolutely right. But how many guns can you shoot at once?
I mean, those weren’t just fireworks making noise in America’s major liberal cities last night. The blue cities are drowning in guns. That why those cities want regulations to dial shit down.
Biden just said he's going to roll over and kiss the ring. "Liberal" gun ownership, lol.
While they have a large number of guns, they can still only operate one at a time.
Not me.
They're still crying about Biden coming for their guns (I'm American), happily ignoring "take their guns first due process second" Trump
Not America’s left. America’s left has wanted gun control.
That said, it’s not like the left leaning cities are hurting for guns. There is a reason the left wants gun control.
And the strong push against gun control isn’t a 200 hundred year old thing. It’s a 40-50 year old thing. The NRA used to be about responsible gun ownership, not saving up for the fallout wasteland.
America's liberals have wanted gun control. go far enough left and you get your guns back.
Maybe I'm more of a moderate but I just want some gun control, like universal background checks and mandatory training.
Not really on board with other things though, for example: Banning certain models of guns is just stupid and ineffective: Ban one and there are probably at least half a dozen other functionally identical firearms they can be replaced with. It's meaningless performative legislature.
You make it sound like these people have a bone in their bodies to take the fight to their government.. all a bunch of hot air. Even the ex military ain't got it in them. Not many people are willing to sacrifice their lives for their ideals.
I sure haven’t. That’s a deluded conservative thing… they say they need guns to defend from an overbearing government, then they’re the idiots who vote for freedom-infringing authoritarians. It also hasn’t made sense in decades at best, given that they’d be gravy seals fighting army or police with their handguns while the government has helicopters, grenades, night vision, comm systems (like, they think they’d have cell service in a civil war?) and so on. Maybe some organized group could pull off an Iraq or Afghanistan style resistance, but it seems unlikely.
The problem is that the cops are on their side.
I've dabbled in ham radio a bit, comms is something that at least some of the right are thinking about with these kinds of things, there's more than a handful of right wing doomsday pepper lunatics in the ham radio circle, if you ever decide to listen in on CB radio chatter, there's a good chance you're gonna hear some lunatic ranting about conspiracy bullshit, I'm pretty sure I saw some pictures of guys at 1/6 with some baofengs (cheap Chinese ham radios, pretty much every ham has one or two kicking around)
I remember when I first started looking into ham radio, I was googling some stuff, clicking into a whole bunch of different results not paying too much attention to where I was, and I found one forum thread that was actually pretty informative until halfway down the thread someone said something really unhinged about race wars or something, and no one called him out about it and some even agreed with him, so I took a look at what site I was on and it was the stormfront forums. Nope I out of there really quick.
Also not the only experience I had like that, few of my hobbies and interests have significant overlap with the right wing lunatics fringe since I'm into some outdoors camping and survivalist type stuff, the algorithms try really hard to suck me into crazytown sometimes.
Honestly. I wish we had more leftest prepped stuff. The darknet hacker scene (privacy is a mixed bag) is decent IMHO, but as soon as you want to prepare for disasters (canning, homesteading, HAM radio, reloading, guns, etc) ALOT of the content and social media is a mix of ethno or Christian nationalism bunk.
We, the left, really should be interested in this stuff. This is how you provide mutual aid in disasters. How you help the marginalized avoid oppression and how you raise the cost of faciest take over.
Yeah that would involve actual work so no
Small arms like pistols, shotguns, rifles are great against a random meth head that breaks in to your home. But against a coordinated response by the government!? They have machine guns and drones and troops and bombs. And have been known to use them on civilians.
Civilians with guns against an actual military would never work, it's just some fantasy those on the far right have.
It doesn't seem like you've read much about insurgencies and rebel groups. It doesn't actually take much firepower to inject enough chaos into the system that you cause issues with traditional militaries. One person with a rifle could keep a FOB alert and wasting resources for a couple of hours in Afghanistan. IEDs placed by individuals or small groups caused absolute terror in Iraq.
These types of things are unlikely to "win" a war. But if you make it costly enough, the other side will decide it's not worth fighting. The point is not to engage in head-on combat, that's suicide.
Or hell, look to the tactics of some of the rebels in the Revolutionary War or the Civil War.
Yes, I understand how an occupied enemy force is hard to dislodge. I actually was in the USMC for 8 years and was stuck in 29 Palms with nothing to do it in the middle of the desert but operation Mojave Viper over and over as groups cycled through. War in the middle east was hard because of ROI and a lower tolerance for collateral damage. You remove those and it's not even a question. Just drop bombs and roll tanks.
I've also seen how we can take over a country or city in a matter of nights. I've seen buildings leveled because there was a singular shooter in them. If you roll APCs down a street with an armed patrol squad there isn't much you can do. Sure you could make IDEs, setup daisy chains and such, that could take out a patrol for sure. But that just gets a bigger, more aggressive response that will not be so easily pushed back.
And let's be clear, the middle east has been at war for generations upon generations, it's part of their life at this point. Bill who hunts deer sometimes is not a battle hardened fighter. Hell, people who sign up for war, get training, then ramped up for deployment still freeze up in combat.
Also, civil war tactics don't work anymore, hell,guerilla tactics barley work. We have drones, night vision, thermal, air support, satellite imagery. If the US military did actually attack it's people, and members of the service actual did comply, it would be an extermination not a war.
To your point about one person looking out for a FOB. First, I don't know how one person is covering every possible line of attack and approach vector, but that side. One drone or fly by could destroy that entire rebel FOB in second with not a damn thing you could do, with no warning. What is your defense against fighter jets or a blackhawk? Shoot small arms at it?
Sure, if they're willing to just destroy everything then it's less of a solid tactic. Will the American military be so willing to just destroy the places they grew up in? Perhaps. Will they be willing to shoot the neighbor they grew up playing with? Perhaps. Will they be willing to level the school they have so many fond memories of? Perhaps. And if so, then yes, that's game over.
The US military has historically been pretty terrible when it comes to insurgencies. But obviously they haven't been fighting in their own backyard.
It'll be interesting either way. I sure hope it doesn't come to pass.
“On Tyranny” has some great guidance on this, as well as some guidance on how to do what you can to help put the brakes on it happening.
TL;DR there’s quite a lot more, but stay off the internet, get used to making small talk, making eye contact. Know who’s in your community physically and who has your back. Renew your passport, make friends in other countries if you can. Make friends. Stay off the internet.
It's really hard to make friends in other countries without the internet. Gonna have to go back to ARPANET.
He didn’t actually say stay off the internet; that was my oversimplified retelling. A little more complete but still oversimplified version would be: Be careful and don’t share more than what you think is safe to share, and try to focus on the real world as much as you can. The real world doesn’t have mass surveillance in quite such a prepackaged and straightforward fashion, and it is where all the real outcomes good or bad will eventually take place anyway, so prioritize it as much as you can.
Curious: Why "stay off the internet" ? It's mentioned twice, so I'm assuming for a good reason.
Is that a mental health thing or a keep from being profiled/targeted thing?
It is soo easy to forget about just how much identifying metadata you leave on the internet just by reading stuff.
You know the cookie banners you see? Those that claim to let you opt out from being tracked by advertisers?
Yeah, those are just the overt tracking mechanism, tracking pixels are far far more insidious.
