I read that it makes ICE bigger than the fucking Chinese army. It's beyond obscene. One thing that I wonder about is... are there even enough racist sociopaths in this country to fill the ranks? You need a specific type of person to be willing to join ICE. It's possible that there simply aren't enough Americans who are willing to brutalize immigrants to use the $200 billion they were given.
In terms of pure numbers, yeah, there are plenty of MAGA out there to hire. But they need to be mentally and physically fit in order to join ICE and carry out these raids. I would be genuinely surprised if there were enough MAGA in this country who could pass the physical.
I could be wrong. But if I'm right they might try hiring literal mercenaries for this, or just embezzle the funds. Or buy stupid militarized vehicles like police departments like to do.
They need to be mentally fit? What do the mental fitness evaluation standards look like for a brown shirt? I get what you’re saying that traditionally ICE agents may have had those requirements but it’s a new dawn where the only requirements moving forward are going to be MAGA loyalty.
That's why the police have the vehicles to begin with, most of them are ridiculously out of shape.
I mean the typical shoe they wear are proof very few of them are actually fit enough to even try the activity of running.
What is scary about the modern world is just how much damage can be caused by a handful of people thanks to technology. They don't need millions of people to run their gestapo if they have the NSA surveilling the internet, a network of facial recognition enabled surveillance cameras, military gear that would let a handful of agents take on anything short of an armed mob, and drone strikes for the ones they can't even be bothered to capture.
There aren't a lot of psychos, but it really doesn't take that many to cause problems if nobody else has the will or capacity to fight back. And this will make oodles of money for "defense" contractors.
I feel like that's the consequence we get for spending the last century advancing technology (to feed our hunger), but not advancing our governance systems (ti resist our greed).
Yep and what that turns into is instead buying military level expensive equipment to justify the money to make up for each empathetic person who refuses to join ranks.
Dont need unmarked vans and ski masks when you can drive tanks down poor neighborhoods looking fot minorities to abuse.
It's possible that there simply aren't enough Americans who are willing to brutalize immigrants to use the $200 billion they were given.
The SS was 800.000 members strong by 1944 so I think you're wrong, there's plenty of people who are willing to brutalize those they seem lesser for a plethora of reasons - money, feeling of power, ideology, opportunism, hate, the ability to do violence without consequences or any number of combinations of those.
I dare say that the Chinese are only all too happy that US is providing outsized budget to an agency that is relatively useless in the grand scheme of things, because the resources would otherwise go to countering China's growing influence.
Well, good news. If we do get in a war with China, we have a ready supply of fighting-age men who apparently fit enough to serve in law enforcement and military roles. I propose we simply conscript all the ICE officers and send them to the front lines first.
China is not gonna start a war with the US. China is going to do whatever it pleases and they have 0 to gain from a war with the US. Plenty of resources elsewhere.
I know, and they will do as they please and invade Taiwan. They will consider the response of US and Taiwans allies of course, but having a war with the US isn't the goal. The reason I mention resources is that starting a war with US will never be their goal, because there is literally nothing on US soil that can't be found elsewhere (where the local army is even less of a threat).
Not the response I was expecting but a welcome one! Because now that I think about it, the German SS had this image of being a formidable force to be reckoned with, but the organisation's overall performance in World War 2 was that they were actually useless. It is only like couple of SS units who did well, while the rest are actually just LARPERs who ran away, surrendered, or got smashed easily by opposing armies. The conscripted ICE would suffer the same fate! Both ICE and SS are only seen as intimidating but that's what they are only good at: intimidation. They would be crushed easily by a more motivated and valiant force who don't fear them!
It also included money for the so called Golden dome, which won't be that great but will increase military readiness and number of missile interceptors.
It's possible that there simply aren't enough Americans who are willing to brutalize immigrants
You give them (yourself?) too much credit. US has been brutalizing people abroad for no fucking reason for decades. How many people do you think protested against killing brown people? Did the involved (apart for a very few cases) face any consequences? No? They live for that shit.
What do you think "Thank you for your service" means when they're literally murdering civilians abroad.
Trump of a symptom of generations of racism. People didn't come out and vote for a felon, rapist and a bankrupt moron, who probably couldn't add 2+2, just for the kicks. They organized it, so they could embolden themselves and live their fantasies about oppressing people they hate.
All the better to "disappear you". Seriously, history books in first world countries will document this sudden collapse of, "due process" and the U.S. Constitution.
200 billion? The people's liberation army is about 2 million strong so that would make 100k per person for salary, side costs, space and equipment. Considering the equipment is pretty cheap, say 3k total, add fifty square meters of office space per officer at 20$/sqm and 10$ per sqm of electricity, water etc, it leaves 79k fir salary and side costs. Assume 30% side cost level for medical and whatnot it leaves 49k/year for salary before tax.
Can you hire a goon for that in the US? I would assume yes, since the internet tells me the starting pay for a sergeant first class in the US Army is 43k/year.
Let me introduce you to something called purchase power parity. When you actually consider what things cost in each country, the US and China spend comparable amounts on their military budget right now. The cost for the US to field a single soldier is around $250k/year. And more if they're deployed somewhere hostile. Similar, the salary of an ICE agent is but a fraction of employing an ICE agent.
That works for some things but not others. Less so for durable goods and chinas ppp advantage is steadily shrinking. And while they are trying to increase their high end goods the fact that their current military has never fought a war is a big anchor on them.
M guessing this is a comparison to the holocaust. Comparing the Ice camps to the holocaust is reducing the holocaust massively, where the word death camp is usually used. During the peak 15000 People were murdered every single day. For 3 Months straight.
The death toll in Auschwitz alone would have been enough to completely depopulate San José, the 10. biggest city in the USA and then some more. The sheer size is nearly incomprehensible.
Yeah the direction is there, but be thankful there is still a long way to go. There is still time to stop it.
Operation Reduce Non-White Vote underway. They clearly rigged the Presidential election results. The results were statistically normal everywhere except in the 7 swing states, where Trump won even though Democrats won the rest of the way down the ballot, and he won by margins that were just shy of what would trigger automatic audits. These anomalies were in the swing states only.
I haven't seen any evidence for this, other than these shitty youtube videos. I did do door to door polling and saw a surprisingly large amount of ambivalent and for Trump voters even among black women, usually the strongest democratic base voter.
Define "shitty". What I've seen and read comes from statisticians who point out numbers that I, having studied math and statistics myself, can fully understand are anomalous and extremely unlikely to be conincidences. In 2020 MAGA wasted million$ in public money to process their mass of bogus lawsuits, which were all found to be completely baseless - but they ALL got their fair hearing. These vote anomalies, which occurred in the swing states only (hmm, funny thing), and always just under a margin that would trigger an automatic recount (hmm, funny thing) deserve to be investigated and not ignorantly scoffed at.
This article doesn't really have any data or compelling arguments. It's just anecdotal data from a couple people that are saying they didn't expect the results.
The Republican conspiracy claims were completely baseless, and were proven so. They filed dozens of lawsuits and lost every single one. This election has stark statistical anomalies worth investigating.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
Just go directly to blaming the people who gleefully voted for it. Everything else is just infighting and stupid.
No it's not. There is a huge difference.
Republicans wanted this so they voted for it. You don't have to tell them this lol they are thrilled. Of course we blame them. That shit is all over the internet all the time, but a scorpion is a scorpion. Its in its nature, you cant change their whole ideology.
The group he is criticizing claimed to have been protest-non-voting because of harm done to specific groups. Mainly Palestinians. This is the group who should have empathy for human beings, who's motive should align with the other Democratic voters.
We told them REPTEADLY. LOUDLY. CLEARLY. that what they were doing would result in worse violence FOR PALESTINIANS and MORE marginalized groups like TRANS PEOPLE and IMMIGRANTS. And what happened? Exactly what we told them would happen. So everyone who fucking claimed to have been doing what they were doing to protest needs to see this. They need to be held accountable. WHAT PRIVILEGE IT IS to be able to protest and go back to your life without worrying about ICE or Israel or transphobes or Russians coming and killing you.
WE TRIED TO GET THEM TO HELP PROTECT THESE GROUPS AND THEY REFUSED KNOWING FULL WELL WHAT WAS COMING. THE GOP PUBLISHED THE MANUAL BEFORE THE ELECTION.
Every time someone says "I told you so" it comes with a justified rage and I won't fuckin hear someone telling them to stop bringing it up. Fuck that.
I hope this sticks with them and the guilt haunts whatever conscience they have for the rest of their life. It's not comparable to what they allowed to happen. It doesn't even register on the scale next to this. They were the ones who actually could've stopped this.
I like how you pointed out that they were told exactly what would happen if they didn't vote or voted 3rd party, and that was the opposite of what they claim they wanted, then you point out that that's exactly what happened, as they were told it would, and yet people are still downvoting you.
Lot of dummies out there. Guess Lemmy isn't an exception.
Right they don't like it because I'm not being cordial about it all, but people are dying because of this.
There are so many examples. All the people who just died in that Texas flood could have had a chance if Trump didn't fire a ton of people from the national weather service. There's literally a vacancy for someone who would have been able to spread the warnings that came out overnight prior to the flood.
