Can we do anything about this at all? This is not how a civilized nation acts. We are barbarians.
It would require acting outside the confines of the law, because fascists aren't bound by the law either. And the more the US government is made obvious to be a joke, the more people might finally get the fucking clue that institutions are meaningless when they don't actually enforce the rules or provide meaningful support for what the working class actually needs, and they might eventually decide to do something about it.
That is, of course, hopeful thinking on my part, but I think it's the only correct answer to "what can we do when an overt fascist has power".
Additionally, on an interpersonal level, you need to find communities IRL if you don't have them, and be defiant together. Don't let these evil fucks normalize anymore bigotry or conspiracies than they already have. Even if social norms would dictate otherwise, call that shit out when it happens.
And don't preemptively give up or resign your position if you hold some sort of influential role in society. Don't make it easy for them. Every single bit of defiance makes it that much harder to impose the hell which they intend to inflict, which is in and of itself valuable.
Yeah. Rule of law has already broken down. The only law left is what they are imposing on us. It has no legitimacy.
All you can do is aid and abet any targets of these grossly immoral and illegal actions. Not sure on the specifics of how yet given we don’t know how they’re going to attempt to do this…but once they do, that’s when we figure that out.
That's not all you can do. Demonstrations, occupations, interfering with illegal and unconstitutional actions, rebel media, graff, grassroots organizing, mutial support, smuggling of people and supplies. Find like-minded people, form cells, leave your phone at home, drive old cars without GPS or use bicycles. Only use cash. Learn what your neighborhood and city are like, and learn to be anonymous.
I prefer the term "shithole country". That way we can still blame it on other people and not collectively own any of the barbarity ourselves.
I mean, you CAN, but you won’t.
☝️ He's out of line, but he's right.
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
— Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45
Found the GRU agent.
Not applicable.
We'll see.
We are not powerless. As the old song asked, are you taking orders, or are you taking over?
They're taking over. We aren't powerless. But its about to get bad.
I have a problem with this:
“Undocumented immigrants also play a large role in food processing,” Krugman writes. “For example, they account for an estimated 30 to 50 per cent of workers in meat-packing.”
The predictable effect, Krugman says, would be less food production and distribution, unless employers started paying far higher wages to attract new native-born workers. That in turn would boost the cost of groceries, when current prices are already too high.
The plain and obvious subtext here is that we're all exploiting undocumented workers already. I wish that when one of these articles talks about the "predictable effect" of deportations, that that would be mentioned out loud.
This has been brought up over and over before the election. Immigrants also pay Billions into social services they can't use every year, and deporting them will impact them as well.
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News