Lets backtrack a bit, back when Facebook started getting big, companies started embedded Like buttons on their webpages, cool right? You could just click the Like button and it would help you post a link to your Facebook feed to the page you were visiting.
Seems fine, right? What's the issue?
It would be fine if the image of the Like button was stored on the local web server hosting the rest of the site.
But it isn't.
It is stored on Facebook's servers, it is stored in a way that every single Like button has their own ID, so every time you load up your favourite website about abandoned radiation experiment sites it makes your browser send a request to Facebook's servers as well and depending on how the request is sent they can at minimum log that your IP address loaded the Like button with the ID number X, the ID number X is tied to the specific webpage you visited.
Then you go and do some research on impotense and how to cure it, the pages you read all have Like buttons as above, but with their own ID numbers, Facebook now knows at a minimum that you are a man who is interested in science, technology, society and modern history, you may also suffer from impotense.
Well, you keep browsing the web and read local news, well the Like button is also there, and with the ID number Facebook can add an area of interest to your profile.
It keeps going like this, but with one huge important change, people are starting getting warey of the Like buttons and Facebook in general, so they simply remove the button, while introducing the tracking pixel, a 1px*1px transparent picture, it works like how the Like button loads, and keeps generating data for Facebook.
Facebook is not alone in this, I just used them as an example.
You can read more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_pixel
This is also not even getting into browser fingerprinting.
Oh, yeah. I'm aware of all that. Good info, though.
I meant for the purposes of what moz was saying from that "On Tyranny" TL;DR guidance. Like, should I just assume that metadata is going to be immediately used against me to determine if i'm an "undesirable" ?
May have answered my own question there lol
Well, yes. There's no take backsies, but showing you've dropped off the internet, as sus as it is, also shows you're done with all this, and makes it harder to prove your current status as "undesireableness" by lack of evidence. The longer you wait to disappear, the more relevant the evidence that can be used against you.
I have not read that book, but seeing as the right is on the rise also here in Europe, it might be worth checking it out.
Your IP addresses, home, cellphone, etc.. They all lead back to your actual home address where you can be identified.
Have a pint at the Winchester and wait for it all to blow over
Canada will not accept US citizens as refugees unless things really goes to hell, we're not even accepting refugees who come from other countries via the USA as they're supposed to ask for refugee status in the first of the two country they step in. So yeah, don't get your hopes up, Canada isn't a consolation prize for you guys, fix your own shit.
That doesn't stop you from getting a work visa and moving there.
Temporarily and only if you have qualifications for jobs where we need people
Temporarily can also become permanent. And many folks do have skills worth amassing.
Sure, doesn't change the fact that we don't don't open our door to anyone and everyone and if you don't have skills we need you don't get a visa in the first place , we don't need someone to move here from a first world country with a work visa just to end up not having a job and costing the system money.
Yep, same as most countries. No one is assuming we can just waltz right in.
It’s US’ decision on whether to grant those or not, and they grant them cause it benefits the US.
How's the housing market going bud?
Terrible. I could flip this comment but it's all been said before.
🥲
What does that have to do with the subject? Even more reason why we wouldn't take in US citizens for no reason
Just returning fire
Not as if it was any better on your side of the border, the difference being that in some States you don't have any safety nets to help!
Ever watched/read the Handmaid's Tale? This scenario basically happens, and Canada has to cater to any refugees they can smuggle out.
Unfortunately/fortunately works of fiction aren't binding on geopolitics. (Depending on the fiction)
Hi, Canadian here. The Handmaid's Tale was seriously over optimistic about what kind of country we are.
Fair enough.
Suddenly all the people with anti migration sediment might realize how it’s like when the shoe is on the other foot.
Why so much hate for people just looking to survive?
It's just the truth bud, people living in the richest country in the world can't be bothered to go out and vote (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/voter-turnout-rate-by-age-usa the majority of electors under 30 support the Democrats) and every US elections research for Canadian immigration laws goes through the roof? If you guys can't make your own country work (even when you've got an amendment made to secure people's right to protect themselves against the shit show your government has become!) then why would you expect other countries to just welcome everyone of you? It's not as if you would extend the same favor, people coming from the poorest countries in the world end up being detained when they cross into the USA.
A better question would be what are you going to do to make sure the orange Mussolini doesn't win?
Make sure you, your friends, and your family are Registered to vote.
Make sure everyone you know gets to the polls on our before election day.
Become a poll worker.
We need to make sure we vote in numbers too big to steal. In 2000 the election was handed to Bush by the Supreme Court because of one state. Looking at the last term, the court would absolutely find a way to shift the election to the con in chief if it was just one swing state with irregularities.
Talk to people about project 2025 and what it will mean. This is how the guardrails from 2017 are removed. This is how we start a Christian theocracy. If we vote blue all the way down, the Dems may be able to put stronger rails in place. If it's not Project 2025 it will be Project 2029. These conservative think tanks have been doing this since Reagan, but this is by far the scariest.
Talk to friends and family about the Biden administration wins. It's not just Biden you're voting for, it is a continuation of his administration.
Bottom line, this is likely the most important election of many of our lives. All of us must participate.
We are pretty much screwed any way you slice it. Make sure you’ve got a trusted network of people, make sure you’ve got your passport renewed. Make sure you’ve got some coins stashed away.
But also, get into local government. Go to a city meeting. It sounds dumb but if you’re not involved then you’re not informed and have no power. A lot of cities have the power of ordinances that can make life less hellish.
Look up climate feedback loops cause we’re already over the edge on that crap. Ain’t nothing to be done except start living underground.
We can still lessen the effect. Every .1 degree less average global temperature rise helps.
Yeah that .1 degree might stave off the extinction of several animal and insect species for a bit
Y he permafrost is melting in the tundra of Canada and Siberia, once we hit those methane pockets…it’s bad y’all and individuals can’t do nothing. It’s basically a greenhouse gas time bomb
Be really mad amd then do nothing
your honesty is refreshing, if not a bit depressing
Nice try, DHS. I'm just a silly wittle unarmed kitty :3
(You better fucking read this into evidence during my military tribunal)
how should
wethey prounce the smiley?Colon 3
As a non American living outside of the US; I'm much more concerned about a second Trump term.
The first one was mostly just annoying, funny and embarrassing for you guys.
This time he'll be taking over with war in Europe and the whole Israel/Gaza thing. There is quite a lot of damage he can do...
Don't underestimate the US military, as an ally. They are primarily younger, and the upper echelons are educated and all take their oath very seriously, to defend the Constitution, from enemies foreign and domestic. Of course there will be factions that will stick to Trump, like certain national guards, but that will fracture command and weaken our ability to react internationally. The military understand those implications, the potential literal end of the world. In the end, they push the button, not the president. The lower ranks have no desire to fight American civilians either, it's antithetical to everything they are taught, and the age range is generally people in their 20's and 30's.I trust a Marine, a soldier, an airman, a seaman heheh, coast guard too, oh and the spacemen, way more than a cop, to do the right thing.
A vet.
Keep my head down and power through the next 4 years same as last time.
This is VERY MUCH not last time. There's intent this time, you really need to tune in.
Get up, send my kids to school and go to work.
"What did you learn at school?"
