U.S. historian Robert Kagan: "We are watching a country fall under dictatorship almost without resistance"
The Cold War? Child's play compared to what lies ahead, according to U.S. historian Robert Kagan. Trump, he says, is leading the world into the most dangerous era since 1945.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/u-s-historian-robert-kagan-we-are-watching-a-country-fall-under-dictatorship-almost-without-resistance-a-d262290b-cca0-4c2f-945d-2ef3b64c574fOpen linkView original on lemmy.world913
Comments191
Tyrants always have the advantage in a "civil society"...
(Almost) Everything he does is legal so people treat it as fair game even if we don't like it, and aside from ICE murdering people, there isn't any direct violence to fight against so the "civil society" has to wait until it's wayyyyyyyy too late, to the point that we're all being sent to the gas chambers, until it decides it's morally correct to use violence.
Until that point we're left hoping our "representatives" will "fight" for us (hahahahahahahahahahahahaha...... Ughh....)
:(
People forget that morality, legality, and constitutionality are all different. Andrew Jackson ignored court orders regarding treaties with the Cherokee, nothing bad happened, because the people supported him. Lincoln blockaded the South without congressional approval, that was a good thing, also unconstitutional. He suspended habeas corpus, which was also unconstitutional. ICE is likely not breaking the constitution in many instances. However, that doesn't make their actions the slightest bit less abjorrent and evil. The constitution is a centuries old piece of paper. If anything, the Bill of Rights and some ot the other amendments (namely the 14th) are significantly more valuable.
Ice is detaining people without cause or warrants, it’s most definitely breaking the constitution.
Not me; I think it’s been warranted for probably 6 months now.
But unlike my namesake I’m not willing to go it alone.
There is a brutal man with a gun, controlling and threatening a group of good citizens with consciences. He's going to do terrible things to them, and make them do terrible things themselves.
They have him outnumbered, but he has the gun. If they rush him, they can easily defeat him. But, the first one or two or three or four people to move forward will be shot and probably die painfully. Going first is going to cost a terrible price and you don't know for sure that anyone else will follow you, that your sacrifice will be for anything at all.
You feel a little paralyzed and at the same time ashamed you are just standing there.
What happens next?
I joined the fediverse and blocked all meme and shitpost feeds, so maybe take that everyone out of your goddamn mouth!
😁
Only half of those citizens have consciouses at all, and many of those are still confused about how bad the guy with the gun is. They still at least believe in there being a guy with a gun, just not this exact one, they want their handsome gun guy instead of this ugly gun guy. The other half rabidly love the guy with the gun.
This is what frustrates me most as a Canadian watching this from over the fence.
I've seen ICE videos of them killing people. There are 6 officers and 75 people with phones. ICE shoots someone and none of the 75 people do anything. They let it happen. The 75 people just stood by and watched ICE murder a citizen in broad daylight. When in reality those 75 people could have not only stopped the murder from happening, but likely killed those 6 ICE agents and prevented a future tragedy.
The fact no one wants to try and stop this is why it's still happening. America is filled with keyboard warriors and when push comes to shove, a bunch of pussies.
America is falling not just because of people not voting (Which 1/3rd of eligible voters allowed this to happen), but because of deliberate inaction as fascism takes over right in front of everyone with no resistance at all.
But maybe we'll have a protest on a Saturday afternoon. That'll show em.
Surely civilians joining together in a mob to take out Trump's gang of lil rascals would be the end of it right?
President Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled he is open to invoking the Insurrection Act, a law from 1807 that allows the president to deploy the military in the United States.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has awarded Palantir Technologies Inc. a five-year blanket purchase to expand the department’s use of artificial intelligence and large-scale data analytics platforms across its agencies.
Executives from high-tech firms Meta, OpenAI and Palantir are joining the Army Reserve at the rank of lieutenant colonel to serve in Detachment 201, a new “Executive Innovation Corps,” the service announced Friday.
Graciously explicit' job post reveals Trump's DHS expanding shadowy apparatus: report
Pam Bondi Admits DOJ Has a Secret Domestic Terrorist List
The Lavender precedent: automated kill lists and the limits of International Humanitarian Law
Good luck bringing 75 guns to a Palantir drone fight, Mark Wahlberg.
Brother to the North, fuck you. You’re the same.
Death staring you in the face, you’d do the same. Do you have kids? A partner? Fancy leaving them or anyone else you love early? Make that decision in mere seconds. Paralysis would take you too.
Keyboard warrior pointing the finger. Not everyone has so little to live for that they’d throw it away for a notion of standing up for injustice while a gun is staring you in the face. Shit’s not easy. I commend anyone making the choice to do so. But don’t point a finger while you’re not even here. You fucking ignorant pussy
I've served in the Canadian Armed Forces. I'll bet my house that's more than anything you've ever done. I've served my country once and I would do it again tomorrow if it came to it.
Your projection is so bright it can be seen from space.
You served in an organized military force with institutional backing, without implied threats to your family based on your conduct. That's a very different proposition than the choice facing American resistors now, isn't it?
It's a group psychology phenomenon (I forget the name). Everyone was waiting for someone else to intervene.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
Recently re-listening to ALL-AMERIKKKAN BADASS by Joey Bada$$, from 2017. I want to share the last verse of AMERIKKKAN IDOL here, it's even more bitterly accurate than it was back then.
One man can't keep a hundred of his peers in subjugation, but a million can keep 400 million so. It's about organization and leadership. The analogy you give doesn't really fit, and neither do my statistics as they've far more than a million at their disposal. Half the country still supports them to boot and they've millions under arms, following orders and we have, the democrats organizing what passes for resistance.
There were about 1 million jews that died in Auschwitz, where they had about 10,000 guards. Quite literally a ratio of 100 people being subjugated by 1 person.
It's a point made in decline and fall of the roman empire, that an organized group can hold a large population down even as in a smaller group that ratio could not.
Looking at concentration camps is different, those people were already captured, you would want to look at the size of the police, and SS, and SA, and the like.
Also there were a lot more victims of nazis than just 'the jews." They killed unionists, socialists, communists, gypsies/roma, the mentally ill, homosexuals, leftists, political opponents, and so forth.