Sorry if it hurts feelings. But someone has to hold these people's feet to the fire. Them acting like they're better than maga voters when they helped Donald Trump into the office is ridiculous.
Every time I have this discussion the people that I'm arguing with believe that I am a regular Democrat or a liberal or something. It's always funny cuz they think they're arguing against somebody who ideologically believes differently from them. But I don't, I have the same beliefs as them.
It doesn't even matter if I tell them Palestinian American politicians we're voting for Kamala.
They still tell me I'm wrong. The ego can't face the fact that maybe they did something wrong. I know this because I voted 3rd party in 2016 over the Bernie scandal during the primary. I was them. I did this before and this time it's so much worse.
Don't you see that the uncommitted movement has the exact same argument?
They told you repeatedly, over and over, clearly, for over a year, that running a Democratic candidate who supports the ongoing genocide will drastically reduce turnout in the Democrat base.
The voting results show that they were right.
You can try to self-soothe by saying "I told you so", yet they can do the exact same thing. This accomplishes nothing except further factionalization of the Democrat vote.
Your focus on infighting is misplaced at a time when we need to be building coalition to fight Trump and fascism.
Don't you see that the uncommitted movement has the exact same argument?
No they don't have the same argument. Biden was changed out for Kamala and that still wasn't good enough. She has a better voting record than Bernie in the Senate.
Moreover, we have data on Kamala and trump in the Whitehouse. No one can say they didn't know it would be like this.
When push comes to shove you don't vote for someone who pushes through a 168 billion dollar gestappo budget. It's not the same fucking thing. You vote for someone who responds to criticism not revels in the chaos and cruelty. Jesus Christ you people are insane.
ID RATHER KILL PEOPLE THAN COMPROMISE
fucking moron
They told you repeatedly, over and over, clearly, for over a year, that running a Democratic candidate who supports the ongoing genocide will drastically reduce turnout in the Democrat base.
Not me, I'm a Bernie camp voter, zohran fan, etc. I just have a soul. Conceding to the Democrats to keep the worst president we've ever had out of office for a 2nd term is an easy choice.
The voting results show that they were right.
Yeah, the point isnt about who they selected it's about who YOU VOTED FOR.
You can try to self-soothe by saying "I told you so", yet they can do the exact same thing.
No they can't, see above.
This accomplishes nothing except further factionalization of the Democrat vote.
No one who was willing to "protest" during this election is actually a good person. They can just put their red hats on. They are playing for the selfish team so put on the uniform.
Your focus on infighting is misplaced at a time when we need to be building coalition to fight Trump and fascism.
That's fucking rich considering we just had a FUCKING ELECTION WHERE WE COULDVE DONE EXACTLY THAT
Biden was changed out for Kamala and that wasn't good enough for a portion of the Democratic Party electorate because both candidates support the Israeli genocide. If you were paying attention before the election this should come as no surprise.
Your strawman arguments and insults do not change the ground reality. Your argument is the same as theirs: "if my political opponents would have acted differently then fascism wouldn't have taken over." This is a childish way to look at politics; political factions and voters have never behaved this way.
Your impotant rage does not align with the fact that, even if all third party voters went for Kamala, she still would have lost.
Man, the world must be pretty black and white for you. Which must be pretty easy to achieve when you completely ignore the complexities of international relations.
When one side maintains an important allegiance but still openly states they are not fine with what their ally is doing, floats arms shipment cancellations, and helps try to broker a peace deal, that is very different from the other side openly stating they support that ally's aggression and even float building a resort once that ally has eradicated their opposition.
Anyone with an adult brain inside their skull would look at the situation and pick the option that's less destructive to the people they claim to care about. To ensure those people are as protected as they have the power to make them.
But we're not talking about people with adult brains inside their skulls.
You seem to be confused, suggesting that by "both candidates" that I was referring to Harris and Trump, but anyone with an adult brain would understand that "both candidates" refers to Biden and Harris.
If your parents picked the restaurant you're going to eat at as a kid all you can do is pick the meal.
Biden was changed out for Kamala and that wasn't good enough for a portion of the Democratic Party electorate because both candidates support the Israeli genocide.
Yeah that's true, and either one of them would've responded better to protests, criticisms, and pressure better than Trump had they been elected. Lol
If you were paying attention before the election this should come as no surprise.
It's not surprising, it's heartbreaking that American voters chose more death rather than less death.
Your strawman arguments and insults do not change the ground reality. Your argument is the same as theirs: "if my political opponents would have acted differently then fascism wouldn't have taken over." This is a childish way to look at politics; political factions and voters have never behaved this way.
That is reductive and not true. False equivalency throughout your statement. My argument is distinct from theirs. Your are choosing to ignore all the reasons why it's different that I have already explained. If you truly believe they are the same and not arguing in bad faith here then you don't have a grasp of logic.
The rage is because voters don't do what they should do. Everyone who isn't a Nazi should've been adult enough to put their bullshit aside and stop 47 from happening and then go back to fighting to push us further left....but they wouldn't do it. And it's inexcusable.
Muslim leaders in Arizona told their voter bases to vote Kamala.
Ruwa Romman even called people out who were trying to say the same shit I'm seeing in here virtue signalers. She's a palestinian democrat in Georgia who was subbed by the DNC.
Your impotant rage does not align with the fact that, even if all third party voters went for Kamala, she still would have lost.
Debatable.
She lost key swing states by thin margins. 300,000 votes in the right places and the election flips.
you have to count non voters as well as 3rd party protest voters. That number is unknowable with any certainty. What is knowable is that there were taken away from her by people who claim to care but actually chose violence.
20 million registered voters didn't vote.
And if 1.5% of them had voted it could have flipped the election. 1 person out of 67 non voters stepping up could've flipped it in the best case scenario.
Everyone who isn’t a Nazi should’ve been adult enough to put their bullshit aside and stop 47 from happening and then go back to fighting to push us further left…but they wouldn’t do it. And it’s inexcusable.
They told you repeatedly, over and over, clearly, for over a year, that running a Democratic candidate who supports the ongoing genocide will drastically reduce turnout in the Democrat base.
"Waaaaaaaaaaah. We're sending agreed upon arms shipments to our most important ally in the Middle East that we really don't want to lose as an ally. We're not going to vote or waste our vote on a 3rd party if that continues to show we're protesting that."
"Oops, now my country is a fascist state with a newly minted Gestapo and a tanking economy, repeated violations of the Constitution, a mad king, and our rights are being infringed upon. HEY, DON'T BLAME ME. I was just fighting corruption in the dumbest possible way!!!"
Your focus on infighting is misplaced at a time when we need to be building coalition to fight Trump and fascism.
"Hey guys, I know these dipshits just caused Trump and fascism to happen in the first place, but let's hold hands with them anyway and hope their innate stupidity doesn't hurt us more going forward."
I don't know because my efforts to stop the bleeding failed within my own country because some people hate everyone who isn't like them and others were blinded by their hubris.
once we regain power I'll let you know, but I doubt I'll be alive when that happens so don't hold your breath.
The democrats didn’t give anything worth voting for.
I can see how stupid, ignorant people could think this.
Anyone not stupid and ignorant knew multiple things.
Democrats are better for our economy. That's not debatable. That's fact.
Democrats don't strip our rights. That's also not debatable. Also fact.
Democrats regularly vote in favor of the middle/lower classes. Again, not debatable. Fact, as well.
Democrats didn't run on a platform of hate and fascism.
Now, I don't know how stupid people brains work firsthand, but from where I'm standing, those are all things worth voting for, particularly when the other side are MOTHERFUCKING NAZIS.
Trump Supporters: Straight anti-American scum. Enemies of democracy. Couldn't give a flying fuck about our Constitution.
Non-Voters: Scum who couldn't be bothered to fulfill their civic duty by respecting the fact that they live in a democracy, which they clearly do not respect.
3rd Party Voters: Scum who couldn't rub some brain cells together to realize there were ZERO paths to the presidency for any 3rd party, but did it for funsies anyway, providing a more realistic path to the presidency for Republican traitor scum.
I blame anyone who willingly stopped the bleeding of the wound. be it by their own stupidity or negligence, you are responsible for what is yet to come.
every single one of you will get what's coming to you. fascism doesn't see borders or people. fascism is blind, and only follows strength in power. pray to your "god" and beg forgiveness all you want, it will do nothing for the hurt you have brought upon yourself.
Meh, they showed the world what piece of shit US is.
If your country can openly fund genocide to concentration camps, your "system" probably needs a big reset. But the people who wanted none of it are to blame. 1000 IQ logic, there bud.
It's a mask off and the world thanks them for it. US will probably be next to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea in a decade in terms on international reputation. Hollywood's not going to work this time because people have way more access to information first hand than they did with pirated movies last decade.
Yeah, but this reset was to authoritarianism. Which is objectively worse for the entire world.
So yes, the people who were stupid enough to jeopardize our democracy by not fulfilling their civic duty, or voting for a 3rd party despite absolutely no path for a 3rd party to win, are 100% at fault.