"That life begins at contemplation"
As someone who might be targeted and killed as this drags on, I'm not really worrying about it much. Control whatever you can, be aware obviously, but what more could you possibly do? Monday's ruling is already in the past - I mean to say that we've already made our choices, long ago (some people have seen this coming for nearly a decade now), and all that is left is to live (or whatever) with them. It "helps" that climate change awaits to kill us all regardless of who wins the next election. To be clear, no I do not say that lightly.
Hypothetical illustration: let's say that you are a deer caught in the headlights of a car. Do you jump forward? Backwards? Remain still? Duck? Jump straight up vertically into the air as high as you can? Once in this position, no matter what you do there are risks, and your choices are limited, with the outcome of your decisions mostly not up to you. Side-note: you could maybe not have jumped out straight in front of a speeding car... but that choice is behind you now, and you can only deal with what is, not what you wish had been.
So don't panic unduly - that isn't helpful - just focus on doing the next correct thing, and the rest... well, isn't up to you.
Not trying to rain on your parade (pun) but you may have been getting your climate change info only from the headlines of for-profit publications which rely on advertising for income. No reputable scientific consensus report indicates we’re all going to die or anything close.
Disasters will cause more damage and food will be more expensive. That’s the effects which Americans will experience for as far as the predictions can go.
I’ll link to IPCC in a sec.
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf
Depends who you are. Middle-class american living not too close to a coast? Yea you're probably fine, you'll get hotter summers and colder winters but you'll survive.
Poor and living nearby to coast or such that can get more easily affected by climate change? You could be pretty fucked by mother nature by chance.
Okay I brought that on myself there by adding
First, we are blowing waaay past all earlier expectations, e.g. those made a decade ago. Second, as the other commenter said, we aren't all going to make it (though you are correct, neither are we "all" going to die - I was being hyperbolic, but then later came and added the aforementioned sentence that did not mesh well into my comment). Third, the randomness of it all is mind-boggling, e.g. remember that one day that the temperature went up by a full 70 degrees F? Imagine it being 100 degrees already, as so many places already (almost) are in the USA, and then such a spike occurs making it 170 for that day - yeah, some people are going to survive it, but what about the plants, the animals, i.e. the crops, the wildlife, the entire ecosystem that exists outside of a cushy building that has A/C?
Anyway, thank you for the correction. I should have said that we aren't all going to make it.
Wait, scratch that - "many" rather than "all"!:-P
All of that aside, it does seem a pretty huge deal, more so than these political matters even.
You guys make this sound like some kind of doomsday movie.
I'm not downplaying how bad things are, but if you really have the several thousand dollars you'd need to actually uproot your entire life just sitting around, good for you. Most people don't have that kind of free money.
And good luck moving if you have pets, or have family members you care for. Have you guys even been to your "target" countries? Do you have plans for how you'll make income? How does healthcare work in your target country?
If you have all that figured out, and have nothing to leave behind, then good for you, I really do hope you end up better off. But this panicked response of "What are you waiting for, run!!!!!" is way more entitled than people seem to think.
Hit Facebook, Lawyer the Gym, Delete Up
Stay and vote. The way I see it, Canada is fucked if PP wins anyways, and will be hurt by Trump regardless. Europe is fucked if the alt right wins in France and hobbles Germany in the next couple elections. Nigel Farage is going to parasitically eat the conservatives from the inside out in the UK. Trump will pull put of NATO, which means war on Europe's doorstep and probably all of south east Asia if China decides they don't mind war.
Running isn't going to work. Voting and protesting and political action is what will keep us all at peace and ever vigilant against populism and later, fascism. All hope isn't lost. We still can undo the damage and categorically reject hate and corruption that is threatening democracies worldwide (and already dooming authoritarian countries with massive population gaps and economic damage)
Western Europe is pretty decent if you can move and get a job here.
Europe, who is already seeing far right insurgencies due to a few immigrants? Yeah, good idea. And if Trump wins you can basically say goodbye to any sort of future that isn't a hellscape. We're already far behind our dues on climate change and this will be the final nail in the coffin.
So not everywhere in Europe is right wing (but there are similar trends in certain countries like the US). If the US falls, Europe will be the last stronghold for democracy (which might also fail in a few years).
Yup. That is the problem.
Fascism is on the rise around the world. And the countries that have stood firm in the face of it? They are juicy targets for strongman leaders needing an easy win.
At the risk of showing my indoctrinated "american excellence" ass... the US is really a big factor in global security. Because (unless you are on our side) we have a ridiculously large and over funded military and love proxy wars.
Strongman leaders? Yeah, vote for Eddie Hall, Tom Stoltman, Brian Shaw, Zydrunas Savickas, Hafthor Bjornsson, Mitchell Hooper, etc.
The only solace to be had is that the pendulum eventually swings back. But there's going to be a lot of fuckin misery before that happens.
By that time we'll see massive streams of climate refugees, water shortages, crop failures, etc.
I didn’t say it was a LOT of solace. 😁
But yeah I lean more towards “we are well and truly fucked” every year.
A few immigrants ? Remember that Europe got a whole bunch of refugees from Ukraine to look after.
And the USA is huge compared to Europe, especially to some small countries in Europe like Belgium, Holland.
The problem of the rise of far-right is more complex.
As a German I'm well aware about the amount of people we took in. Still nothing to get riled up over.
I'd like to second that. When it comes to "far-right boiling point" several countries in Europe look like a breeze compared to Project 2025 minded US. Far right is on the rise in Western-Europe but things are not so bad yet. Not sure about the specific gay friendliness per country but countries like Germany (except the East and part of the South), Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, France could be interesting to read more about. Portugal actually had its borders wide open for some time for immigrants to work and live there but they now have some (but not so bad?) restrictions for non-EU citizens.
France is 2 days away from an election which will see the Far Right grab the most seats ever in Parliament, the only question (hope really) is "will they get absolute majority or not".
Holland fell not so long ago.
Belgium kinda holds through "sacred union" that vows to never sign an alliance with it, but at cities level it's too late.
And Hungary is deep into it with Orban since a while now. Hungary which turn it is to lead the European Parliament (a rotating position). First political act? Go shake hands with Putin.
It's gonna get complicated over here.
To me there is a significant difference between a possible US dictatorship a la Project 2025 and the Western Europe where the far right is in some governments but certainly not close to a dictatorship (Things are different in the East of Europe, for example in Hungary). And there's more differences, compare worker unions in the US versus Europe. And compare gun ownership in the US versus Europe. Same for death penalty. I consider the EU future a breeze compared to the US future.
Isn't this a kind of positive feedback circle though? Right-wing wins, left-wing people move and leave the country, leaving more and more right-wing people left. Then obviously right wing wins again next election, more left-wing people leave and so on and so on.
This can also happen with just people moving from right-wing states to left-wing states. I suspect this is a contributing factor to the increasing split in american politics as people tend to stay where their politics align and leave where it doesn't.
This doesn't seem sustainable? Unless the states split into more independent nations that don't have to align on federal politics.
That's fine. If we can make it easier for people to leave, then the US becomes a trash hole country full of idiots.