They matter as well, we repeat casualty figures of the nazis like jews were the only victims, and it's not true, and gives people a false impression that if they aren't a member of the out group they will be fine.
I wasn't trying to say jews were the only victims, just trying to show a real-world example of how it took about 1 person per 100 to subjugate a group of people. Yes the concentration camps were different but I would still say those people were subjugated.
I just made the point because the media does that all the time they never mention other victims, and it's left the population with a very inaccurate view of the nazis, their victims, and whom their victims would be if they got in power.
Not all immigrants it's an ever expanding list, especially when they will need a lot of scapegoats to cover for their stealing and corruption. People won't risk their neck if their neck isn't on the chopping block and all, I think it's a on purpose of them.
It also feeds into the victim mentality that is used by some groups to commit their own abuses and force their own others into ghettos they control, about 6 million of them in fact, coincidentally.
The last decade has made it abundantly clear how weak America actually is.
Growing up I just assumed we would stomp this kind of shit out real fast. Instead we're bending over and letting an almost dead felon rapist pedophile fuck our country and our futures up. We're allowing a clearly treasonous party to abdicate all their responsibilities to a fat creep that falls asleep and shits his pants during official duties.
It's truly pathetic.
Don't think I'll be able to muster up much patriotism for this shithole for the remainder of my life.
ThEyRe BaItInG yOu
It's interesting. It was pretty clear to me as a child, years ago, that this nation was fucked.
It had, and has, potential, but is driving in the wrong direction, with blinders on.
But I think it's a perspective thing.
Some people just don't see it, cause they are doing fine in their fishbowls.
Others have a twisted perspective and can't tell what's real and what's not--even confuse what's right in front of them, or biting them in the ass.
There are people that see it, sure. And people who fight against it. But it's a lot and they are few. So even with huge wins here or there the overall trajectory remains the same.
It's like the doomsday clock: it's 5 second to midnight, maybe tomorrow it'll move back to 10 seconds, but it's unlikely to ever move back a minute, or an hour, or a day.
And I'm an optimist.
You've largely described my perception growing up; my own experience had a twist: I had a hard time reconciling how many others didn't see the same cracks, and how things didn't fall apart (sooner). I was beginning to accept the idea that maybe it wasn't so bad, as that is what I was told over and over. Yet here we are.
I've mentioned this before to others whenever this comes up. most or a great majority of people in the US have it "good enough" to not "risk it all".
Things over here "aren't bad enough" for people to full-on revolt. I'd say we're kinda close but modern, white, boring america just doesn't want to get caught in the shit storm. They understand it might come for them at some point but that time isn't now so why "stick their neck out"
Most of the people I know are barely hanging on and desperate to keep the little they have. When you're barely getting by, like 60% of Americans currently living paycheck to paycheck, you can't afford to risk anything.
They're too busy making sure their kids don't starve, or making sure they can stretch the last bit of money until the next check. Doesn't help that all we do is exploit these people any chance we can.
And I'd bet a lot of people in that situation don't really care to help repair a system that never really worked for them in the first place.
It's not the right approach, you and I know that. But desperate people don't act rationally. They act emotionally. And our society has gotten really good at manipulating peoples emotions.
The people living paycheck to paycheck are ones who would make the most impact by striking, but are least able to as they will starve, be evicted, lose utilities/cell/internet if they do.
The people who are making enough money to be comfortable are afraid that if they upset the people above them, they will become the people living paycheck to paycheck.
The independently wealthy and top tier capitalists are the ones that have the most financial freedom to protest, but have the least reason to, are the smallest group, and are mostly fine with how things are (at best) or actively making things worse (most likely).
... And keeping them in a state where they are easily manipulated.
"We're too poor to afford to risk anything" is insulting to all the popular revolutions which happened because people were actually poor. Like, sorry not sorry, but the median American proletarian may live paycheck-to-paycheck but still lives in untold luxury compared to a 1917 Bolshevik who had to go to war sharing two boots and one rifle with multiple people, or the median revolutionary in Nepal last year (one of the poorest countries in the world).
Americans really have it too good to risk it all, that analysis is correct. They could have it a lot better, sure, but threat of not having it so good anymore is what keeps them complacent.
First they came for the 'illegals', but I did not do anything as I wasn't an illegal.
Then they came for the trans, but I did not speak up for I wasn't trans.
Then they came for etc etc etc.
Waiting for dictators to do the right thing is never ever a good idea.
first they came for the immigrants, and i'm freaking out because i'm trans and i'm worried we'll be next, but everyone's telling me to calm down. wonder what they'll say to me when they come for the trans.
They'll say, "Where's lolola gone? ...Oh, ohh, ohhhhhh. Oh well, never mind, I'm not trans. I'm just gay, they'll never come for me."
{Flashing lights outside. Knock on the door}
"Whoever could that be?...oh, hello officer, how can I help yo...why are you handcuffing me? Help! Help! No one could ever have seen this coming!!"
Regaining Unconsciousness.
We have a lot of people willing to fight for a better future.
We don't have nearly enough people willing to die for a better future.
The reason why is because it's quite literally the last resort. Most of us aren't there yet.
By the time you are it'll be too late.
Sure. Most of us recognize it too. You realize the entire country is built around keeping us tied to an employer right?
Without a job, I have no health insurance, I have no roof over my head, I have no food. Those of us helping with the community orgs can only do so because we can afford it.
Good luck inspiring people to go die while they have those basic needs being provided.
Sadly yes, when it finally does get to the point where most of America says “we’ve had enough!” I feel the water will be boiling and the frog will be almost cooked.
The water is so full of toxins we won't even have to wait for it to boil. Endocrine disruptors and whatever else have turned us into compliant slaves of the ruling class without a fight. I'm serious about that, something dosing us is making us compliant, I'm convinced of it, it could be endocrine disruptors perhaps, which are everywhere.
If the micro plastics don’t get us global warming will for sure wipe us all out.
Absolutely. I'm very aware of my "white privilege".
I vote. I've protested and will again.
Yet, I'm going away for long weekends and I have a very big vacation coming in 2 months. I'm sure many people find that selfish and offensive. However, I consider it my personal survival technique.
Best of luck to everyone.