Sometimes you have to do things you don't like, because it's better than the alternative if you don't.
I mean yeah, I care more about my own country than other countries on the other side of the planet, which is why I voted in a way most likely to prevent authoritarianism in my own country.
The dumbfucks that voted 3rd party or abstained from voting apparently don't give a fuck about their own country, much less others, whom they endangered further by allowing authoritarianism in their own country.
The root cause is the democratic party's complete disconnect with its consituents. If you insist on scape goating, you are giving them a green light to lose the next election too.
It what world is anyone to blame but the people that chose to make genocide their running platform? This whole "blame the voters" game is a zionist talking points so we don't pressure the dems to change their stance on Israel.
You think creating a voting issue out of genocide wasn't a gamble? You are blaming the wrong dipshits lmao.
FYI, I think abstaining from voting was a bad move but holy shit was actually enabling genocide the worst possible one. I expect better from the "good guys" and I blame them completely for the fiasco.
But keep encouraging them and watch them lose the next election too.
As an American this makes me weep. We saw this coming from miles away yet here we are.
Those who study world history know damn well that history repeats itself and this "timeline" is a well worn one. We already know where this goes.
I don't know what to think about those who voted for this consciously and even worse those in power who continue to enable this. I hope these people get the outcome they deserve.
For those who voted for this without understanding, let's hope the next government can find a way to better educate you, as this one has let you down.
We'll only get the democracy that we can manage to keep.
let's hope the next government can find a way to better educate you, as this one has let you down.
If you are talking about the education system then yes.
But let's not gloss over the fact that you can't rely on the government to teach you why what the government is doing is wrong. That is the job of the opposition party. It is the job of political parties to explain why their policies are better.
It's the Democrats who has failed you first and foremost. Then the media. Then the education system.
And honestly, even above the Democrats, it is the two party system that robbed you of choices. In any functional democracy, the Democrats wouldn't survive as they are now. They would either have to improve or be replaced.
Force is not the only way. A general strike would work too because it hits the rich where it hurts: their money. The billionaires already had it good under democracy. If they think they will have it better with Trump in jail, he will be behind bars in a blink.
Cant buy a firearm in my state, recent laws make it more expensive and too many hoops to jump through. It seems easier to obtain it illegally as shootings in urban areas with young gang kids happens every night but no one is writing laws to curb that gun violence.
What state? And did you check different types of firearms? I'm in NY and long guns like rifles and shotguns were less hoops. Picked up a shotgun recently because of this gestapo crap.
Totally not advocating violence but have you looked into PCP rifles (or handguns). They are not the air rifles of my childhood, they are quite impressive. Most importantly they aren't considered firearms so you can get them in lots of flavors (single shot, semi auto, full auto) mailed right to your door. Lots of calibers to choose from (I think I've seen a couple .72 caliber out there), but I'm a fan of small calibers for the cost (500 shots for around $10 if going with cheap 14.3 gr pellets).
My current favorite is an air venturi avenger in .22 caliber. I get around 40-60 shots between airing it up, I used a hand pump for a few months but could never get much above 3,000 psi, with a relatively cheap compressor I get it up to around 4,300 psi (4,300 is the max for mine, I usually stop it a little shy).
ICE is being set up to lead the theft of the midterms. I don't mean by just trying to prevent non-white people from voting either, but as the extrajudicial gestapo it is. Americans won't have to be non-white to worry about having their citizenship suspended soon enough.
I always wondered if family members of ICE members know that they are members... If I had a cousin that was ICE, I would go absolutely no contact with him, and would let everyone know that the guy is ICE. Wear your shitty mask, but people will know.
Someone should start an ICE database, where pictures of ICE people are posted, even masked. And let people who know them come forward and say "hey. I know the guy in picture X, it is John blabla". Then, bully those pieces of shit out of existence.
Wish this meme came with a game plan for an actual, realistic way to abolish the 2-party system, instead of just serving to drive more people away from voting blue, which is how we have a fascist dictator for president and a newly minted Gestapo.
Pssst. No 3rd party has even come close to doing the work necessary to start becoming viable for a presidential run.
It still doesn't solve the new MAGA party. The republican party is dead. 50 million Americans are MAGA. I don't see how they're getting out of this without going through hell. In other words open warfare.
It's very strange timing to do this at a huge scale as the US economy is teetering and the dollar is spiraling. Bread and circuses is the playbook for a reason, their tax bill is going to hit like a brick wall for a lot of Americans. And instead of your pop-pop getting his Medicare check you're now seeing that spent on concentration camps in your back yard.
There's a limit to fear mongering and strong arming when it pushes against economic reality. No amount of crackdowns will help when bread costs $20/loaf, international money stops coming in, and the job market crashes all in less than a few years. It's one thing to manufacture a crisis but they might be burning the Reichstag a little too hot.
The cuts don't come through until after the '26 elections. Fucking Republican cunts will point their short little pudgy fingers at Dems and say,"What did you do?" and idiot fucking voters (or even more idiot single issue non-voters) will grab it like a trout going after a fly.
In Weimer Germany, that loaf hyperinflated to at least $1,000, and would double by the end of a day.
As a bronze lining, at least hyperinflation would happen to the Trump Regime and should cause quite a bit of blowback. It was the Weimer's economic problems that installed Hitler. With any luck, we will see Trump hanging by his feet, and AOC hard at work at his former desk.
Stop it. This sort of cope is completely unproductive. I understand that you need to find someone to blame but those are also the people you need to get out of this mess. You clearly couldn't avoid it without them. Be like Mamdani - ask why, understand and if you're gonna blame, blame the ones who actually hold power.
I understand that you need to find someone to blame
Yes. The people whose fault it is.
People don't get to escape accountability just because we need their vote in a potential future election.
People will suffer and die because of these morons. I mean, everyone is going to suffer to some degree because of them. It's entirely acceptable to call them out. Letting them escape accountability doesn't fix anything. You don't learn anything when your mistakes are brushed off and you're embraced without acceptance of fault.
They acted like petty children. Now we're all suffering. Some WAY more than others. Yes, fuck them.
Calling people out in this way does not typically result in corrective action. People do not get the conclusions they do because of their internal sources of wisdom. Instead they, and us, largely compute our conclusions based on the information we receive. The vast majority of that information is flowing via corporate channels, which funnel the right information to get corporate-friendly conclusions. The fact that me and you are talking on a socialist platform is such an outlier, driven by so much luck and extra work we've been able to do that it's nothing short of a miracle. If the information reaching the people you call out doesn't change, they won't draw different conclusions and instead tell you to go fuck yourself, to your face, or at the ballot box. We can't change the corporate channels at the moment. The only information that reaches them that could be different is our voices, through social channels. This is why I'm saying that we should use that to feed new information that could potentially put some cracks in the corporate propaganda. If that information is I-told-you-so, it's probably not going to do that. Empathy, understanding, information, helping them see what we see could. This is a class war and we don't have a chance if we fight our class (when we have a choice). I assume you also work for a wage or a salary like me and most Trump voters.
Any evidence that it was actually progressives staying home out of a protest vote that cost Kamala the election? This seems like wishful thinking on the part of liberals. The polling I've seen and the progressives I know all held their nose and voted for Kamala. Kamala lost because she couldn't convince enough low-engagement voters to come to the polls. They didn't vote not because of genocide, but because they didn't feel Kamala was going do anything to improve their lives. Biden won by adopting a lot of Bernie's social welfare programs, and Kamala walked away from most of that. Obviously the concerns for democracy was real, but people value democracy a hell of a lot less than you might think. People have lost faith in democracy from cycle after cycle of their votes not mattering. They can either vote for a Republican that will help the rich or a Democrat that will help the rich a bit less.
Remember, the US doesn't actually have any kind of meaningful mass democracy, and it never has. It is only the opinions of the top 5-10% wealthiest of the people that have any influence at all on actual policies that are passed. The poorest 90% of US citizens have never lived in a democracy. That's why running on preserving democracy failed. Only the upper middle class and rich get democracy, so the working class saw no reason to fight for it.
Organizing labor and building class consciousness is how to make that economic resistance happen. Labor is power and unions are powerful. If anyone reading this cares, look into Workers Strike Back, especially if you also believe that AOC talks the talk but doesn't actually fight for real working class victories despite her positions and resources.
Any evidence that it was actually progressives staying home out of a protest vote that cost Kamala the election?
I don't care whether it was the straw that broke the camel's back or not.
They didn't know whether they were making the difference or not when they cast, or didn't cast, their vote. They're fucking morons that knowingly jeopardized our democracy. Our rights. They deserve to be chastised.
You don't care because you just want your five minutes of hate. The point is that the progressives you're hating on did exactly what you claim you wanted them to do. They held their nose and voted for Harris. You're just shit looking to shit on progressives.
As usual "vote blue no matter who" is a one-way street. Progressives will vote for moderates, but moderates will turn around and blame their failures on the very progressives who voted for them. It's despicable. You're no different than MAGA. You just wear a different color shirt.