Hey. We got through the last trump presidency. If it happens, we'll fight like hell to protect the ones who are most vulnerable, and we'll figure it out. Personally I am still hopeful that it won't happen. We all need to vote and not get complacent, but this panic is good, electorally speaking. One reason Clinton lost in 2016 was that a lot of people didnt take trump's chances of winning seriously. Biden's polling low right now because leftists are mad at him (and rightly so). But as the election starts to ratchet up more and more, we'll hopefully see people fall in line on at least keeping Trump out of office.
I hate it, personally. I hate that we get government-induced anxiety every election year, just to get people to vote the way they should. All this attention on Trump and Project 2025 is meant to force the undecideds to choose where they stand. If you've already decided how you'll be voting in November, take a break for your own mental health. Last election cycle I made myself crazy listening to political podcasts, checking 538, analysing polling data. I can't do it this year, so I'm trying not to get too deep into it.
I will note that not everyone got through the last Trump presidency. Clinton would have had an actual response to Covid because she wouldn't have disbanded the NSC unit that would have saved most of the 1.1 million Americans who died of Covid-19.
That's absolutely true. But we can do more about the future than we can the past.
Germany got through Hitler and the beer hall putsch, go read about what happened next time when he regrouped and tried again.
This would NOT be the same thing and you (and folks like you) really need to accept that.
I understand your sentiment internet friend. It made me insane too (and I have dual citizenship and have lived outside the States for a very long time).
But with the recent SCOTUS rulings + the planning that went into P25, this time is truly, uniquely different. If Trump wins this time, it is game over for any future ways to save democracy and anyone but cis, white, het Xian men and the women who remain subservient to them. There will be no "close your eyes and think of England" for four years then back to normal. There will be no way back to normal for generations.
So my thought is that anything, anything that gets the attention of even one more prospective Dem voter is ok.
Sic semper tyrannis…
Was what Boothe shouted when he shot Lincoln. But Lincoln was no tyrant and history has proven him to be the best President we ever had.
I wonder what historically interesting quotes will occur in the future.
Whether you're left, right, or center, focus on becoming ungovernable.
If you build up your local community and supporting institutions, and commit to ignoring unjust laws, you can greatly minimize the degree to which anything at the federal level impacts you.
This involves a lot of self sufficiency and privacy efforts that many are resistent to because of the loss of convenience, but it is well worth it.
I’ve been saving for a down payment for a house for two years. It would appear my money is not wanted in the USA. I also have dual EU citizenship. My plan is to improve my spoken German and take my family overseas.
As an atheist married to a Salvadoran woman with whom I have two hispanic children, I feel like after they run out of illegal immigrants we’ll not be far down the “committing suicide with two bullets to the back of the head” list. Or maybe we’ll just get sent to a camp that treats ADHD if you catch my drift.
I visited Germany in 2022 and was very impressed with the walkable/bikeable infrastructure and ICE trains even if they were late on occasion. The food wasn’t my favorite but the culture and people were kind and they still seem to value rule of law and societal decorum to a certain degree. The idea that making a nazi salute in public is jailable/fineable is really how it should be everywhere but “free speech” yadda yadda…
I have wanted to leave the US since 2003. Just didn’t have skills or money until now. I’m still going to struggle with a language barrier and finding a job with A2 level German. That’s my biggest issue right now I think.
My mom moved to the US not knowing English. How the turntables have turned.
Buy a gun or two. Nothing in this country has more rights than a gun.
I have, because of my father, dual citizenship with the UK and now that Labour has gotten in, I feel like that's a legitimate way out, so I am expediting getting a UK passport.
Due to a technicality of the sort that their bureaucracy will hate, I also have the possibility of German citizenship. I'd much rather have the ability to live and work in the EU, so I'll probably start working on that when I get to the UK.
My daughter is queer, I'm Jewish and (although this may not sound like a problem to some of you, I suggest researching it) my wife is a librarian, so I want an exit plan.
Do you really think anyone competent will work for Trump? The first time around he tried to deport dreamers, didn't end the program the right way, and they didn't get deported for his entire term. He would sometimes forget to sign bills he had photo ops with. He lead a group of rioters to the capital, told them where the electoral votes were, and they ended up taking selfies and Nancy Pelosi's podium. And these were his intelligent supporters.
I'd like to try to assuage your fears regarding a protest meeting missiles or drone strikes. Yes, the President can order drone strikes with impunity. It's been that way since the first use of drones, early as the Obama era (maybe earlier, but I was a bit young then).
However, this does not apply to US soil. One of the benefits of state sovereignty is that federal armed forces can't operate on US soil. National guard gets involved, at the governor's request, but they don't have missiles or drones. Police are barbaric, but they also don't have missiles or drones.
So I don't think we'd see much of an escalation in terms of weapons of violence with regards to protests when compared to 2020.
If he declares it an official act, then it’s not illegal. Drone strikes are pretty official.
SCOTUS fucked up super-sized
SCOTUS (or at least 6 of 'em) knew exactly what they were doing and did it anyway. On purpose.
6 of ‘em are super-sized fuckups. Po-TAY-to / Po-TAH-to.
He can order it all he wants, but that doesn't mean any branch of the military has to actually carry out an obviously illegal order. All it means is that he theoretically "can't" get prosecuted for trying.
One of the biggest factors is that the courts can't get testimony from members of the executive branch of government, meaning if he does something insanely evil, as long as only his admin that knows anything about it, he can't be effectively prosecuted. It's pretty fucking terrible.
The people carrying out those acts are also not legally immune like the president is.
True, but he can pardon them easily.
If they refuse, they can be replaced with yes-men who will.
He can only pardon for federal crimes "atm" so if he drone strikes on state land the state can prosecute.
Also true. But, like, what are the states going to do about a mad king who's federally untouchable?
I'm trying hard to not be an alarmist (mostly for my own mental health), but it's not just that the floodgates are open; the dam has burst and we're all downstream.
Get thee to an armory
Watch as the Supreme Court use the supremacy clause to counter act this. If they've already reached this far, I don't think that's a lot further to reach
His history of stiffing / screwing over / bus throwing aside, I don't for one moment think he won't pardon someone who has been loyal to him. Not as long as it doesn't cost him any money or cause his ratings to drop.
Nope. But they can be pardoned for those acts by the prez
This is not the protection that you think it is.
One of the elements of the Trump victory plan is for them to replace pivotal positions in civil and military services with sycophantic yes-men who are GREAT at not questioning orders - or, are of the same psychopathic stripe as they are, and are actually enthusiastic about executing such orders for one reason or another.
Not to mention: go into any US military mess hall, anywhere. What’s on the TV? (Here’s a hint: it’s not MSNBC, CBS, or CNN).
Someone will be willing to do so. He can just fill everything with yay sayers.
A huge portion of the military supports him.
And a huge proportion doesn’t.
Dont underestimate how many people join the military at 18 for financial/career reasons and often end up living overseas and meeting people from different backgrounds. It’s not as conservative as people might imagine.
I know that many do not, but I have no idea what the actual proportions would be. Polls are iffy.
What year is it?
Tomorrow is the year 1446 on the Islamic Calendar. But it’s 1445 until then. (I’m using the Moroccan calendar.)
Ahh of course, america has never once committed a war crime
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
Project 2025 has you covered. Law abiding service members will be replaced. snap. Easy peasy.
Soldiers swear an oath to the Constitution to not commit illegal orders, regardless of who orders them.