I view it more as I might as well spend my money while it still has buying power.
Oh, I am... My GF and I are logging at least one day of OT per week to pay for that big vacation. I'll be @ 54 hrs this week by end of today's shift. And my company pays "critical staffing" bonus of $10/hr on top of my 1.5X OT rate.
It is hilarious to me and also annoying that they say there is no resistance. Millions are flooding the streets. Record protests. Hundreds of thousands have made networks of information systems. But yeah sure no resistance. A toy company took the administration to Supreme Court and won but okay yeah no resistance . Women gassed and burned ice warehouses but okkkkk no resistance. Kids punching nazis. No resistance. Ridiculous.
There's street resistance, but virtually no political opposition. At every level of government, Democrats are falling over to comply, even as their constituents scream in protest.
There's a somewhat valid excuse that the Dems are minority powers in house, Senate, and supreme court (which is now partisan) and the American system doesn't grant any political power at all to a minority party against a lock-step majority.
That said, remember during COVID peaks, when Trump had his BS press conference updates? Andrew Cuomo, himself no saint, also had daily (?) live streams to give important information and quarantine/medical advice. Dem politicians could absolutely be using their voices right now to make a lot of noise - even without mechanical political power.
Democrats are not the minority in California or Oregon or Minnesota or New York. Nevertheless, state and municipal leaders have rolled over to ICE, co-mingled local PD resources, and left grisley murders unprosecuted.
That's somewhat true, there has been mixed local/state resistance - I was focusing on nationally. I wonder if there's some pressure being applied behind the scenes to local Dems, fear of retribution, or if it's mere fecklessness.
My conspiracy hat suspicions are that Dem leadership is willingly sacrificing our rights/lives and letting things get worse in the hopes of boosting their midterm election chances. Althe answer to that is progressive sweep in the primaries
Yeah, it's called the DN fucking C.
Capitulating to Trump is a party policy
So what ?
Trump and his crew are still going on with their plan.
Your highest court rules that the taxes are illegal, and orange Don just creates new ones.
Some crowds walking on the streets and yelling is not any resistance, when the bad guys simply continue.
KEEP GOING EVERYONE!!!! Locally up to internationally we the people have the power to get things done together!! Get more people active from anybody that isn't yet!!
Also if you notice anybody going through tons of stress comfort them for a bit, laugh, have fun, and bring up their hope. Get them connected with others in person and online. All of us together are capable of anything
These countries a lot done from people working together: Syria, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Madagascar
Others that already were: Japan, South Korea, Norway, Denmark.
Currently all the People and especially people from these countries need all the assistance they can get: Ukraine, Myanmar, USA, Iran, Nigeria, India (Yes every country just these will have huge impact on everything else)
P.S. Networks of Information systems? I wanna help out for that what do you recommend I do? Been thinking setting up Matrix and Fluxer communities to help out with getting people mobilizing, collaborating, and doing in-person and online. Online communities focused on getting things done
You're winning some battles but that doesn't mean you're winning the war.
The efforts you've described are admirable and I'm sure has saved lives and the truth, but if the control runs deep, so must the resistance. I think the more we look into the secrets and recognize manipulation, the more enraged we will feel at how normal it was all made to seem.
It blew my mind when I realized how much of the internet and how much of national media in many countries is propaganda and flawed reporting. Leaving out details is lying imo and it's often normalized because it's "PR" or "protection".
It all often takes me back to my abusive childhood home where I was kept inside/sheltered not to be protected from harm, but to keep me from realizing what was going on. To keep me from reaching people and information that would tell me it isn't normal. But without the internet, its privacy and the people (not AI) I met there, I might still believe in that normal. It was thinking that got me out, and intense self-reflection. When the AI (even the algorithms sometimes) thinks for you, it doesn't allow you to go through the process of reasoning and critical thinking.
I first thought it must feel like magic for the kids, then realized no, it's as normal as our childhood surroundings were to us. And that is terrifying.
There's a reason the word "renaissance" means rebirth. Wounding isn't the same as killing (a status quo or a powerful person). They obviously know that, I think most of us don't though. We didn't even recognize the evil grow because they pit us against each other. I cri sorry for rant lemmy.
Oh boy, so this is what you think resistance is? I'm afraid you're even more fucked than I was afraid of.
I'm sure that wherever you're from has some history of armed uprising. Heck, you might have even been a part of it. But this is still the keyboard warrior trope. There are definitely more productive and friendly ways to explain that you think it's going to take a lot more than what has already been tried than treating strangers in conflict zones like your own personally loathed chess pieces.
Just reading his Wikipedia page is scary as hell for an American president. Unreal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_presidency_of_Donald_Trump
There is a combination of factors that is turning America, a country founded on evicting a King from our government, into a country with a de-facto one.
First, one of the foundational principles of the country was the separation of powers. Specific powers were given to specific branches of government. The founders anticipated that ambitious people would fill those branches, and they would not give up that power so easily. They did not anticipate a Congress that would abdicate it's power over directing the Executive branch when their guy is there. And a Supreme Court picked expressly to choose sides.
Second, the founders realized that there needed to be someone in charge of the Federal executive that had some real power. Recall that we had already formed one government , under the "Articles of Confederation", with a weak central government that was not working. But, they did not trust the general electorate to pick it. That is the original purpose of the Electoral College: State Legislatures would name delegates, and those delegates would pick the President. We retain the Electoral College not because it still works in the modern era, but because it is too hard to change. (The fact that Congress hasn't changed in size for 100 years also contributes to the inequity of the Electoral College, since each state's votes are tied to their representation. In fact, I think the EC might still be workable if each district were smaller....).
Third, we had built up a strong tradition of non-partianship in the executive branch, with career civil servants doing their jobs across administrations, providing continuity. We even thought that protection was entrenched in law. But then this guy comes along, and decides that none of those laws matter. Once that merit-based expertise leaves, it is very hard to get back. And he can violate laws with impunity because of Point #1.
So, while we don't call Trump a King officially, his office is being turned into a monarchy, where his opinion rules all and the rule of law is subject to it.
On the one hand, the founding fathers were tasked with constructing an entire political system before the fields of game theory and political science even existed to tell them the fragility of their checks and balances.