Peacefully polite protesting should do the trick. You democrats reading my comment have any thoughts on the Second Amendment now? (Im a socialist and own guns and am not trolling, just want to genuinely ask what a solution is to this)
As much as I hate the idea of having guns just all around the place in society, I think at this point I'd have gotten one myself if I didn't think I was more likely to kill myself with it than actually do anything useful.
It's the same as resisting early nazi germany, except now there are cameras and AI's preventing subtle sabotage. And if you tell anyone about it, the whole militarized apparatus crashes down on you.
I've been banned from Reddit around 20+ times just for things like this. Any progressive talking point I push, and it doesnt matter the sub mind you, insta perma banned.
Other way around: The US has been doing this kind of thing abroad for a long time, without realising that it was never going to stay limited to Iraq/Gaza/Libya/etc, and that the imperial boomerang would eventually come home
Oh please... Americans are too afraid about losing their shitty jobs to even talk about joining a Union... do you really think they'll organize an armed rebellion?
The US failed to succeed against ~100,000 Taliban in a country they could bomb and burn freely.
It cost the US 2 Trillion dollars for the war including expenses for hardware such as the 362,484 bombs they dropped.
The population of the US is ~347 Million.
If even 0.1% of the population actually decided to do something and made a coordinated effort, the US would be up against three times as many people and wouldn't be able to bomb them nearly as easily.
The US also really, really does not want anything like this happening in their borders, because it would interfere majorly with cash flow from it's citizens to itself as well as it's businesses it's in bed with. It also can't kill a lot of it's own people, because again, the money would go away. This means the more people that would oppose them, the less they could kill or capture without destroying themselves.
For this reason I think it's probably more viable than most people suspect.
The only real problem is that it's only flesh and blood that affirm freedoms gain, and people generally either feel well off enough that they don't want to do anything, or are simply too afraid to do anything.
In any event, no one ever wants to be the first one to act. They usually wait on someone else to first.
Pretty sure it's more a boiling frogs situation. If you're not at the point of putting yourself in mortal danger fighting ICE, it's likely your neighbors aren't either.
That's news to me regarding what the frog would do. So the revised meaning of boiling frog is to say that there is only so much pain a person or populace will tolerate before taking action. Not that by the time it's too hot it's too late.
“don’t have a breaking point” is very different from “haven’t hit their breaking point when I think they should have.”
But I think it is also important in this discussion to point out that many if not most Americans still live a privileged existence. And I am not talking shit about them; I am one of them! I know from experience that if I didn’t care about other people and didn’t like excellent Mexican restaurants, my life would not be at all changed (yeah I’m way up in Pennsylvania and they raided the place with the best food and nice people). Simply put, the people who need to feel the pain are not feeling the pain. The administration is still mostly hurting the “right” people.
I think the situation is horrifying and distressing. But if you’re a sociopath (i.e., a trumper who has not had the leopards target their face yet) who is a caucasian natural born citizen, and also an ignoramus who doesn’t watch news/history, you might just be one of those psychos looking forward to Trump’s third term.
Well I'm none of those things. But I do think you have a good point regarding perspective from privilege. I guess I actually do think Americans have a breaking point, one that is just too far off to be relevant because by then it'll be too late to avert severe consequences for everyone. But I could be very wrong, I'm biased, most Americans have it a lot worse than I do at any given time.
Maybe. But the point of the analogy is that people under incremental changes are far less likely to revolt against those changes. Not that people under incremental changes eventually revolt against those changes.
Previously the other branches of government have actually stepped in to do their job. Clinton got impeached just for lying about an affair. This time around, all the branches have been bought and paid for, and prefilled with sycophants who are complicit.
A lot of those guns are in the hands of individuals who align politically with ICE, but yes — the greedy dragon will inevitably attack enough people indiscriminately that this will become a serious factor in the years to come.
The only question is, how much damage is going to be done before people use them? Can we trust that the people will fight back against a homegrown Gestapo?
Furthermore, places that are most likely to see heavy ICE action will be places like California, Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, which checks notes... right, have the strictest gun laws.
If you also believe that AOC talks the talk but doesn't actually fight for real working class victories despite her positions and resources, check out Workers Strike Back! Organizing labor and building class consciousness is how we can make things happen, especially resisting this tide of fascism, and doing so right fucking now.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted, but every politician is villainous self-centered scum. People here have figured that out with the police - there are no exceptions. Why can't they realize its true with politicians as well? With these guys though you gotta pick the least evil ones and support them until the corruption really sets in at least. She could be doing more for sure, but she has momentum and a voice that's louder than most for positive change. Don't trust blindly, but sitting in a corner just throwing feces at everyone gets us nowhere.
I read that it makes ICE bigger than the fucking Chinese army. It's beyond obscene. One thing that I wonder about is... are there even enough racist sociopaths in this country to fill the ranks? You need a specific type of person to be willing to join ICE. It's possible that there simply aren't enough Americans who are willing to brutalize immigrants to use the $200 billion they were given.
54 million MAGA out there. Plenty of jobs. They might not be able to run 50 feet without a smoke break, but they are there.
In terms of pure numbers, yeah, there are plenty of MAGA out there to hire. But they need to be mentally and physically fit in order to join ICE and carry out these raids. I would be genuinely surprised if there were enough MAGA in this country who could pass the physical.
I could be wrong. But if I'm right they might try hiring literal mercenaries for this, or just embezzle the funds. Or buy stupid militarized vehicles like police departments like to do.
Sweet summer child
They need to be mentally fit? What do the mental fitness evaluation standards look like for a brown shirt? I get what you’re saying that traditionally ICE agents may have had those requirements but it’s a new dawn where the only requirements moving forward are going to be MAGA loyalty.
That's why the police have the vehicles to begin with, most of them are ridiculously out of shape. I mean the typical shoe they wear are proof very few of them are actually fit enough to even try the activity of running.
What is scary about the modern world is just how much damage can be caused by a handful of people thanks to technology. They don't need millions of people to run their gestapo if they have the NSA surveilling the internet, a network of facial recognition enabled surveillance cameras, military gear that would let a handful of agents take on anything short of an armed mob, and drone strikes for the ones they can't even be bothered to capture.
There aren't a lot of psychos, but it really doesn't take that many to cause problems if nobody else has the will or capacity to fight back. And this will make oodles of money for "defense" contractors.
One can only hope that a sufficiently-motivated populace can destroy them faster than they can be replaced.
I feel like that's the consequence we get for spending the last century advancing technology (to feed our hunger), but not advancing our governance systems (ti resist our greed).
among the 5 US militaries, ICE is bigger than two of them combined:
US NAVY: $292B
USAF: $249.5B
US Army: $179.4B
ICE: $75B
US marines: $57.2B
US Coast Guard: $14.5 B
Marines are supposed to be underfunded, they make do with less. They also pass their audits, unlike literally everyone else.
still, having a secret police with a budget greater than practically every nation's military is a dystopian nightmare
There's a caveat that money doesn't equal effectiveness and mass hiring a bunch of randos isn't gonna get you the best people.
still.
no doubt some contractors who kissed Trump's arse are going to supply ICE with 1000$ toilet paper rolls.
but even then, it's a massive budget for what is basically a secret unidentified police.
Yep and what that turns into is instead buying military level expensive equipment to justify the money to make up for each empathetic person who refuses to join ranks.
Dont need unmarked vans and ski masks when you can drive tanks down poor neighborhoods looking fot minorities to abuse.
The SS was 800.000 members strong by 1944 so I think you're wrong, there's plenty of people who are willing to brutalize those they seem lesser for a plethora of reasons - money, feeling of power, ideology, opportunism, hate, the ability to do violence without consequences or any number of combinations of those.
I dare say that the Chinese are only all too happy that US is providing outsized budget to an agency that is relatively useless in the grand scheme of things, because the resources would otherwise go to countering China's growing influence.
Well, good news. If we do get in a war with China, we have a ready supply of fighting-age men who apparently fit enough to serve in law enforcement and military roles. I propose we simply conscript all the ICE officers and send them to the front lines first.
China is not gonna start a war with the US. China is going to do whatever it pleases and they have 0 to gain from a war with the US. Plenty of resources elsewhere.
Taiwan is the issue. It's not about raw natural resources.
I know, and they will do as they please and invade Taiwan. They will consider the response of US and Taiwans allies of course, but having a war with the US isn't the goal. The reason I mention resources is that starting a war with US will never be their goal, because there is literally nothing on US soil that can't be found elsewhere (where the local army is even less of a threat).
Not the response I was expecting but a welcome one! Because now that I think about it, the German SS had this image of being a formidable force to be reckoned with, but the organisation's overall performance in World War 2 was that they were actually useless. It is only like couple of SS units who did well, while the rest are actually just LARPERs who ran away, surrendered, or got smashed easily by opposing armies. The conscripted ICE would suffer the same fate! Both ICE and SS are only seen as intimidating but that's what they are only good at: intimidation. They would be crushed easily by a more motivated and valiant force who don't fear them!
Honestly, sounds like a win-win to me. Maybe the ICE conscripts can do some militarily useful work. If not, well, at least we solved our ICE problem!
Seconded.
It also included money for the so called Golden dome, which won't be that great but will increase military readiness and number of missile interceptors.