The issue is that the president cant issue illegal orders anymore. Since hes the commander in chief of the military, his orders are an "official act," i.e constitutional.
The supreme court has said that the president can order military executions of anyone at all and the military can no longer legally refuse. The above is constitutional, because the people who decide what is constitutional said it is.
SCOTUS still decides what is or isn't an official act.
SCOTUS can decline any case silently, with no justification. They can decide to not decide, ceding all power to the new American king if they like.
The military now have to murder americans if the the president says so, because he said so. That core check on tyranny, the military's ability to refuse an unlawful order, was wiped away by this supreme court.
If they declined to hear it, the decision would be in the hands of whatever court the appeal came from.
This is a good point. So the main stalls the supreme court has are to take the case and issue the opinion on the last possible day of the term like this one, and then find that whatever it was fell onto the broad immunity.
So what you're saying is that cops are getting drones
The heroic military that are totally going to stand up for what is right regardless of their orders... sat with their thumbs up their asses waiting to see how Jan 6 would shake out when it was painfully obvious that the outgoing POTUS had declared war on the US Government and was attempting to lynch Congress and the VPOTUS
The Army is gonna follow orders faster than the pioneers of NASA did in the 1940s.
Haven't been following the news, have we? What you said was mostly true a week ago. Now, NO ONE has legal protection under U.S. law against crime committed by an American president.
While this may be true, and a drone strike may be ordered on US soil, the President will not be the one controlling the drone, not directly in command of that person. The UCMJ supercedes in the case.
Any "official order" of the president is lawful now. As commander in chief of the military, he can indeed "officially order" drone strikes on US soil. The soldier following that will be following a lawful order. The UCMJ will not apply.
Pretty crazy that all it took was one ruling from 6 people to undo our entire system of checks and balances, and 247 years of accountability.
From the Project 2025 wiki page:
Why is this fucker still alive?
Clearly "the system" isn't capable of handling the threat of right-wing extremism and something needs to be done, but anybody murking Trump would probably make things worse, not better. He'd become a conservative martyr, and they could point to his death and say "see, we told you they're violent" and use it to deepen hatred and oppression. This is what happened after the failed assassination attempt on Robert Fico
It does not matter what anyone does. Everyone needs to understand that. They will always find something to point to and rally against. But I meant why is he still alive when his health is terrible, he's past average life expectancy, he doesn't exercise, and he obviously spends all of his mental and emotional energy on petty vengeance and anger. I'm honestly amazed that he hasn't suffered multiple heart attacks.
Ah right I get you, a "how is he still kicking" instead of "why hasn't someone fed him to a wood chipper"
I suppose "how" would have been a better word choice.
I was unaware of "Project 2025", interesting read! While that does contain multiple concerning ideas, this is far from a reliable manifesto. Additionally, ties have been drawn to the Trump campaign, but these are loose ties and appear primarily to be op-eds. Trump has also disavowed ties to this "publication". Lastly, that "Washington Post report" is another one of those vague articles featuring "according to sources familiar".
Whether that manifesto's "reliable", well, we'll have to see. That recent immunity move by the SC is already a big step in the direction that Project 2025 wants to take the US in with their "unitary executive theory" bullshit – everything doesn't hinge on Trump.
Far as Trump's disavowals go, I'll believe it when I see it – that man lies as easily as he breathes. I'll be happily surprised if it does turn out he wasn't lying, but that's not going to be my default assumption. And it's not like Project 2025 hinges on his enthusiastic support of the Project, just its goals – if Trump gets elected he is the one choosing which recommendations he'll follow, and I don't find it very believable that he wouldn't be interested in eg. expanding executive power.
That's going to be what they publish every time the sources don't want anyone to know it was them, but it's not like the reporters don't know their sources or don't vet them –this "anonymous source bad" trope frankly reeks of the classic populist Lying press / Lügenpresse rhetoric. I really don't understand how people think things should work if anonymous sources are bad
I've seen multiples of you anti-american accounts pushing the lie that the traitor campaign isn't all in on this authoritarian dictatorship bullshit.
We're not buying your smurf campaign.
The fuck they don't.
After my active duty service I was in the NG for a while until I figured out it was a fuckin joke, but my NG unit was a Bradley unit which means 30mm cannon and TOW missiles. And that was almost 30 years ago.
The Air NG also flies just about every fighter out there and they sure as hell have missile racks on them.
The hope is that the Americans behind those war machines will be hesitant to fire on their countrymen but Kent State puts a shadow over that hope.
My kids both have autism and higher needs. I also have this population of clients. I can’t just uproot, honestly. Sit back and have a drink. Continue to teach the kids skills for stay-at-home careers and maintain a low profile.
You escape BEFORE the regime change. You do not wait to escape.
It was evident that this was the path the US chose in 2008 election vitriol and then 2012 with the tea party. Then in 2016 Trump, it was as blatant as can be. You've had 8 years to plan and leave. You now have 6 months.
Make sure you have a passport. You should have been trying to obtain secondary citizenship. Even with all the money and education, you are only allowed to stay in a foreign country on a residency visa. Americans call theirs a green card for example. It is tied to your passport. When your passport expires, OR IS CANCELLED, then all the visas tied to it are also affected. In some places you can stay as you transfer your visa to your new passport. Some places you cannot, you must exit and re-enter. If your passport is invalid, you can only exit back to the USA if you are only American. The cancelled part is the scary part because the USA already does this. If you don't pay your taxes, or child support or if you have a warrant or even probable cause against you the US will cancel your passport. It's the easiest way to force Americans back home for prosecution.
Your #1 goal should be starting to obtain citizenship elsewhere. If you have grandparents from Europe, see if you can get it. You have relatives in Canada, mayve you can get it. If you can't, then start looking to buy citizenship or residency with a path to citizenship. This is 6 figures and can be instant like Vanuatu or take years like most of Europe. But again, better to start now.
As the Chinese routinely say, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time, is now.
The US is vast and it's unlikely to devolve into anarchy. It may get very violent and bloody or it may become more like a governmental issue where you just get locked up if you're bad. In that case storing some of your stuff in a storage area isn't too risky. If it goes into anarchy, then it'll be lost. Otherwise just keep paying and avoid.
I believe we're looking right at 1930's Germany. The parallels are uncanny. Those who survived, left. Those that waited until they were being rounded up to leave, mostly did not make it. And they lost everything they had and their families ever had.
I completed my move out 4 years ago now. I can now eat popcorn and watch the US implode from the other side of the world. I will lose some money, some possessions, and unimportant things. But my keepsakes and most of my assets are now free of the US.
Most Americans are too poor to leave. Those who have the money aren't likely to care enough.
While I know most Americans feel that way it isn't true.
Migrants, refugees, immigrants... These words apply to white Americans as much as they do to brown central Americans or darker Africans. When you're wealthy you become an expat.
A expat can pack up their stuff, fly somewhere else, get residency and citizenship based on investment, and that's it. Very easy in the 2010's.
If you don't have the money for it, you can still go but you're going to be limited where you can go fully legally. You may have to illegally work to get to a "desirable" location.
But most people who are in the USA came because of relatives that left everything behind except 1 trunk/suitcase and went for it. It is not easy. But it is possible.