On the other, they also had very particular opinions about who were even eligible to participate in their new system (read: land owning whites).
One reason is that the US is just too big and too different to fight back effectively.
I think the most practical resistance is the west coast trying to split off.
It’s a lot easier to rally an entire state than an entire country.
Especially if it's an economic powerhouse that's drained to subsidize red states who voted for this.
The Weimar Republic also fell to the Nazis with almost no resistance.
They were concerned with stopping socialists and communists, not putting an all powerful fascist in charge. Which is a recurring theme in history, afraid of reform they get a dictator worse than reform.
They thought big business could stop hitler if he got out of control, arrogantly thinking they could control the political monster they supported, just as now.
There was plenty of violence in Germany leading up to the Jan 1931.
they didn't have high spread internet back then to show they're crimes of to the wider public, given that there losing seats in deep red states tells me the majority does not support these people and they're not getting a lot of back up if things get ugly for them.
It is without resistance. The citizens offer protest while the Democratic Party looks out for their retirement checks. The protest has been ineffective other than getting press and bringing out trump’s goon squad.
Ineffective my ass. And without resistance my ass. This is not an overt battle. We can’t win by just popping these motherfuckers. We’d be decimated. Just because you don’t see people throwing their lives away like fodder doesn’t mean that there isn’t motion. Legal cases are being made. Decentralized, encrypted services are being utilized to coordinate resources, track feds, communicate with families who need security, and I’m sure a shit ton more initiatives.
Protests, though simply overtly showing contempt, is making ICE despise the work they do and are at least forced the regime’s hand to show boat change. Not substantially, but not nothing.
But don’t you dare say there isn’t resistance. People are giving their time, energy, and when the time actually demands it, their lives. Fuck you for basically spitting on Alex Pretti’s grave
Ok, without effective resistance.
Tell me what has changed due to the protests that is stopping trump and the rest of the regime. Be specific.
Protests are not going to be the engine that changes these things. That requires the cunt in office to give a damn about the people he’s oppressing. That said, I don’t think they’re worthless. They’re the engine that is overtly saying and doing what others are feeling. To me, it’s inspiring. Not in a “I wanna be just like them yelling in the streets 😍”, but it’s motivational to see people going through so much effort just to spite what’s going on.
That in turn inspires the lawyers donating their time and talents to build solid cases against agents and the regime. There ARE armed militias in the street that ARE lowering the presence of feds, but not in the states that don’t allow open carry (which kills me living in Minnesota). Communities are effectively coordinating via channels the government can’t view to keep families safe moving from point A to B and move food and goods to those families, citizen or not.
Also keep in mind that in order to effectively resist against a military powerhouse that also has access to an ungodly amount of corporate databases to unjustly track and monitor people’s activity, the only EFFECTIVE option of resistance is clandestine operations using encrypted, decentralized services. So you and I ain’t seeing the whole host of resistance. Which IS a good thing.
And let’s keep in mind that we’re on the Fediverse for a reason. Even if methods of resistance are visible, social media algorithms aren’t showing it. Cable news isn’t covering it. There are a handful of actually decent investigative journalists and even then, sensationalism is king, their story will get swept away.
So just because you don’t SEE it doesn’t mean it ain’t happening
If it can’t be seen you can’t prove it is changing things. You don’t get it both ways saying it’s invisible to me but somehow isn’t invisible for you.
Trump & the Republicans are currently more powerful than people carrying signs. Thus, it's pointless for people to protest. Is that your point?
You think forcing a binary choice wins the argument? One absolutely can appreciate public protest and also understand it isn’t stopping the oligarchs and fascist takeover. I can. Can you?
It's not an argument, and not to be won.
Look deeper. There have been underground resistance groups that have formed and taken action using new tech to organize and communicate.
With those tools and groups in place, and with their practice using them to organize group action, they are in a key position to lead more overt resistance operations going forwards... As well as provide guidance and support to other groups that form in other areas as they naturally will.
A similar get up to the underground railroads and zines of years past, that, in those days, provided platforms for organization, expansion, and brought up the historical resistance leaders we can still read about today.
Those leaders and actions don't just pop up and happen spontaneously, even though it may appear that way when you only read about them and the outcome of those events in history classes.
There's a whole process to the buildup that has often taken years, sometimes decades, but can now occur much quicker due to our modern resources.
When, or if, a time comes when the scales tip and people turn to more overt action, the systems needed to ensure they are noteworthy will already be in place, I assure you.
There's no need to rush it ATM.
Haste makes waste, as they say.
But there's always a breaking point, and we vary well may hit it.
The 2001 Patriot Act is the cornerstone and the MAGA fucknuts pushed ahead with their insane Project 2025 BS!
It's relieving in a terrible way to see this acknowledged. I've heard far too many people over the last 15 months argue that this is just a roadbump, or talk about it like the typical Republican administration of economic strain and erosion of some civil rights. This is unprecedented in our country's history. This is not something to hunker down and wait out.
Even the idea that "fascism will inevitably collapse" is an oversimplification and wishful thinking. I understand that much of this inaction is trauma from the strain of us living in a post 9/11 America, which up until now has been a slow-burn erosion of rights and tightening of economic conditions. Trump's second term is in every way a different beast. It was well apparent that it would be since before the election even happened: Project 2025. The signs reading "MASS DEPORTATIONS". Hell; I thought the Alt-Right Insurrection on Jan 6th, 2021 was so blatantly anti-democratic that Trump would have no chance of winning in 2024. I was clearly wrong.
Look at China. Look at Russia. That's where the USA is heading. Those nations are fascist, too. That is the type of fascism I see this country falling into. It's not going to be loud, with massive parades and MAGA Youth programs—Not in a country with this many people, this large an area; and this many guns. The fascism of the USA will be like it has been for the last year: With citizens disappeared from our streets; Agents exploiting our already shredded rights; and surveillance networks tracking our every move. That is life in China and Russia; and those nations are well-settled in those systems.