The concept of MAGA jobs.
Hi, let me share something with you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU
They might not want people, they might want coders.
You give them (yourself?) too much credit. US has been brutalizing people abroad for no fucking reason for decades. How many people do you think protested against killing brown people? Did the involved (apart for a very few cases) face any consequences? No? They live for that shit.
What do you think "Thank you for your service" means when they're literally murdering civilians abroad.
Trump of a symptom of generations of racism. People didn't come out and vote for a felon, rapist and a bankrupt moron, who probably couldn't add 2+2, just for the kicks. They organized it, so they could embolden themselves and live their fantasies about oppressing people they hate.
All the better to "disappear you". Seriously, history books in first world countries will document this sudden collapse of, "due process" and the U.S. Constitution.
200 billion? The people's liberation army is about 2 million strong so that would make 100k per person for salary, side costs, space and equipment. Considering the equipment is pretty cheap, say 3k total, add fifty square meters of office space per officer at 20$/sqm and 10$ per sqm of electricity, water etc, it leaves 79k fir salary and side costs. Assume 30% side cost level for medical and whatnot it leaves 49k/year for salary before tax.
Can you hire a goon for that in the US? I would assume yes, since the internet tells me the starting pay for a sergeant first class in the US Army is 43k/year.
Let me introduce you to something called purchase power parity. When you actually consider what things cost in each country, the US and China spend comparable amounts on their military budget right now. The cost for the US to field a single soldier is around $250k/year. And more if they're deployed somewhere hostile. Similar, the salary of an ICE agent is but a fraction of employing an ICE agent.
That works for some things but not others. Less so for durable goods and chinas ppp advantage is steadily shrinking. And while they are trying to increase their high end goods the fact that their current military has never fought a war is a big anchor on them.
Pay enough and many more are willing to do it.
Death Camps.
We are so far along the nazi playbook we just need to invade Poland I guess.
Not before the Olympics. But you can already start killing the disabled. Also look out for the new ICE guys to kill the old ones.
People are already dying in ICE detention. How many for we need to call them death camps?
M guessing this is a comparison to the holocaust. Comparing the Ice camps to the holocaust is reducing the holocaust massively, where the word death camp is usually used. During the peak 15000 People were murdered every single day. For 3 Months straight.
The death toll in Auschwitz alone would have been enough to completely depopulate San José, the 10. biggest city in the USA and then some more. The sheer size is nearly incomprehensible.
Yeah the direction is there, but be thankful there is still a long way to go. There is still time to stop it.
You are silly. You only call them death camps after the war.
Correct, the fucker Hitler show cased Nazi Germany during the 1936 Olympics and the reviews were overwhelmingly positive from the visitors.
Your Anschluss failed, though, so at least some of that playbook is being disrupted.
That's the actual point.
Bludgeoningly obviously, ICE had been chosen to be America's Gestapo.
Operation Reduce Non-White Vote underway. They clearly rigged the Presidential election results. The results were statistically normal everywhere except in the 7 swing states, where Trump won even though Democrats won the rest of the way down the ballot, and he won by margins that were just shy of what would trigger automatic audits. These anomalies were in the swing states only.
I haven't seen any evidence for this, other than these shitty youtube videos. I did do door to door polling and saw a surprisingly large amount of ambivalent and for Trump voters even among black women, usually the strongest democratic base voter.
Define "shitty". What I've seen and read comes from statisticians who point out numbers that I, having studied math and statistics myself, can fully understand are anomalous and extremely unlikely to be conincidences. In 2020 MAGA wasted million$ in public money to process their mass of bogus lawsuits, which were all found to be completely baseless - but they ALL got their fair hearing. These vote anomalies, which occurred in the swing states only (hmm, funny thing), and always just under a margin that would trigger an automatic recount (hmm, funny thing) deserve to be investigated and not ignorantly scoffed at.
Post a source that isn't a YouTube video then
I believe this is the first lawsuit to formally assert 2024 voting fraud in Trump's favor.
This article doesn't really have any data or compelling arguments. It's just anecdotal data from a couple people that are saying they didn't expect the results.
Man, democrats really are just the Republicans of a few election cycles ago, which now includes Qanon style conspiracy theories
The Republican conspiracy claims were completely baseless, and were proven so. They filed dozens of lawsuits and lost every single one. This election has stark statistical anomalies worth investigating.
Lol, let me know when you file a successful lawsuit for your conspiracies then. Somehow I'm betting failing to do so won't dissuade you.
I'm not filing anything, I'm just seeing that there's strong evidence of crimes, which is how crimes get solved. Hopefully we'll find out.
Yeah, the Qanon types also claim strong evidence of crimes
So do cops and the FBI quite often. Some claims are bogus, some aren't. This convesation is stupid and I'm done.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
My time will come. Voted (D), protested, and we have a pride flag at our house.
No, I will not leave my country. I will fight to the death when the goons grab me.
Yes, but unironically
ICE-melting technology, nice
Same plan
Keep a knife on your person. They could surprise you, and your teeth can't get through much.
This is what you voted for protest-non-voters.
It's been pointed out repeatedly that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
I still chose to blame the republicans.
No one ever just blames them directly in these conversations. It's always "blame the protest non-voters" or "blame the leftists" or whatever.
Just go directly to blaming the people who gleefully voted for it. Everything else is just infighting and stupid.
No it's not. There is a huge difference.
Republicans wanted this so they voted for it. You don't have to tell them this lol they are thrilled. Of course we blame them. That shit is all over the internet all the time, but a scorpion is a scorpion. Its in its nature, you cant change their whole ideology.
The group he is criticizing claimed to have been protest-non-voting because of harm done to specific groups. Mainly Palestinians. This is the group who should have empathy for human beings, who's motive should align with the other Democratic voters.
We told them REPTEADLY. LOUDLY. CLEARLY. that what they were doing would result in worse violence FOR PALESTINIANS and MORE marginalized groups like TRANS PEOPLE and IMMIGRANTS. And what happened? Exactly what we told them would happen. So everyone who fucking claimed to have been doing what they were doing to protest needs to see this. They need to be held accountable. WHAT PRIVILEGE IT IS to be able to protest and go back to your life without worrying about ICE or Israel or transphobes or Russians coming and killing you.
WE TRIED TO GET THEM TO HELP PROTECT THESE GROUPS AND THEY REFUSED KNOWING FULL WELL WHAT WAS COMING. THE GOP PUBLISHED THE MANUAL BEFORE THE ELECTION.
Every time someone says "I told you so" it comes with a justified rage and I won't fuckin hear someone telling them to stop bringing it up. Fuck that.
I hope this sticks with them and the guilt haunts whatever conscience they have for the rest of their life. It's not comparable to what they allowed to happen. It doesn't even register on the scale next to this. They were the ones who actually could've stopped this.
I like how you pointed out that they were told exactly what would happen if they didn't vote or voted 3rd party, and that was the opposite of what they claim they wanted, then you point out that that's exactly what happened, as they were told it would, and yet people are still downvoting you.
Lot of dummies out there. Guess Lemmy isn't an exception.
Right they don't like it because I'm not being cordial about it all, but people are dying because of this.
There are so many examples. All the people who just died in that Texas flood could have had a chance if Trump didn't fire a ton of people from the national weather service. There's literally a vacancy for someone who would have been able to spread the warnings that came out overnight prior to the flood.
Sorry if it hurts feelings. But someone has to hold these people's feet to the fire. Them acting like they're better than maga voters when they helped Donald Trump into the office is ridiculous.
Every time I have this discussion the people that I'm arguing with believe that I am a regular Democrat or a liberal or something. It's always funny cuz they think they're arguing against somebody who ideologically believes differently from them. But I don't, I have the same beliefs as them.
It doesn't even matter if I tell them Palestinian American politicians we're voting for Kamala.
They still tell me I'm wrong. The ego can't face the fact that maybe they did something wrong. I know this because I voted 3rd party in 2016 over the Bernie scandal during the primary. I was them. I did this before and this time it's so much worse.
Don't you see that the uncommitted movement has the exact same argument?
They told you repeatedly, over and over, clearly, for over a year, that running a Democratic candidate who supports the ongoing genocide will drastically reduce turnout in the Democrat base.
The voting results show that they were right.
You can try to self-soothe by saying "I told you so", yet they can do the exact same thing. This accomplishes nothing except further factionalization of the Democrat vote.
Your focus on infighting is misplaced at a time when we need to be building coalition to fight Trump and fascism.
No they don't have the same argument. Biden was changed out for Kamala and that still wasn't good enough. She has a better voting record than Bernie in the Senate.
Moreover, we have data on Kamala and trump in the Whitehouse. No one can say they didn't know it would be like this.
When push comes to shove you don't vote for someone who pushes through a 168 billion dollar gestappo budget. It's not the same fucking thing. You vote for someone who responds to criticism not revels in the chaos and cruelty. Jesus Christ you people are insane.
ID RATHER KILL PEOPLE THAN COMPROMISE
fucking moron
Not me, I'm a Bernie camp voter, zohran fan, etc. I just have a soul. Conceding to the Democrats to keep the worst president we've ever had out of office for a 2nd term is an easy choice.
