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Musk’s purges suddenly take a horrific turn—and wreck an ugly MAGA lie
(newrepublic.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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politics
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US workers : I know it's mighty easy to say from a distance, but now is the time for disobedience
Stay cool. It is going to hit the violent right wing especially hard. They will eventually figure it out since, in most cases, their people hold every positions of power from the dog catchers to the White house. The, "Hey look, something shiny over there", will get old, even for those morons.
Do not stay cool! Why are you tempering yourself when your own government is being taken apart before your eyes?
Americans are cowards. Even us Canadians are largely the same in that regard. We just keep letting this stuff happen because we think we’re being clever and most of us are so fucking brain-dead that imagining a better world is next to impossible.
I suspect it's at least partly due to the fact that both the US and Canada are too fucking large. Frankly speaking someone in California has to put in a decent amount of work to get to DC, this means that California can be more easily ignored by the Feds. The fact of the matter is that there isn't much folks can do short of attacking federal agents, simply because there's no way for most regions to put pressure on the Congress or the President. Even our so called representatives are almost always in DC or their isolated little shithole communities.
Except that California’s GDP is insane. It’s also the home of all the tech billionaires. We live in an age where communication is no longer really affected by distance, and even still that’s why so many governments have representatives, and if you don’t like them there are options much of the time. Americans are great at constantly reinforcing the systems they claim to hate.
Also, plenty of right-wingers in economically barren states get representation and are listened to because they make a fuss(ok it’s more like a temper-tantrum, but it does the job).
When it comes for putting pressure on folks we are still instinctually led by in person tendencies. It's the whole "you wouldn't say that in person" thing, if a politician fears being tard, feathered, and hanged then they tend to be a lot more amiable to the common folks.
Also these ain't mutually exclusive things, frankly speaking I think every House district should have a home office where the representative is forced to live and operate out of where they can do votes and seat meetings. This puts them well within stabbing distance of those they should be representing, it would also allow better tracking of whomst they meet with. If they need to present a bill or meet in person they can take a train, should help get a proper rail network established.
If this seems like it'd be hard on the geriatrics, that's the point. If they can't handle the stress of it all and drop dead that's a feature not a flaw, they could drop out at any time.
While I still think it’s not a very strong excuse, the distance thing, I do very much agree with the rest.
I lost track of what was supposed to be my point. Probably should've illustrated it at the end of my comment. My underlying thesis is that it's easy to just ignore emails, mail, phone, and text. It's a lot harder to ignore folks in person. So the distance ain't the core issue per se, but it's exaggerating a very notable issue with the DC bubble.
And yea most of what I was saying was in regards to their accessibility not changing all that much unless you happened to live right there.
I agree with the needing to live amongst their constituents. They don’t use the same infrastructure, experience the same weather effects, or otherwise need to engage with much of what their policies affect. Protest shouldn’t be the way things get done; having a representative that actually represents in the first place should be the play. Luckily, those two things can be made possible in the same way.
Yep, also it'd be annoying for lobbyists groups. Rather than having a maybe a handful of teams in DC wining and dining nearly every Congress Critter they'd have to spread them across nearly every district. Which opens up the possibility of elimination of corporate lobbyists simply by running them out whenever they get setup.
There's nothing within the established American political framework that can be done to stop this dismantling by any number of citizens. There's literally no legal way to get Trump out of office that doesn't involve the GOP turning on him now. And I'm not holding out hope that they spontaneously grow a conscience.
There's no ability to recall your representative from congress, no petition that can force the dissolution of the executive branch. The constitution is an ancient, flawed basis of governance that's showing its age. By design, you have to wait 2 years for the next election to change leadership. That's it. And God help you if those elections are stolen.
If you're arguing in favor of a civil war to purge bad actors or the Balkanization of the country then be honest. But to pretend any number of peaceful (or violent) protests will get America back to normal is naive. The only way to recall these officials is with a guillotine, and you're entering entirely new waters there.
So I’m glad you said this, I’ve been having a hard time the past week because I don’t see any way out of our current situation beyond what you have just described and it’s been stressing me because I’ve both felt alone in my conclusions and not wanted to ask my friends, family, and coworkers if I’m way out of bounds because I don’t want to make this time harder on them than I know it already is.
Granted I still don’t feel great about the potentiality of losing my life in such events but I’m grateful to you for making me feel less alone right now. Cheers!
Appreciate that it's getting through to some people. Its frustrating to think about but even more frustrating that people can't call a spade a spade. The writing has been on the wall for years and our paralyzed inertia has taken us over the cliff. Willing that inertia to take us back is less than pointless.
It's scary but also liberating in a way. We're as close right now to restoring the Roman Republic as we are the American Republic. Whatever comes out will be a blank skate and you get to write your own part onto it, whatever that may be.
Crazy things do happen, nobody really knows how any story ends. Trump was a few inches from having this timeline dissolve in pink mist less than a year ago. Maybe some important people will explode in a Tesla fireball accident.
Keep your head up 🍻
So we roll over and die?
I never said that, I just want people to be honest about what they're getting into as they ramp up resistance. It's a very different mindset, you have to be expecting the nuclear option and plan accordingly
General strike with clear, specific demands would work. Easier said than done, especially since most workers in the US aren't already organized; but it would probably work. It would probably even work if all current major unions striked (a lot of union members are "conservative" though, so if it was seen as political rather than practical, it could break solidarity).
Would that stop them from causing damage unopposed right now? Sure. But how do you think that would end? Are there any meaningful demands that could be conceded to save what's left of the constitution? Trump was pushing for live fire on protesters in his last administration, and the cooler heads that kept that from happening are gone.
The cat's out of the bag. The executive branch has been purged of anyone disloyal; there are private military contractors wandering DC who have been unilaterally deputized; career military officials who could be threats are getting tossed. The last opportunity to keep peaceful continuity with the first 248 years of America ended on January 19th.
Fascist dictators don't get to step down and return to a private life. We've never seen one leave office alive.
Will resistance to this oppression end well for the American people? Will foreign intervention topple the cult of personality? Or will our grandchildren be watching the coronation of President Trump III either way?
Who knows? But it's inconceivable that we'll be back to normal in 2/4/8 years. This election was a seminal moment, there will be a definite before and after. The question is how stark the difference will be.