The course of the USA is to fall into a fascism of the system. It will not be our military harming our citizens. The violence will be carried out in policies enacted by people with faces and roles; under the guise of "just doing a job" or "protecting their community". Hell, let's not pretend like that wasn't already the case. The War on Drugs, The Patriot Act, the regular abuses of police against protestors.... This nation has been one of systemic violence since well before Trump took the stage in 2015. Just look to the population held imprisoned without being found guilty in our prisons, hospitals, and CIA detention centers.
I applaud the resistance in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. What happened in the Twin Cities was the first bit of resistance we've seen in this entire administration (excluding one-day attacks—I am not downplaying their significance.) Regarding the rest of this nation: What happened throughout the last year (especially the atrocities of ICE) is well beyond what I inherently assumed would be the "snapping point". The fact that our economy and institutions are continuing in the midst of such blatant oppression and corruption, has me convinced there is no snapping point at all. En large, no draconian policy will trigger an out-roar, because the masses simply do not have it within them. We're too worn down, too distracted, too traumatized, and too used to it. What scares me most is how clear it is—by the public conduct of our corporations, our elected leaders, and our government accounts—that our rulers know this.
"Fascism will inevitably collapse" is the dumbest take.
Like, it took world mobilization and six years to snuff out last time, but this time it'll just eat itself? Sure
THANK YOU. Also the German Army was weak before Hitler's rise (hence the loss in WWI which the Nazi's attributed to the "Stab in the Back" theory). Germany also owed significant debt for reparations in the Treaty of Versailles. And the mobilization of Eurasia, the USA and Canada is no small feat.
None of this is true here. The USA has the strongest and most expensive army in the world. The USA largely was the army of the "Free World"—I say was because it's clear the USA is aligned closer to China and Russia. Sure, the USA is in debt; but it's all imaginary numbers because the USA also prints the world currency.
Also: nukes. We've got nukes. We've got TONS of nukes. In WWII, Germany did not have nukes. Japan did not have nukes. Now, nukes are not nation-enders; but they are fierce deterrents, especially against democracies where leaders have to answer questions like "Why did you provoke the USA into turning my family into shadows over foreign policy?".
[The world unifies to save the USAmericans] is a prediction so self-absorbed and far-fetched, you'd only hear it from a USAmerican. The UK, Canada, Germany; they've all got their own rising fascist movements to suppress—and Again, hurting your civilians over foreign politics is extremely unpopular.
You overestimated the intelligence of both the Democrats and the voters. The Democrats are too feeble-minded to appeal to the voters, and the voters are too narrow-minded to suck it up and vote anyway.
One of these things 🎵
Is not like the other 🎶
你好！我是一名逃离美国百年屈辱的难民。请问哪里可以找到火车？
There are a couple of factors that play into the "lack of resistance."
These are the ingredients of a captive population. They can hate something all they want, but objecting to it is a risk of losing everything they have. And that's not hyperbole. There have already been reports of people being fired for social media posts, and ICE collecting info on "anti-ICE" social media content. Unfortunately, this is going to have to get to a point where enough people are willing to die to oppose this. When the economy starts hurting the upper-middle class, things might change, but I don't know.
There is and has been resistance, and it's resulted in American deaths. There just hasn't been the craziness of, e.g., Jan 6 (irony intended)!
Also, it's important to remember, if resistance gets to the level of Jan 6, this president likely won't hesitate in implementing the Insurrection Act. That would effectively start either a mass slaughter of civilians and/or a civil war.
a mass slaughter of civilians and/or a civil war would be counterproductive to der Führer. historically those are last resort attempts to hold together a failing regime and usually speed up rejection
Minneapolis protestors beg to differ
So some people in a secondary city of the US have been protesting? Great, but that only proves the point. At least 2 of those people were murdered in the meantime by a government militia that faces no trial about it.
Secondary?!
You chaff. If every Minnesotan pulled their conceal and carry to rightfully pop these fucking invaders, it opens the flood gates of the tyranny’s army. This shit is delicate. The fact that we showed restraint so that a “legal” full fledged invasion didn’t happen is astounding. We’re being held captive by our own government who holds the world’s largest military card. The fight IS happening, but we can’t do it physically. We’d be decimated. It’s not that we don’t want trials, it’s that the entire power structure is against the people, reason, and justice. We’re TRYING to change it. And there IS a lot of good legal cases being built. But that doesn’t mean shit while our country is being held captive by a small hegemony of captors and a whole lot of “I’m just doing my job” sub-humans carrying military equipment playing gestapo
P.S. I honestly just used your post to vent after seeing my city being called “secondary”. You didn’t say anything untrue otherwise and I likely agree with most, if not all of your standpoints
I didn't mean secondary in an offensive way. It's just a fact, it's not LA, NY, SF, Chicago or DC. It's a city with very little international recognition, it's probably more significant than what I assume, but from my European POV it seems a city way out of the main US metropolis.
I do wish it inspires more people around the US. But again, from what and where I see, it's seems like the US is going into a real dictatorship with very little resistance, be it the opposition party, the courts, the media or the man on the street.
I see you.
It’s fucking horrific to live through. The opposing party has no real power beyond a vote, of which they’re outnumbered by retarded egomaniacs. The courts are a fucking joke just like the rest of our “checks and balance” system. Algorithmic media is actual cancer that pushes rage, ignorance, and the agenda. “News” and cable like media either push the narrative of the regime or just “tsk tsk”’s the shit going on. And the fucking good people on the street are fighting with a hand behind their back because if they cast a singe real stone, like say, a bullet, it opens the flood gates of martial law. Of which, with our current moral, we would be properly fucked into submission like Trump so loves to do.
We’re in check until a couple of potential turning points. Midterms could prove interesting which would add stopping power. There’s already dissent in the Republican Party, of which I hold little hope because they’re all retarded egomaniacs, but that makes the dissent even more of a point. If Trump actually does start a war to post-pone elections, instating his third term, I think hell would be raised within his own support system. And of course, he could just fucking die already and I’m fairly confident his cult would rapidly deteriorate.
All to say, you’re right. America is being raped by its president. But I hold hope that is not unfounded that this will not go unpunished. Even if it does take years…
I hold the same hope. My comments around here are not intended to be discouraging, but provocative, I'm sure the "American freedom" stills rings bells within most US citizens. So I do hope they'll do something to get it back.
The current framework however does seem too weak, the rich dudes own the country.