Yeah, the point isnt about who they selected it's about who YOU VOTED FOR.
No they can't, see above.
No one who was willing to "protest" during this election is actually a good person. They can just put their red hats on. They are playing for the selfish team so put on the uniform.
That's fucking rich considering we just had a FUCKING ELECTION WHERE WE COULDVE DONE EXACTLY THAT
Biden was changed out for Kamala and that wasn't good enough for a portion of the Democratic Party electorate because both candidates support the Israeli genocide. If you were paying attention before the election this should come as no surprise.
Your strawman arguments and insults do not change the ground reality. Your argument is the same as theirs: "if my political opponents would have acted differently then fascism wouldn't have taken over." This is a childish way to look at politics; political factions and voters have never behaved this way.
Your impotant rage does not align with the fact that, even if all third party voters went for Kamala, she still would have lost.
Man, the world must be pretty black and white for you. Which must be pretty easy to achieve when you completely ignore the complexities of international relations.
When one side maintains an important allegiance but still openly states they are not fine with what their ally is doing, floats arms shipment cancellations, and helps try to broker a peace deal, that is very different from the other side openly stating they support that ally's aggression and even float building a resort once that ally has eradicated their opposition.
Anyone with an adult brain inside their skull would look at the situation and pick the option that's less destructive to the people they claim to care about. To ensure those people are as protected as they have the power to make them.
But we're not talking about people with adult brains inside their skulls.
You seem to be confused, suggesting that by "both candidates" that I was referring to Harris and Trump, but anyone with an adult brain would understand that "both candidates" refers to Biden and Harris.
Please point out the straw man lmao
If your parents picked the restaurant you're going to eat at as a kid all you can do is pick the meal.
Yeah that's true, and either one of them would've responded better to protests, criticisms, and pressure better than Trump had they been elected. Lol
It's not surprising, it's heartbreaking that American voters chose more death rather than less death.
That is reductive and not true. False equivalency throughout your statement. My argument is distinct from theirs. Your are choosing to ignore all the reasons why it's different that I have already explained. If you truly believe they are the same and not arguing in bad faith here then you don't have a grasp of logic.
The rage is because voters don't do what they should do. Everyone who isn't a Nazi should've been adult enough to put their bullshit aside and stop 47 from happening and then go back to fighting to push us further left....but they wouldn't do it. And it's inexcusable.
Muslim leaders in Arizona told their voter bases to vote Kamala.
Ruwa Romman even called people out who were trying to say the same shit I'm seeing in here virtue signalers. She's a palestinian democrat in Georgia who was subbed by the DNC.
Debatable.
She lost key swing states by thin margins. 300,000 votes in the right places and the election flips.
you have to count non voters as well as 3rd party protest voters. That number is unknowable with any certainty. What is knowable is that there were taken away from her by people who claim to care but actually chose violence.
20 million registered voters didn't vote.
And if 1.5% of them had voted it could have flipped the election. 1 person out of 67 non voters stepping up could've flipped it in the best case scenario.
Bingo!
"Waaaaaaaaaaah. We're sending agreed upon arms shipments to our most important ally in the Middle East that we really don't want to lose as an ally. We're not going to vote or waste our vote on a 3rd party if that continues to show we're protesting that."
"Oops, now my country is a fascist state with a newly minted Gestapo and a tanking economy, repeated violations of the Constitution, a mad king, and our rights are being infringed upon. HEY, DON'T BLAME ME. I was just fighting corruption in the dumbest possible way!!!"
"Hey guys, I know these dipshits just caused Trump and fascism to happen in the first place, but let's hold hands with them anyway and hope their innate stupidity doesn't hurt us more going forward."
The eternal electoral cycle:
Democrats ignore leftists
Democrats demand leftist votes
Democrats blame leftists (you are here)
The democrats didn’t give anything worth voting for. I’ll never vote for genocide. It’s literally a systemic issue. Don’t punch left, punch right.
You literally did vote for this if you abstained from this past election. How about you help punch right instead of being a fucking pussy.
You're fucking dispicable and selfish. Worse than a red voter because you claim to care about other people. Fuck you. Virtue signaling garbage.
Damn, when such great voter outreach, it's hard to imagine how you lost...
Are you going to try to win the next election too by calling the people you want the support of of virtue signalling despicable pussies?
If they pretend to care about people's rights and then vote to kill them yeah that makes them a virtue signaling pussy
Yeah yeah, whatever. Good luck in the midterms!
How do you reach out to dumbfuck loser dipshits who drag everyone else down with them?
You may as well try to reach out to a diehard Trump supporter.
Good luck in the midterms!
how's that vote working out for you? able to sleep at night warm in your convictions while children are slaughtered in Israel?
did you even make a difference?
How's prioritising committing genocide over winning the election working out for you?
I don't know because my efforts to stop the bleeding failed within my own country because some people hate everyone who isn't like them and others were blinded by their hubris.
once we regain power I'll let you know, but I doubt I'll be alive when that happens so don't hold your breath.
Guess you shouldn't have prioritised genocide over winning the election then
https://lemmy.world/comment/17277519
I can see how stupid, ignorant people could think this.
Anyone not stupid and ignorant knew multiple things.
Democrats are better for our economy. That's not debatable. That's fact.
Democrats don't strip our rights. That's also not debatable. Also fact.
Democrats regularly vote in favor of the middle/lower classes. Again, not debatable. Fact, as well.
Democrats didn't run on a platform of hate and fascism.
Now, I don't know how stupid people brains work firsthand, but from where I'm standing, those are all things worth voting for, particularly when the other side are MOTHERFUCKING NAZIS.
The problem is, you know what the Republicans will do. Not voting is cutting your nose off to spite your face.
I am informing the protest-non-voters what they voted for.
Don't worry, they're already well aware that you don't understand how voting works
Ah playing ignorance. Or should I call it denial. Good stuff.
Lol, what a weak ad hominem
And there's the projection. I'm sure you'll continue so have at it. Ciao.
How is that projection? Are you just picking buzzwords at random?
I mean I blame all 3 equally.
Trump Supporters: Straight anti-American scum. Enemies of democracy. Couldn't give a flying fuck about our Constitution.
Non-Voters: Scum who couldn't be bothered to fulfill their civic duty by respecting the fact that they live in a democracy, which they clearly do not respect.
3rd Party Voters: Scum who couldn't rub some brain cells together to realize there were ZERO paths to the presidency for any 3rd party, but did it for funsies anyway, providing a more realistic path to the presidency for Republican traitor scum.
They're all stupid. They're all at fault.
I blame both.
I blame anyone who willingly stopped the bleeding of the wound. be it by their own stupidity or negligence, you are responsible for what is yet to come.
every single one of you will get what's coming to you. fascism doesn't see borders or people. fascism is blind, and only follows strength in power. pray to your "god" and beg forgiveness all you want, it will do nothing for the hurt you have brought upon yourself.
I sleep easy knowing I voted for Kamala...and when the time comes I'll die for my cause. I ain't backing down to anything or anyone.
Ironic, it was Democrat voters who were voting for "fascism, but only outside our borders."
Dumb comment alert!!!
Lazy ad hominem
At least Palestine is free so we have that going for us.
Meh, they showed the world what piece of shit US is.
If your country can openly fund genocide to concentration camps, your "system" probably needs a big reset. But the people who wanted none of it are to blame. 1000 IQ logic, there bud.
It's a mask off and the world thanks them for it. US will probably be next to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea in a decade in terms on international reputation. Hollywood's not going to work this time because people have way more access to information first hand than they did with pirated movies last decade.
Keep projecting tho, that'll definitely fix it.
I'm not blaming, I am informing protest-non-voters what they voted for. As for
what they wantedwhat they voted for, this is it.Yeah, but this reset was to authoritarianism. Which is objectively worse for the entire world.
So yes, the people who were stupid enough to jeopardize our democracy by not fulfilling their civic duty, or voting for a 3rd party despite absolutely no path for a 3rd party to win, are 100% at fault.
Sometimes you have to do things you don't like, because it's better than the alternative if you don't.
That's called being an adult.
Also what Democrat voters voted for, they just wanted it to happen to foreigners only.
I mean yeah, I care more about my own country than other countries on the other side of the planet, which is why I voted in a way most likely to prevent authoritarianism in my own country.
The dumbfucks that voted 3rd party or abstained from voting apparently don't give a fuck about their own country, much less others, whom they endangered further by allowing authoritarianism in their own country.
So you admit you don't give a fuck about the lives of most of the human race, and angry at the people who do.
The root cause is the democratic party's complete disconnect with its consituents. If you insist on scape goating, you are giving them a green light to lose the next election too.
It what world is anyone to blame but the people that chose to make genocide their running platform? This whole "blame the voters" game is a zionist talking points so we don't pressure the dems to change their stance on Israel.
I wish I could live in the world you live in where complex international relations don't exist.
Nah, it's blaming dipshits who gambled with authoritarianism and lost.
You think creating a voting issue out of genocide wasn't a gamble? You are blaming the wrong dipshits lmao.