To say you just can't because it's expensive is the lazy way out. You can't do it comfortably and easily if you're poor. But you can walk across the Mexican border, 2000 miles walk, just like others do in reverse. You just choose not to.
For Americans and Canadians on a budget, southeast Asia is a great place. Easy cheap visas and lots of countries to do border runs if you need. You can cheaply buy residency in many of them.
Get a shitton of drives for media that would likely get banned under Trump (porn, etc.).
Also Hungarian here, the republicans are betting on the likes of you leaving in case of a Trump victory. That's how Fidesz is staying in power.
have your passport and any other docs in order now, if you're making all these contingencies.
make more objective and less speculative assessments.
find ways to enjoy yourself family and friends now. And build relationships and support systems with people you know and people in your community. Lines of communication and a habit of community work will help alleviate your doomy outlook for now, and help you build a network when it's time to respond to a bad situation, if one arises.
Stay constructive. Everyone has a plan til they get punched in the mouth, so if you aren't trained in combat or conflict theory, you should just keep assessing your current situation, and if you want to get out, if you truly believe Montreal is a more comfortable place for you, then go ahead now, why wait, it sounds very nice. Though I would appreciate it if you're here to vote to help our chances of correcting the illegitimate court system.
Anyway always ask yourself, "what is the best possible thing I can do right now?".
I can't comprehend why there aren't people marching in the streets demanding a constitutional amendment to limit the executive branch and restore checks and balances. The recent Supreme Court decision granting absolute presidential immunity is a direct threat to our democracy. We all need to be more proactive. Government moves so slow if not pushed.
You should be scared but try not to feel hopeless that won't help anyone. I'm honestly shocked at how little people have been freaking out. Especially the news media, I don't see how a free press survives a second Trump administration. That's what really concerns me the seeming apathy.
I'm hoping that come November the election will go well, and we won't have to worry about it as much. (As well as possible given the choices)
My family and I are going to be overseas when the transition happens and if we might not return depending on what happens. We're going to be visiting family in a country where my spouse qualifies for citizenship ship so I feek like that's in our favor.
If shit goes south and it was just me, I would probably stay but I've got kids to worry about and I won't feel bad for a second about keeping them safe.
We have decades of examples of people standing up for what is right or true.
Journalists get shit on because "fake news" or "they are just writing clickbait" and people actively shit on their livelihood. Activists get the shit beat out of them, are maimed for life, and often go to prison. And people post pictures on facebook where they have a background in solidarity before they take a new duck-face picture and overwrite it.
The purpose of journalists are to seek and speak truth on behalf of The People. When The People have made it clear they don't give a shit and can't be bothered to even read the article someone had to go into hiding for?
So why stand up and make yourself a target?
They are already targets.
I'm applying ASAP to renaturalize in Europe. My ancestors survived by leaving shit hole countries when it was obvious they were going to start wars and become fascists, I'll follow suit. Fuck this place. Wish I started the process sooner.
What did I just read
I'm Canadian. I plan to steal a dump truck, drive it to the middle of the bridge to the US that's 15 km from my house, turn it sideways, and disable it. Then, when they remove it I'll do it again.
a dump truck would indeed be more effective than doing this with a trump duck
Don't forget to load it with something heavy first.
Let's just say I bought a large cargo trailer, that admittedly serves multiple purposes, but one of those is for emergency scenarios.
If things get really bad, my wife and I have careers that makes going to Canada or Germany or Norway somewhat viable.
I'm not having my family go down with the ship. Let them sink. I have far more responsibility to my kids than to my country. Like the brain-drain on Nazi Germany or Russia as of late, I'll have no problem going and enriching another nation with more sane people. (with recognition there is some degree of crazy everywhere).
What's so sad is that the ignorance that is perpetuating this modern absurdity and making someone like Trump viable in the first place is so deep that even if things come crashing down, they'll be too stupid to point the finger at the actual problem.
I did not need to change my plans when he was president a first time, why would I this time?
He was no less a fascist in 2016, but there were enough checks on his power that he mostly managed to simply be incompetent and chaotic. He bungled Covid response and gave free handouts to billionaires, sold who knows how many state secrets to foreign entities, but there are a lot of positions in government held by actually qualified and competent people who waylaid his whims. Conservatives have been carefully putting the pieces into place to prevent this from happening again, for instance reclassifying higher ranking government employees so that the president would be able to fire/dismiss them without cause. If the leader of the FBI attempts to investigate him again, they could just hire a new one who won't. The supreme court being full of right wing extremists is another purposeful and deliberate step to undermine the checks and balances system. Conservatives want kings, and they weren't prepared the last time Trump was in power. They will be able to do much more damage this time.
There were no real checks. He had way too many Republicans in Congress for there to be. Most of what protects America is gentleman's agreements that we all assume a normal president wouldn't defy.
That is literally what happened last time. The house (where Republicans are a majority) wouldn't pass a bill that makes firing the FBI director illegal so there's no real difference.
There isn't exactly a single candidate in the past ten years I would've called competent. In 2016, every last person running was out of touch, the only thing that enormously benefitted were the memes. Which is why I often mention my biggest qualm with Democrats, that in 2016 they wanted votes so badly they shunned third party voting as "throwing away your vote". Uhm, no, throwing away your vote is what we're doing right now. If the system wasn't simply a monarchy with two choices and if people voted honestly, this is a situation we wouldn't even be thinking about. I feel sorry for nobody.
Not everybody who works for the government is elected. The vast majority of people who work for the government are hired like at any other job, and many of them work their ways up the pay levels with competency and years of experience just like the private sector. Only a very limited number of employees are supposed to cycle in and out with a White House administration, and those are the people the president is supposed to have the ability to get rid of at will. Tens of thousands of government employees keep working regardless of who is in charge and answer to their supervisors, and so can offer some resistance to illegal, immoral or downright stupid decisions from the "top". For instance, if the General Natural Resources Manager of the EPA says "no, there shouldn't be fracking operations here, it's too close to habitation" etc, they can push back enough to possibly cancel that initiative. Unless, of course, you make it so the executive branch can point to any government employee and say "you're fired" for arbitrary reasons and replace them with a sycophantic toady who always says yes to daddy oil.
Hmm I wonder if we know anyone who likes saying "you're fired"...?
He didn't know what he was doing for much of his first term. For his second, he'll have an instruction booklet that he just needs to follow and take credit for. Project 2025 and the recent SCOTUS immunity ruling are just 2 signs that show that a 2nd term will be so much worse.
And we know for sure Project 2025 actually speaks for the president? As much as it sounds like an agenda book for QAnon and white supremacy, Trump himself has spoken against this side of extremism (whether or not he himself can be classified as bypassing checks/courtesy). That is not to say I support Trump (I don't), but people are turning it into a game of Chicken Little, especially with an immunity ruling that didn't change anything.
If we wanted to get technical, we could technically say that a candidate promising to be peaceful becoming authoritarian while in power is a violation of campaign promises. But... who here actually punishes lying about your goals while president? Who points a finger at presidents who went against their word and says "we voted for a president who would address the envionmental/right problem, and that's not you"? Nobody. For two and a half hundred years, nobody thought to put that in place? The American people cleared out a direct path to tyranny, and now everyone is blaming everyone else.