We have been sufficiently divided to prevent collective action until it is too late. Those who should be allied with us are too distracted by gender arguments and religious propaganda to notice the boot coming down for us all.
To effectively combat fascist one must first identify them, then take away their boots before they can even get their socks on.
This isn't checkers.
You want my king, you come get my king.
I don't blame the Citizens. The Citizens are against a huge media blitz working against them: Online, social media, and traditional media. They've been systematically targets to oppose on another on multiple levels.
The Democrats and the Republicans both failed. This is Democratic Erosion over a long timeline. We're seeing the results of a failure of Democracy.
Democratic guardrails were removed over a long enough time and/or were not reinstated fast enough. The same people who thrive in high-level social circles tend to be sociopaths and psychopaths, both can be corrupt, this is humans nature. Technology moved faster than geriatric politicians could keep up with, and this was taken advantage of by both the psy/sociopaths and International Forces. We are living through the downfall of American Democracy driven by both Capitalism and International Forces doing what all Internationals Forces have done since Pangea split or whatever.
We don't live in a perfect world. Democracy will always be a tug of war between ideas of shared power and the want of absolute power; this is human nature.
The only forces that can hold a POTUS accountable, especially at this stage when there's so many stooges in place, is a literal mob or the Military Branch. If this administration doesn't want to give up power; I'm not sure there's anything to stop them.
But also, fuck neocon Robert Kagan
We need socialism, and fast.
Gotta get the corpo democrats out first then prosecute all fascists and fascist enablers.
Which in my view is not that different from any other county historically falling under dictatorship. Most of them has for one or another reason wanted the dictator in charge initially and welcomed the overlord.
Not true, that is mostly one dictator replacing another. Democracies turning authoritarian is not common since the fascists and Nazis pre WW2.
And Nazism taking over in Germany was a pretty violent affair, and far from merely winning an election.
America wasn't a democracy or the majority of Americans who oppose military aid to Israel would've had an opportunity to vote. It's a plutocracy with democratic components (if you're feeling generous, "democratic theater" if you're not).
They call it a representative republic.
Democracy has never been tried at a scale the size of the US. But I'd argue that it was the end goal on many who penned the US constitution, that it's well past the point where it could have been reached, and that over and again it's been held back by fools.
The document which only granted white, land-owning males the right to vote?
I think you're a bit immersed in the mythology of American exceptionalism.
Communists in Czechoslovakia were democratically voted in after war. Then they turned the country into a totalitarian shithole.
No it wasn't. Czechoslovakia became Communist through a political coup.
1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
This happened because Czechoslovakia was invaded and controlled by an authoritarian regime.
We all think the system will save it from itself and also none of us want to die
The problem is that the system is functioning perfectly. It was always intended to help rich people carry out their will, and now that their will is to dismantle the US so that technofeudalism can reign, the system is enabling them to do that.
Something something society hinges on eight meals.
If the meals keep coming people will avoid violence and put up with a lot.
The American constitution means there was a way of stopping America from becoming a tyrannical fascist state.
Turns out it is just for show.
Did you know Hitler just took over the movement created by his mentor?
I didn't until recently
Down to the lil mustache and everything...
I didn't know. No wonder that it is never mentioned.
•In the summer of 1919, after the war’s conclusion, Hitler was assigned to the Education and Propaganda Department of the German military in Bavaria. The department was run by Captain Karl Mayr, whose orders were to use army assets to keep the civilian population under surveillance in order to avoid future unrest and uprisings. (This was a reasonable mission, considering the wave of uprisings, several of them communist in nature, in the final days of the war.)
Well that's certainly strange. That it all seems to go back to civilian surveillance and concerns about communist uprisings. What's this Karl Mayr guy's story?
•Mayr later became Hitler's opponent, and wrote in his memoirs that General Erich Ludendorff had personally ordered him to have Hitler join the German Workers' Party (DAP) and build it up.
Who?
•After the war, Ludendorff became a prominent nationalist leader and a promoter of the stab-in-the-back myth, which posited that Germany's defeat and the settlement reached at Versailles were the result of a treasonous conspiracy by Marxists, Freemasons and Jews. ... He also took part in the failed 1920 Kapp Putsch and 1923 Beer Hall Putsch before unsuccessfully standing in the 1925 election for president. Thereafter, he retired from politics and devoted his final years to the study of military theory. His most famous work in this field was The Total War, where he argued that a nation's entire physical and moral resources should remain forever poised for mobilization because peace was merely an interval in a never-ending chain of wars.
•as an antisemitic and anti-communist conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, but was instead betrayed by certain citizens on the home front – especially Jews, revolutionary socialists who fomented strikes and labour unrest,[1] and republican politicians who had overthrown the House of Hohenzollern in the German Revolution of 1918...When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power in 1933, they made the conspiracy theory an integral part of their official history of the 1920s, portraying the Weimar Republic as the work of the "November criminals" who had "stabbed the nation in the back" in order to seize power.
Is the interview only two questions and answers for anyone else?
They have a weird paywall up. I even tried accepting their (mandatory) cookies and it wouldnt let me in
Americans are too obsessed with themselves to give a shit. And when ICE starts busting the heads of white people, they'll happily report their neighbors and coworkers for disloyalty.
I don't want to sound like a Bible beater because religion is very much not a part of my life. But I know the Bible. If the warnings in Daniel, Theologians, revelation about an antichrist is true, everything that describes an antichrist, Trump fits to a a T, and this board of peace. I dunno it's starting to be more than a coincidence to me.
Didn't some ancient calendar end in 2012?
Mayans. Now it's been a very long time since I've read but I swear I remember it saying a lot of so called Christians during this time will not be saved and the non believers will convert.
And if we're going off the estimated time of christs death, which is believed to be closer to 33 ad. That would put a 7 year peace plan with Israel coming in the next year or so and for it to be broken in 3.5 years. Which would be about the end of Trump's current term.
With his fall in 2033-35.
My best guess is revelation is accurate. Trump actually looses and can't stop the next president but he runs off to a foreign country where his board of peace protects him and their war against Israel and Gaza.