FYI, I think abstaining from voting was a bad move but holy shit was actually enabling genocide the worst possible one. I expect better from the "good guys" and I blame them completely for the fiasco.
But keep encouraging them and watch them lose the next election too.
Be prepared to have checkpoints everywhere you go.
papers please
Open ze door, zis is de gestapo!
As an American this makes me weep. We saw this coming from miles away yet here we are.
Those who study world history know damn well that history repeats itself and this "timeline" is a well worn one. We already know where this goes.
I don't know what to think about those who voted for this consciously and even worse those in power who continue to enable this. I hope these people get the outcome they deserve.
For those who voted for this without understanding, let's hope the next government can find a way to better educate you, as this one has let you down.
We'll only get the democracy that we can manage to keep.
If you are talking about the education system then yes.
But let's not gloss over the fact that you can't rely on the government to teach you why what the government is doing is wrong. That is the job of the opposition party. It is the job of political parties to explain why their policies are better.
It's the Democrats who has failed you first and foremost. Then the media. Then the education system.
And honestly, even above the Democrats, it is the two party system that robbed you of choices. In any functional democracy, the Democrats wouldn't survive as they are now. They would either have to improve or be replaced.
Sorry, but I think you're past that — you'll need to take it back by force.
Force is not the only way. A general strike would work too because it hits the rich where it hurts: their money. The billionaires already had it good under democracy. If they think they will have it better with Trump in jail, he will be behind bars in a blink.
Unionizing and any sort of association for a shared goal are great tools for the common people, often demonized for some reason...
So, none.
I will never trust or have love for this country again. Too many stupids.
Compassion. They voted for this out of despair
We're about to experience the darkest period of American history in our lifetimes.
Hope everyone is ready.
I'm buying guns.
Cant buy a firearm in my state, recent laws make it more expensive and too many hoops to jump through. It seems easier to obtain it illegally as shootings in urban areas with young gang kids happens every night but no one is writing laws to curb that gun violence.
What state? And did you check different types of firearms? I'm in NY and long guns like rifles and shotguns were less hoops. Picked up a shotgun recently because of this gestapo crap.
Totally not advocating violence but have you looked into PCP rifles (or handguns). They are not the air rifles of my childhood, they are quite impressive. Most importantly they aren't considered firearms so you can get them in lots of flavors (single shot, semi auto, full auto) mailed right to your door. Lots of calibers to choose from (I think I've seen a couple .72 caliber out there), but I'm a fan of small calibers for the cost (500 shots for around $10 if going with cheap 14.3 gr pellets).
My current favorite is an air venturi avenger in .22 caliber. I get around 40-60 shots between airing it up, I used a hand pump for a few months but could never get much above 3,000 psi, with a relatively cheap compressor I get it up to around 4,300 psi (4,300 is the max for mine, I usually stop it a little shy).
Write your republican congress person about this. They've worked hard to try to get a gun in everyones hand.
Make one.
New Jersey or California?
WA
ICE is being set up to lead the theft of the midterms. I don't mean by just trying to prevent non-white people from voting either, but as the extrajudicial gestapo it is. Americans won't have to be non-white to worry about having their citizenship suspended soon enough.
I always wondered if family members of ICE members know that they are members... If I had a cousin that was ICE, I would go absolutely no contact with him, and would let everyone know that the guy is ICE. Wear your shitty mask, but people will know.
Someone should start an ICE database, where pictures of ICE people are posted, even masked. And let people who know them come forward and say "hey. I know the guy in picture X, it is John blabla". Then, bully those pieces of shit out of existence.
It'd probably be better to pretend to befriend them. Information is power.
https://www.iceblock.app/
Americans, please rise and applaud your very own, newly minted, Gestapo
But don't you worry, nothing to worry about, always remember "yOu ARe nOT ThERe yeT" and bravely sit back down
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave... my ass
A massively enlarged unaccountable army beholden to Trump, huh can’t imagine what could go wrong.
Stalin funded his NKVD and Hitler had his RSHA (Gestapo). AOC is correct, Putin's Sock Puppet is using ICE like his secret police force.
oh man chuck schumer's gonna write a letter so sternly worded their heads will spin
If you guys get another left leaning president be better be a socialist dictator. If this is the game now, play it. Next guy better abolish ice
That not what they are there for...
Yup
Wish this meme came with a game plan for an actual, realistic way to abolish the 2-party system, instead of just serving to drive more people away from voting blue, which is how we have a fascist dictator for president and a newly minted Gestapo.
Pssst. No 3rd party has even come close to doing the work necessary to start becoming viable for a presidential run.
This is the same as saying dems are really conservatives. It's just as dumb.
Replace conservatives with The Right and liberals with The Conservatives
Democratic Party is not really left if compared at a global scale
It still doesn't solve the new MAGA party. The republican party is dead. 50 million Americans are MAGA. I don't see how they're getting out of this without going through hell. In other words open warfare.
This is a direct continuation of the Republican party project of the last several decades.
We've gone too far down this path to avoid violence to correct course.
Only shot would be a general strike. But even in a functional society there probably wouldn't be enough solidarity for that to happen.
So yeah, expect death in America's future.
Brought to you by conservatives and losers who didn't vote or voted 3rd party for funsies.
There's no left in the US, they think Sanders is a comunist when he'd be center-left elsewhere.
It's very strange timing to do this at a huge scale as the US economy is teetering and the dollar is spiraling. Bread and circuses is the playbook for a reason, their tax bill is going to hit like a brick wall for a lot of Americans. And instead of your pop-pop getting his Medicare check you're now seeing that spent on concentration camps in your back yard.
There's a limit to fear mongering and strong arming when it pushes against economic reality. No amount of crackdowns will help when bread costs $20/loaf, international money stops coming in, and the job market crashes all in less than a few years. It's one thing to manufacture a crisis but they might be burning the Reichstag a little too hot.
The cuts don't come through until after the '26 elections. Fucking Republican cunts will point their short little pudgy fingers at Dems and say,"What did you do?" and idiot fucking voters (or even more idiot single issue non-voters) will grab it like a trout going after a fly.
In Weimer Germany, that loaf hyperinflated to at least $1,000, and would double by the end of a day.
As a bronze lining, at least hyperinflation would happen to the Trump Regime and should cause quite a bit of blowback. It was the Weimer's economic problems that installed Hitler. With any luck, we will see Trump hanging by his feet, and AOC hard at work at his former desk.
An overfunded undisciplined paramilitary of degenerates that couldn't make it through police academy, what could go wrong?
Stop it. This sort of cope is completely unproductive. I understand that you need to find someone to blame but those are also the people you need to get out of this mess. You clearly couldn't avoid it without them. Be like Mamdani - ask why, understand and if you're gonna blame, blame the ones who actually hold power.
Yes. The people whose fault it is.
People don't get to escape accountability just because we need their vote in a potential future election.
People will suffer and die because of these morons. I mean, everyone is going to suffer to some degree because of them. It's entirely acceptable to call them out. Letting them escape accountability doesn't fix anything. You don't learn anything when your mistakes are brushed off and you're embraced without acceptance of fault.
They acted like petty children. Now we're all suffering. Some WAY more than others. Yes, fuck them.
Calling people out in this way does not typically result in corrective action. People do not get the conclusions they do because of their internal sources of wisdom. Instead they, and us, largely compute our conclusions based on the information we receive. The vast majority of that information is flowing via corporate channels, which funnel the right information to get corporate-friendly conclusions. The fact that me and you are talking on a socialist platform is such an outlier, driven by so much luck and extra work we've been able to do that it's nothing short of a miracle. If the information reaching the people you call out doesn't change, they won't draw different conclusions and instead tell you to go fuck yourself, to your face, or at the ballot box. We can't change the corporate channels at the moment. The only information that reaches them that could be different is our voices, through social channels. This is why I'm saying that we should use that to feed new information that could potentially put some cracks in the corporate propaganda. If that information is I-told-you-so, it's probably not going to do that. Empathy, understanding, information, helping them see what we see could. This is a class war and we don't have a chance if we fight our class (when we have a choice). I assume you also work for a wage or a salary like me and most Trump voters.
Alright.
Staying home on election day was a bad idea, sure.
But what about the dozens of millions of fucknuts who got off their ass to go vote FOR this?
They're traitors to democracy, our Constitution, and the United States in general.
And hopefully they get what's coming to them.
It really is crazy how normalized it’s become.
Any evidence that it was actually progressives staying home out of a protest vote that cost Kamala the election? This seems like wishful thinking on the part of liberals. The polling I've seen and the progressives I know all held their nose and voted for Kamala. Kamala lost because she couldn't convince enough low-engagement voters to come to the polls. They didn't vote not because of genocide, but because they didn't feel Kamala was going do anything to improve their lives. Biden won by adopting a lot of Bernie's social welfare programs, and Kamala walked away from most of that. Obviously the concerns for democracy was real, but people value democracy a hell of a lot less than you might think. People have lost faith in democracy from cycle after cycle of their votes not mattering. They can either vote for a Republican that will help the rich or a Democrat that will help the rich a bit less.