Trump speaking out is a fair point, but there are plenty of cases where Trump has said one thing and done the exact opposite. Trump is heavily influenced by the people around him, and Project 2025 involves the recruitment of advisors so that a president would be ready on day 1. Even if Trump doesn't like the policies in there right now, there is no doubt that he'll get there one day, especially since he really does not know what he's doing.
Secondly, the immunity ruling absolutely has changed a lot. I suggest watching LegalEagle's perspective on it.
All the more reason to vote third party. The two in power can both be described this way. But nobody wants to reflect on this.
Haven't been paying attention, have you. The coup, the threats, dictator day 1, political hit lists...yeah sounds fine and normal.
I've been paying attention from both ends (unless there are more than two ends). All of what you described have been reactions, not the actions themselves, though I never heard of any hit lists.
I'll keep on keeping on.
I'm lucky enough to have some security, so my plan is lay low and where I can play safehouse for the folks that need it, I'm not a fighter, but I have what I need and a little more, and I can use that to help whoever needs it.
I've got ideas for what the post crisis should look like, so probably try to find ways to network with the folks who are likely to be making that transition once this inevitably burns itself out.
Meantime, vote. Vote like your life depends on it because the odds are that you know someone who's life does.
Time is our shield, and even if it's only another four years, it's four more years the windbag has to survive into his 80s to take another crack at it, by which time the crop of Dem governors are going to be making enough noise to be suitable replacements for Biden, and if he drops dead in that time, it is very likely the movement will be demoralized the same way JFK and RFK dying took the wind out of the Democrat's sails.
The Redcaps are a cult, when the prophet of a cult dies without an already established right hand who can take over and reconsolidate the movement, the whole thing collapses under its own weight and the shock and grief of its members.
They aren't gonna wake up to how wrong they've been, but they are gonna spiral hard and be unable to keep up the energy.
I'm trying to think what's going through the heads of maga nazis right now. Is it "yay, we're about to enjoy years of prosperity when we're no longer competing with liberals and nerodigervents for employment"? Is it "yay, they're going to get rid of all the people we hate and that's all we care about"? Or is it "fuck me everything is still going to suck ass because of some other reason".
Continue not living in the US. I got out in 2015. It does mean, however, that unless one of my parents is in serious trouble, I'm not setting foot in that country for the duration.
For a long time now my plan has been to buy land way out in the boonies where no one can find me and set up a bunch of solar energy panels to power basic electronics and satellite internet while I grow potatoes and raise chickens.
Beans and apples too
And cannabis
And cocaine... in fact forget about the potatoes, beans, and apples.
Better buy it now, in any case.
Way out in the booniee where, roughly?
Probably like a sparsely populated cottage area. One of those places where you need a boat to reach in the summer or a snow mobile in the winter
Planning on leaving the country if I can. Preferably somewhere overseas.
We're preparing to leave the US.
To be honest, I don't think Trump has the attention span to do any more than hold a bunch of gloating rallies. Ironically his own immunity may end up working against his desire for revenge, as some justice department lawyers will push back until Trump gets distracted by a squirrel or a coloring book or something.
That being said, I kinda dream of moving to Canada. Fun fact: the median Canadian wealth per capita is higher than in the US, meaning it may have a better claim to "land of opportunity" if we're talking about ordinary people instead of the richest few. Plus the people really do seem to be nicer. The mosquitoes though...Canadian mosquitoes are no joke.
Keep saving until I can get a used car, so I can stop renting to drive Uber. After that, rapidly save up a buffer using the eliminated rental cost, and then get my second career started. Sales, I’m thinking. Lots of outside sales requires having one’s own car.
Hide my recent diagnosis of hypertension and return to the Motherland. I'd stay for the Civil War 2, but, honestly?
Fuck this place. Most of these fuckers don't even deserve Biden, much less a good candidate, lmao.
Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure
Nothing really. By then everyone in my household will hold dual-citizenship and be able to leave when they decide the situation has gotten unacceptable.
I won privilege bingo so me personally am in no danger, at least for the foreseeable future. Work in the infrastructure sector and plan to go down with the ship. You guys have fun with your civil war and genocides, I will keep the garbage and sewage at bay. At least until the secret police get to me and put a bullet in my brain.
rampage
My partner and I missed our chance to leave in 2015. This time I'm buying a MIG welder and torch cutter.
Start looking for jobs in Canada.
Just wait for them to come get me, I suppose
Nothing like 2016.
I might be old but I seem to recall the French taught the proper way to protest this kind of stuff, rather than the soft protests we saw in 2020, let alone 2016.
As for me, fortunately I live in tbe Best Hemisphere so I plan to offer whatever housing space I have available so my friends from the US can flee over and nap the Trump Kingdom over.
Wow i think anyone from LATAM would gladly take the place of anyone who wants to migrate to South America.
Does your uncle have room for one more? I’ve been feeling very uneasy about things too. I really don’t know what I’m going to do yet if Trump wins, but even if he doesn’t by some miracle, I feel like we’ll just be in the same situation again in 2028, 2032, etc. I feel like the democrats are not effective at fixing things and the republicans have gotten very effective at breaking them. I don’t think it’s going to be civil war time if he wins, but I do think he’s going to really mess things up for everyone, especially those in blue states again and it’s going to be even more difficult to fix. I’m pretty fortunate to be where I am now in my life and I don’t think I can just uproot everything and move to another country. I also wouldn’t even know where to move other than maybe Canada, but I kinda also don’t want any country that elects Trump as a king to be my next-door neighbor either. I think I just have to keep my head down, keep going and hope things get better then keep voting to try to change things and hope enough people feel the same, but I’m really feeling like they don’t.
Join a John Brown Rifle Club.
Lets be honest, the "fight" part people are too comfortable and aren't going to do anything. I'd love it if it were so, but I"m not a leader.
So my realistic plan is buy in bulk, start a garden, try to convince friends and neighbors to do the same to be able to help each other out when the worst of it comes. Which frankly is the exact same plan if Biden wins, but with a lot more fear behind it.
No idea. Don't think I have the physical means to leave the country. I have in demand skills but I am so Far in debt I can't make financial arrangements and am considered a liability to due debts owed to foreign entities. I'm probably going to go back in the closet taking the hide option by retreating into a cist white het male shell and attempt to reclaim that privilege that may hopefully stop me from getting executed or put in a camp.
People should be preparing for guerilla warfare, not protests. Of course a bunch of people will die if they gather in a group and get a missile shot at them. Use your 2A rights and use your brain.
Worry for my gf and all my friends who live in the states
Continue to work on plans for when the fascist shit fully infects Canada
Gonna have to do a bit of immigration. Not sure if I'll have the option a few years from now.
Only thing I can do is hope I don't get genocided. But when Proud Boys show up, I'm not going without a fight.
Gonna try to find a way to get to DC on Jan 20, get as close as I can to Fuckface 45, and kill myself.
I'll live here and help who I can. I plan to get into gardening a bit and support local farmers, the main problem isn't really trump but more how much fake bullshit the media is churning out and whether it actually manages to whip enough stupid scandals to cover for the complete corruption and incompetence of conservatives.
If it does turn into an insane fascist government, well if everyone took out exactly one fascist we'd run out of fascists very quick.
I plan to feel sorry for them Americans. But only a little.