Netanyahu is in charge
Funded by AIPAC
Without paywall here: https://archive.is/20260220113033/https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/u-s-historian-robert-kagan-we-are-watching-a-country-fall-under-dictatorship-almost-without-resistance-a-d262290b-cca0-4c2f-945d-2ef3b64c574f
Great article!
Yeah. I wish even 10% of conservatives could be as educated as that historian.
Putin won the Cold War. Things that are happening I would never though would happen and I really believed republicans would defend the constitution, they talked about it so much.
Now even talking against them is dangerous since they are tracking everyone. I really though people would protect more democracy
Nahh.. The US had a good run at Democracy, but being the father of Capitalism, Fascism was inevitable eventually. The guardrails of democracy hold back infinite growth at any cost, something that the oligarchy demands. The US population doesn't have the drive of the French to change things, so Fascism will succeed, sadly.
No resistance! That's why ICE shot those people!
This guy clearly didn't do any research on the street.
not enough resistance is how I would describe it. they're installing ovens in the concentration camps already, what else is there to wait for?
He doesn't mean absolutely zero.
But things are far more dire than people think.
And huge rallies where people go home at the end of the day so nothing against someone like Trump. They need to stay out there instead of going back to work. The economy has to be brought to a standstill. It will take a huge toll. But to get rid of incipient despotism that's what it takes.
This guy is a sack of shit as big as trump, why are you upvoting the thread?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kagan
Ok, honest question. That Wikipedia article doesn't seem to say anything about him being a piece of shit, what do you mean?
He is a neo conservative, which I dunno if it qualifies him to be a POS but it does make everything he says pretty fucking suspect.
Sure, the never trumpers are better than not but they still helped usher in this current day madness
Honest question, did you read the wikipedia article?
"In 1997, Kagan co-founded the now-defunct neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century with William Kristol. Through the work of the PNAC, from 1998, Kagan was an early and strong advocate of military action in Syria, Iran, Afghanistan as well as to "remove Mr. Hussein and his regime from power." After the 1998 bombing of Iraq was announced Kagan said "bombing Iraq isn't enough" and called on Clinton to send ground troops to Iraq."
I don't know anything about the guy but even not up to spec people can say things that are common sense...
Time to study and read socialist theory. Seriously! https://redsails.org/
My friend Bob, who lives down the street, said the same thing (and he's no historian).
The US hasnt had a meaningful election in a long time. We were basically already a dictatorship. Now at least we can stop pretending that voting harder will change anything.
We can thank the Electoral College for that. I explained it to a German acquaintance and he was flabbergasted.
I thought, giving a gun to everything that breaths was supposed to prevent this?
I totally don't understand the "no resistance" part. Is then this country filled with total idiots? Or are they all that greedy, they think they are going to get something from that orange satan if they support him? Both possibilities are despiccable.
From an outside perspective, I have a feeling that there is a lot of resistance. It's just that politicians mostly aren't doing shit. Same thing for most media. And I think that yes, they are all mostly greedy.
That's the culture in the US, money has always been able to influence and coordinate over ideology. It has become clear that patriotism in the US is so obsessed with the romanticized past to make up any actual ideological conviction in the present. Otherwise, we would see a lot of states begin trying to coordinate with each other against a clearly unconstitutional federal government.
USA has 300 years as a country. It has seen civil war and protests in the last century.
It has little to no history of turmoil to shape their citizens political identity.
This is the time USA has actual weapons pointed at them. Not like protestors from certain groups facing cops. Nation as a whole. Just some of them ain't realized that.
May I suggest a really good book? Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States
Which civil war did USA have in the last century?
https://archive.is/kEcyB
I'm sure someone out there is thinking "well all the rural areas are red" but that isn't really the case. And I worry about the unhinged things we will see if ice tries to roll out into rural WV or AR or even TX. Somewhere where the stop signs have holes in them.
Time to organize
Americans don't care nearly enough as long as they still get their benefits from imperial plunder.
Imperial plunder? We've never gotten any of that, we only get the bill, we've never gotten any real benefit from imperial adventurism.
And plenty of people are against it. The ones for it have to be by and large lied to for months if not years as to reasons, just like they are doing with Iran right now to start the forever war in the region. The third Persian Gulf War.
What do you mean you never got any of it? All the cheap shit that comes from the hyper exploited global south? The bananas that cost 50 cents? The giant TVs that cost 200 bucks? The labor aristocracy is very much a real thing.
We get the bill. We don't get lower gas prices from Iraq. We don't get free bananas either, the companies get to make money on selling the bananas.
None of or foreign wars have helped American taxpayers in any real way while costing fortunes. That's just beyond dispute, hundreds of billions of dollars, or more, in afghanistan and Iraq. No benefit from Vietnam, no real benefit from the cold war coups in latin america.
Big business made money, getting markets, that they sell here at the highest price they can get for it.
In your analysis, do you bother looking at the working and living conditions of the western countries versus the global south, or are you just looking at the wars themselves and only from the perspective of taxes? How do you think the inequity of those conditions are maintained?
You're denying the thing by only looking at part of the thing. Obviously the capitalists aren't doing any of this for the public good. Capitalism needs a consumer class. That class resides within the imperial core. But for instance, the idea that making the #1 and #2 largest OPEC countries US vassal states has nothing to do with energy prices is just goofy.
Not at all, looking at the totality of these things it's even worse for working people, as it gives power to illiberal forces in society, it creates killers that can be used to assassinate civil society leaders, most of all it enriches and makes powerful the oligarchs that are subverting our governments, using corrupt influence to exloit us, moreso than already, and to crush dissent and organized labor and the like.
The more you step back, the more the accounting shows a deficit for working people on all scores.
You are again shifting the argument from the existence of a labor aristocracy. If you want to defend the concept of the imperial boomerang, go find someone who is disputing it.
I don't really know what you're on about here, I'm just expounding the factors for our high standard of living that has been taken away from us as we speak for 50 years, and the fact that that high standard of living was achieved in spite of the Imperial Adventures of the country not because of it. Labor, regulation, and good leadership, relatively good, are what put capital on a leash and created a prosperous middle class that in turn bought consumer goods which in turn created more jobs and wealth in a virtuous cycle, one that has since reversed in globalization.