Remember, the US doesn't actually have any kind of meaningful mass democracy, and it never has. It is only the opinions of the top 5-10% wealthiest of the people that have any influence at all on actual policies that are passed. The poorest 90% of US citizens have never lived in a democracy. That's why running on preserving democracy failed. Only the upper middle class and rich get democracy, so the working class saw no reason to fight for it.
Organizing labor and building class consciousness is how to make that economic resistance happen. Labor is power and unions are powerful. If anyone reading this cares, look into Workers Strike Back, especially if you also believe that AOC talks the talk but doesn't actually fight for real working class victories despite her positions and resources.
I don't care whether it was the straw that broke the camel's back or not.
They didn't know whether they were making the difference or not when they cast, or didn't cast, their vote. They're fucking morons that knowingly jeopardized our democracy. Our rights. They deserve to be chastised.
You don't care because you just want your five minutes of hate. The point is that the progressives you're hating on did exactly what you claim you wanted them to do. They held their nose and voted for Harris. You're just shit looking to shit on progressives.
As usual "vote blue no matter who" is a one-way street. Progressives will vote for moderates, but moderates will turn around and blame their failures on the very progressives who voted for them. It's despicable. You're no different than MAGA. You just wear a different color shirt.
The same response you get from Trumpers when you point out any of their lies or comforting myths. Blue MAGA indeed.
😭✊💦✊💦
Peacefully polite protesting should do the trick. You democrats reading my comment have any thoughts on the Second Amendment now? (Im a socialist and own guns and am not trolling, just want to genuinely ask what a solution is to this)
As much as I hate the idea of having guns just all around the place in society, I think at this point I'd have gotten one myself if I didn't think I was more likely to kill myself with it than actually do anything useful.
I haven't done it yet. But for me it doesn't make sense to do it with a gun.
It's the same as resisting early nazi germany, except now there are cameras and AI's preventing subtle sabotage. And if you tell anyone about it, the whole militarized apparatus crashes down on you.
and you get your account banned on sites like Reddit. If you're still using that site guess what, you're having a pint in a nazi bar.
Oh don't worry, already permanently suspended.
I've been banned from Reddit around 20+ times just for things like this. Any progressive talking point I push, and it doesnt matter the sub mind you, insta perma banned.
God bless the United States of authoritarianism
/s
America is fuckity fuck fucked. Enjoy Americans, this is what you voted for: fascism and tax breaks for billionaires.
It's never going to stay limited to the US. Palantir will guaranteed be used by other governments outsourcing their tyranny.
Other way around: The US has been doing this kind of thing abroad for a long time, without realising that it was never going to stay limited to Iraq/Gaza/Libya/etc, and that the imperial boomerang would eventually come home
Just thinking of all the value for the shareholders makes me shudder with ecstasy 😍
For the next quarter at least.
Here's a breakdown in the funding.
It includes hiring 10,000 ICE agents in the next five years.
Source
Source
Well for all those new grads and people getting laid off, there is some good news!
Oh please... Americans are too afraid about losing their shitty jobs to even talk about joining a Union... do you really think they'll organize an armed rebellion?
I dont think that's viable really.
They're going to have lots of hardware.
The US failed to succeed against ~100,000 Taliban in a country they could bomb and burn freely.
It cost the US 2 Trillion dollars for the war including expenses for hardware such as the 362,484 bombs they dropped.
The population of the US is ~347 Million.
If even 0.1% of the population actually decided to do something and made a coordinated effort, the US would be up against three times as many people and wouldn't be able to bomb them nearly as easily.
The US also really, really does not want anything like this happening in their borders, because it would interfere majorly with cash flow from it's citizens to itself as well as it's businesses it's in bed with. It also can't kill a lot of it's own people, because again, the money would go away. This means the more people that would oppose them, the less they could kill or capture without destroying themselves.
For this reason I think it's probably more viable than most people suspect.
The only real problem is that it's only flesh and blood that affirm freedoms gain, and people generally either feel well off enough that they don't want to do anything, or are simply too afraid to do anything.
In any event, no one ever wants to be the first one to act. They usually wait on someone else to first.
The other option is unchecked authoritarianism.
You'll soon start seeing huge investment in trains, and their time-table as well.
ICE is starting a civil war, at some point they are going to start getting killed.
Pretty sure it's more a boiling frogs situation. If you're not at the point of putting yourself in mortal danger fighting ICE, it's likely your neighbors aren't either.
While the analogy fits pretty well with human nature, the premise is faulty: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog.
I'm not disputing your comment or what you're saying, I think you're right. Just thought you'd be interested in knowing the frog would jump out.
That's news to me regarding what the frog would do. So the revised meaning of boiling frog is to say that there is only so much pain a person or populace will tolerate before taking action. Not that by the time it's too hot it's too late.
Which is considerably more hopeful when you think about it. However the amount of damage already done is staggering.
Regardless of how we feel about frogs and stimuli my point that Americans don't have a breaking point vs ICE still stands.
“don’t have a breaking point” is very different from “haven’t hit their breaking point when I think they should have.”
But I think it is also important in this discussion to point out that many if not most Americans still live a privileged existence. And I am not talking shit about them; I am one of them! I know from experience that if I didn’t care about other people and didn’t like excellent Mexican restaurants, my life would not be at all changed (yeah I’m way up in Pennsylvania and they raided the place with the best food and nice people). Simply put, the people who need to feel the pain are not feeling the pain. The administration is still mostly hurting the “right” people.
I think the situation is horrifying and distressing. But if you’re a sociopath (i.e., a trumper who has not had the leopards target their face yet) who is a caucasian natural born citizen, and also an ignoramus who doesn’t watch news/history, you might just be one of those psychos looking forward to Trump’s third term.
Well I'm none of those things. But I do think you have a good point regarding perspective from privilege. I guess I actually do think Americans have a breaking point, one that is just too far off to be relevant because by then it'll be too late to avert severe consequences for everyone. But I could be very wrong, I'm biased, most Americans have it a lot worse than I do at any given time.
Says you.
Yup, that's the guy who said my comment. It was me.
You literally just said "Americans." You are speaking for Americans. You don't know what you said means?
Edit- Dude edited his message after getting called out for lying.
Yeah, hence "at some point."
Are you familiar with the boiling frog analogy?
Yes. Hence I wrote "at some point."
I don't think you understand the analogy.
Oh I do. I don't think you understand me.
Maybe. But the point of the analogy is that people under incremental changes are far less likely to revolt against those changes. Not that people under incremental changes eventually revolt against those changes.
My pride flag will still fly. I will still protest. But I will now answer the door, chain bolted, and 9mm pointed through the door.
Bad idea. Even pistols can shoot through doors and entry tactics love it when you come to set location.
Get a security camera and if they take it out first... Well, you know what they're there for.
this exactly right here is the correct choice of action...
I have my game plan ready for ICE, I'm willing to gamble on jury nullification.
Do you think you'll make it to the stage where you have a jury?
30% chance
They are literally grabbing random people just to meet a daily quota, there's no court involved.
Yeah we live in the Fascist States of America. They're just fully mask-off racist now.
Gearing up for the death camps
You mean Alligator Alcatraz? Concentration camps are already a work in progress.
*Alligator Auschwitz.
Alligator Alcatraz costs about $500 million for 5000 inmates, or $100,000 per inmate.
That $45 billion detention budget is enough for 450,000 inmates. The US has about 2 million people incarcerated.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
We’ve got our Stasi, now.
This is step I. Next step is to make them Trump's personal policing force.
gestapo
How can we not have a recall option? I don't understand how we got this far without one.
Previously the other branches of government have actually stepped in to do their job. Clinton got impeached just for lying about an affair. This time around, all the branches have been bought and paid for, and prefilled with sycophants who are complicit.
The interesting thing is that the US of today isn't a historical parallel with Nazi Germany.
The US has 300,000,000 guns (among other things) in civilian hands.
I don't think it's going to be an uneventful 10-20 years as this round of fascism works its way through the American system.
A lot of those guns are in the hands of individuals who align politically with ICE, but yes — the greedy dragon will inevitably attack enough people indiscriminately that this will become a serious factor in the years to come.
The only question is, how much damage is going to be done before people use them? Can we trust that the people will fight back against a homegrown Gestapo?
Furthermore, places that are most likely to see heavy ICE action will be places like California, Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, which checks notes... right, have the strictest gun laws.
Then you got gun owners like me who hate ICE.
Just put everyone in a labor camp and make North Korea look like a joke I guess.
That looks like Bluesky tho not Twitter
It is Bluesky.
Damn straight.
If you also believe that AOC talks the talk but doesn't actually fight for real working class victories despite her positions and resources, check out Workers Strike Back! Organizing labor and building class consciousness is how we can make things happen, especially resisting this tide of fascism, and doing so right fucking now.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted, but every politician is villainous self-centered scum. People here have figured that out with the police - there are no exceptions. Why can't they realize its true with politicians as well? With these guys though you gotta pick the least evil ones and support them until the corruption really sets in at least. She could be doing more for sure, but she has momentum and a voice that's louder than most for positive change. Don't trust blindly, but sitting in a corner just throwing feces at everyone gets us nowhere.