Duude, I'm concerned about you, you write this like you're holding onto secrets of state. You need to stop doom scrolling and get some help
The same as if Biden wins. I don't think the office of president is going to meaningfully change my life. It did not the last 8 years either.
Either way we're headed to war, economic troubles, radicalism, etc. Biden and Trump are both stepping stones towards the authoritarian state capitalist system we have been cultivating for decades.
People are going to be fine as long as they do what every person in Latin America did under the military dictatorships supported by the US. Shut up, do your job, and don't make waves.
Don't worry, it can't last forever. These systems have a tendency of falling apart eventually. The next manifestation will be better. Just like WW2 had to happen to bring us our post-60s civil rights era society.
Moving abroad.
I'm headed to Europe. Cheapest country with (potentially) EU passport options is Ukraine. So I'm headed there in July for an "Ugly American European Vacation" to see if I can get in and out Ok. They'll need a lot of help if things go south in the US in November.
On the one hand I've been thinking about leaving the country. I really don't think Canada is a safe move. Especially because it's the first thought for so many left wing Americans and it's so close. I also don't think it's inconceivable that a more dictitorual Trump ends up invading Canada...I've been thinking about trying to live in Vietnam myself... I figure if they can keep the USA out then international politics isn't something id have to worry about to much there. They're actual leftists and the money I have here should stretch even farther there to help the transition. I've also tried to talk a few friends into coming along with me if it goes bad we'll see how that works I'm going to try to get 15ish friends to agree hopefully at least a few will follow through.
The other side of my mind thinks that's extreme and doesn't want to leave. That side does think that getting some rice and beans one of those giant rechargeable batteries with solar panels is a good idea though.
I was thinking of laughing
He obviously cannot under any circumstances be allowed to be sworn in.
I will move to the EU because they will love the influx of US citizens who will show them how to create a working economy, I mean those guys live in the Middle Ages, do they even have running water???
It's actually funny reading the hysteria online about the US elections. Sounds like whatever happens 50% of the US is going to have a meltdown.
Massive over exaggeration of course. Nothing is going to change in your lives. You'll live another four boring years doing exactly the same crappy stuff as normal.
I feel sorry for the people in Palestine and Ukraine and Taiwan who will genuinely be bricking themselves at being caught up in the geopolitical shit show of US foreign policy.
But for US citizens.... Nah. Your lives ain't going to change at all. Stay safe friends 👍.
Unless you're queen or need an abortion or need healthcare.
This is really myopic IMO
Trump literally made abortion illegal in about half of the US. Even ignoring that, our lives barely change because many of the institutions that the executive branch controls have employees who aren't appointed and stick around between administrations. Well-funded conservatives made a plan (Project 2025) to reclassify those employees so they could be replaced with Trump loyalists. Considering that this affects agencies like the FDA, NOAA, and FTC, this will definitely impact normal people who rely on prescriptions being available or weather forecasts to know about storms.
Those of us who paid attention the first time he was President noticed changes then. He would enact even more radical change during a 2nd term, and that would be absolutely terrifying to anyone who isn't a complete moron and doesn't have their head crammed entirely up their ass.
Exactly. Society didn't end in 2017, or 2021, and it won't end in 2025. My life, for the most part, hasn't changed. But you won't convince all these doomers. They want to stay victims, so let them. I'll keep enjoying life.
It's not going to be the end of the world, and it's not even going to be the end of the US. The next four years will likely unfold similarly to the previous four under Trump. Then there will be two new candidates: the Democratic one will be seen as equally incompetent as Biden, and the Republican candidate will be considered a Trump 2. We’ll be having this same discussion again, and again, and again…
Nothing will probably happen if he gets elected.
Live abroad(I do this a lot anyway), apply for asylum internationally if civil war/ presidentially decreed assassinations are carried out
Last week I was severely panicking. This week is different. I've just been getting stoned and mentally preparing for the inevitable.
Barring the one-in-a- million chance of a coronary finally killing the bastard, trump is going to win this election.
When that happens, and the fascists seize control, they will be faced with preparing for yhe biosphere collapse via climate change (they 100% know it's cooking), as well as ebay cpuld easily be the next superbug.
Covid was a sign of bugs to come, it was the first, but will not be an outlier.
And there's nothing the fascists can do to hand-wave biosphere collapse or superbugs away - not with their firm stance of burying their head in the sand about it. They know it's coming, but aren't minding it.
Only the 1% escape this scenario, the richest reiterated our society, by preparing their doomsday bunkers. The rest of us will eeke through society, and you can pick whichever post-apocalypse story you'd like to think will happen, it will probably be a mix of several. My money's on something like a realistic Fallout, but maybe that's just cuz it's fresh in my mind.
Buckle up. It doesn't get better from here. Relax and prepare while you still have time.
Celebrate and hope that he sticks to his word on ending the war in Ukraine (of course I don't trust him or any other politician, but at least there will be a slight hope, as compared to Biden who will 100% continue the slaughter..)
The president has less power than you think. I know it's hard, but don't let this make you worry too much. Best thing you can do is be strong and help your local community however you can. The media has hyped up this whole thing more than ever.
which is why they started project 2025 this time
You forget about the 3 SCOTUS seats? And all the damage that's caused?
Bro you need to chill
Lmao people here make me laugh
The world will not end no matter who wins, the things that are concerning would be wars the US could get involved in and maybe strife after the election no matter which side wins. But realistically if you dont get yourself involved then you will be just fine. Live your life without the doom and gloom, its the media getting clicks.
Sometimes I really don't know if these posts are serious.
You aren't going to get drone striked. There isn't going to be a civil war.
Chill yo
Business as usual - just like his last term, just like Biden's term. This years gonna be a good one for me either way.
Move to the states
Well if the left hadnt gutted responsible gun ownership then maybe said guns could fulfill their primary purpose they where designated by the founding fathers. That being military power in the hands of a citizens militia to protect against the authoritarianism of the government.
"As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology." - Biden 2016
Oh i'm sorry. That was Trump.... (Right under the video) https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trump-says-he-s-fine-gay-marriage-60-minutes-interview-n683606
Based on the judges he appointed it doesn't really matter what Trump says
Edit: oh my god. The article is from 2016. He's done the exact opposite for gay rights
Well, the Dems gambled in 2016, regard the supreme court judges, and lost. Big time... The people will pay the price... Weird that the oligarchs win no matter what happens...
So cheap to always both sides it. The "oligarchs". Do you guys have a script you pass around? You guys can't seem to have any original thoughts
If you really think that the Dems are so much better, why don't people have nice things in California? The dems have super majority there for many years...? Just bad luck?
Depends. By what metric? It's the fifth largest economy in the world with the top literacy rate in the nation. What are you comparing it to? Mississippi? I need more than but muh California!!!
Having m4a, affordable housing, 25$ mimimum wage, helping the homeless, food programs. Anything that helps the poor...
I, too, take Trump at his word, which is how I know he's sexually interested in his own daughter.
You shouldn’t take any politician by their word...
I'm a simple person. I take people at their word, until it doesn't work, and then I hate them.
Good reply. I can respect that.
Then why are you quoting one?
To illustrate my point. Doesn't matter who said it. It won't be reflected in passed policy because the exploitation-class benefits from division.