I would add that the high standard of living being taken away for the last half century had nothing to do with imperialism, it triumphed despite imperialism, that standard of living was from Organized Labor, and from the New Deal and the Great War that allowed the government to put the bosses on their back foot, to make them pay progressively more taxes after obscene amounts, for taxes to be paid by corporations more than personal taxes. The top rate for income was 90% after they got a large amount at lower rates.
And the new deal put checks on business, it prevented the banks from systematically cheating everyone. Preventing them operating in more than 3 states, keeping them small, seperated commerical and investment banking, and made a writer of a security hold a percent of that until maturity, making sure they wrote good loans and didn't write bad ones, fob them on investors.
Preventing the rich from being super rich and becoming too powerful is one big deciding factor in standard of living. Labor, and the New Deal, is what led to high wages, in spite of the cold war, not because of it. And that cold war hurt us, it didn't help us, in every way you look at it.
I wish I didn't just read all of that to get to the end and you just brush off the argument completely.
Was that line a troll? After literally not looking at it at all, you say that? And I guess we're talking about the cold war, and not imperialism now?
Here's my question in response to all of that: Why did the US get the New Deal and not the Jakarta Method?
What do you mean, I looked at it and rejected the contention that the imperial Adventures of our ruling class has had any benefit for taxpayers and citizens. That in fact it has given Force and license to the ones that have taken away our prosperity and rights. I really do not see any counter argument you are making here for how Imperial Adventures help the working class.
It’s more that Americans were spared the worst of the effects of imperialism exploitation because imperialism needs a stable base of operations. If conditions were as bad in the US as they are in other parts of the world there would be revolts and the whole system would collapse.
The Imperial Boomerang is coming back on the country now, what we support overseas gets adopted by our own lawmakers and done at home. No one should celebrate it, it's the same ones behind doing those things overseas doing it here, to gain more power to do the same things to those other countries with even less restraint, as much as malign forces would have us celebrate hurting people because their government is bad.
Meh, I am not seeing it. Unless you are talking about the War on Drugs which was used to destroy millions of minority and poor white families. You are about 40 years late on calling it.
Also in the last thirty years we have lost more Americans to gun violence than every American lost in every war combined.
If you think Ice killing hundreds or even thousand of people is the boomerang then I would like to point out that this narrative isn't very convincing.
"Almost"? What meager resistance are they referencing? Protests? Protests are not resistance, they are just saying "we don't like you and what youre doing". As we have so far seen that has had no effect other than get people outside and on the street when they otherwise wouldn't bother.
Those people on the street are building connections, coalitions, and community around resistance. If the protests didn't mean anything and weren't effective they wouldn't be getting met with such a violent reaction from the regime.
Stop with the doomerism, get off the keyboard, and get involved.
Saboteur!
There will be an election in 2028, or we break everything.
Why wait? He's going to try and spoil the midterms later this year.
That's the scam.
You'll be relieved when the Democrats "take over", and the system will survive another term or two.
Then, a Republican will "take over" and the system will survive another term or two.
Mix and match a few issues and it's as easy as pie. Every one of those "hot button" issues is there for you to mash (like abortion), meanwhile, the real problems aren't touched (these usually involve a great deal of money).
The majority of the party members are at "war", whilst the leadership of both are colluding, and getting filthy rich on insider stock trading as a reward for sharing the power (and being a relief valve for the abuses of the other).
You're falling for the "good cop"
The fact that there will be an election in 2028 is a lot better than saying there won't be an election in 2028 because that's electoral doomerism.
Maaaan I hope myLTC comes soon.
Reagan: gorbachev tear down this wall!
Putin: meh, you think too small
Why didn't they stand up? Why didn't they flee? Well because these did despite the questions suggesting they don't. Its like the one guy running from five guys and fighting them off as he goes, taking two down before they got him, but since he lost in the end he did not resist or run. We have folks on here who went to europe and plenty protesting and possibly doing other things that they smartly do not give massive detail on. Whats funny is I already see the republicans trying to pin the economy on democrats because everyone can see how things are.
Yes, yes you are.
194 days left, not only for the US: https://feddit.org/post/26014311
No side loading, no VPN but age verification, there will be no communication platform left to organise an opposition.
Ironically the following post about EU sanctions was removed. There is Russian influence, but the main issue is that the EU commission can ban anybody without a trial. We don't even discuss that the EU is as prepared as the US to become a dictatorship.
https://feddit.org/post/26111492
Is he talking about the rise of AfD?
But.....but people spent their day off in the cold out on the streets chanting for a few hours!! Wasn't that enough?!?!?!
It is good they do this, but there shoul be many more of them.
Americans are basically pushovers. They will say yes to anything the Federal Government tells them to do.
Americans are cowards. Been hearing about defending freedom and the second amendment since before 9/11. Well?? Nothing but excuses and toxicity from Americans, blame everyone else, come up with a million reasons why fighting back is not their job, etc.
Every American on the right and left is responsible for this shit show they have unleashed on the world. Every one of you to some extent or another.
Americans are stupid moreso. If you are calling them cowards for not overthrowing their government, I could probably say the same thing about you, and also the dumb part, not realizing you will follow the US. You think your country is special, it's not, you will fall like dominoes, barring some real leadership in opposition.
Everyone trusts the wrong people is the problem, and trusting the democratic establishment to run resistance is the problem more than cowardice. Without leadership and organization there is nothing a regular person can do, or any person, that will make a difference, and any act of "bravery" would be throwing your life away.
I know one thing, you Americans get cute and decided to invade. You’ll see what real patriots do. If I take down even one American in that situation i did my duty. But Americans wouldn’t invade cause they’re terrorists who only invade poor brown people. And it’s not even about country, im indigenous i have no love for any colonial government. I just think it’s time to move on from America, let it rot into the third world shithole it is.
Ah yes and everyone in Europe is responsible for the rise of the far right. Also, everyone in China is responsible for their government turning fascist. Everyone in Africa is responsible for not putting down warlords and everyone in Mexico is at fault for not stopping the cartels. Don't forget South America's failure to stop Narcoterrorism.
Looks like the whole world is a bunch of cowards but not you. You are the only non-coward in the whole world I guess. I will be waiting for your heroics to save the world.