2mo ago

The tragic change a single year has made in America

www.theguardian.com The tragic change a single year has made in America | Margaret Sullivan

As we approach the anniversary of the 2024 election, we awake to new horrors each day. But we must not give up hope

“The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism,” Garrett Graff, the American historian and author, wrote in August. “In the end, faster than I imagined possible, it did happen here.”

One awakes to new horrors each day. And it is difficult to grasp – and painful to realize – just how far gone we are, and how quickly it has happened.

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And yet, none of this is in any way surprising. This is what the US voted for. Nobody who voted for Trump can claim innocence. They all knew exactly what they were doing.
- I don't know, the line between malice and stupidity has become so blurred with these folks - like some really didnt know what they were voting for but that's only because they didn't want to either out of weakness or assholishness. I never really grasped Malicious Stupidity before, nor how many of us were in its throes.
  
  I feel like this argument would have held ground in 2016. After the first time around - after Jan 6th - everyone knew exactly what they were voting for.
  
  Traditionally, being a consumer of mainstream media wasn't the disability that it has become currently. Not that it was ever totally accurate or great. It's just managed to get far worse. But so many people out of cultural and social inertia still are.
  20 years ago blanket calling out the msm would have safely gotten you dismissed. Today it's just par for the course as they've all been captured by fascists oligarchs.
  
  I think so many people have been raised/indoctrinated into the notion that they could not possibly vote Democratic. To do so would mean their soul would go to hell ("demoncrats"), or that they'd lose their manliness (cuz "soy boys" and Teh Gheyz, etc) or that they are siding with "radicals" (lol), and so on. Or you have single issue voters that are still hung up on things like their precious gunz or worried about abortion or getting their little book club into schools...
  I think some people are so very locked into a certain identity so much that they think the only option besides voting Republican would be to not vote at all.
  
  One semantic point, "it did happen here" is inaccurate, it continues to happen and what little road blocks were in place ammounted to the suggestion of a speed bump in practice. This is still going on and will continue because it has not been stopped.
  
  I don’t make any distinction between the two. These aren’t people who were tricked once or twice, it is a continuous, repetitious pattern of rejecting reality, which is been playing out in front of their very faces. A person who does not learn from mistakes, who never grows as a person, and harms others as a result, is malicious.
  
  In a way, all malice is born of stupidity.
  Either way, it'll be small comfort when they are loading people on to the cattle cars saying, well, they were too stupid to know what they were voting for..
- This comment reduces a 50 year campaign to destroy education in the US and polarize everything to people simply voting this in.
  
  I'm with you. The school system is designed to keep voters stupid and uneducated when it comes to civil matters. But at some point, you can't use it as an excuse. Yes, the system was against them, and miseducated them to this purpose, but they're still making the decision. You can't just handwaive away 100% of responsibility for the decisions people make as being a result of being victims of circumstance, because then there's no such thing as a human being being responsible for their decisions.
  
  I was merely commenting on the verifiable result of the last US presidential election. I'm certainly aware of the events that lead up to that. On the other hand, I'm really really sick and tired of the constant excuses I'm hearing that are being made for the morons and assholes. If you voted for Trump you're a moron and/or and asshole (usually both). No excuses. Nobody can tell me those people didn't know what they were doing.
- Have you watched their propaganda networks? They believe the same things about the left. They think they saved the republic from monsters. They think ICE is deporting murderers. They think antifa is a literal terrorist organization. They think 47 stopped 8 wars. They think these things because they’re in an information silo. No wait, they’re in a CULT. Some people do know that what they’re doing is evil. Most likely those at the top. But the rank-and-file MAGA are brainwashed cult members.
  
  It would be very easy for these people to get information from different viewpoints. Their ignorance is wilful.
  
  Cool. End the cult.
- Yes and no. A lot of people are misinformed. It's easy to say not being misinformed is the responsibility of the individual, just like recycling plastic is the responsibility of the individual consumer. Reality is a bit more nuanced. Misinformed people often simply don't have access to good information or critical thinking skills to not be duped. Many others are straight up vulnerable to manipulation, through fears etc.
  Democracy only works if people are informed. I think the American system has failed catastrophically to inform ordinary people.
  
  That might apply to people in North Korea. In the US a different viewpoint is literally just a press of a button away. Their ignorance is very much willful. They believe all this shit because they want to.
- A lot of those who voted for casual racism are upset that overt racism, Constitutional erosion, and economic instability came with it.
  That's why you're seeing some of them split.

I had hoped to retire this meme.
- It's voting rights captain!
  No! There's no visible damage sir, they're gone sir! Gone!

The Republic fell with the SCOTUS Trump v United States decision. It's just a matter of discovering what things look like once the dust settles.
- It fell when they sided with billionaires in Citizens United

“The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy..."
Is this an Onion article???
- Its a self referential indictment on the state of American education.
- America is the World's Leading Democracy in the same way that Israel hosts the world's most moral army

Makes it sound like a natural disaster, Trump's name only appears three times in the body text of the article.
- Can't put direct blame on Dear Leader, after all.

I was told as a child that most countries only last about 250 years, so...it's bound to be true at least once?

Again an article pretending America's blatant violence wealth inequality and imperialism was just fine before Trump.
- Tipped over the edge means it was right at the edge already. So not really.
- Even if it's not telling the full story, as long as it makes MAGA voters regret their choices, right?
  ... wishful thinking, I know.
- Don't worry, there are signs everything will be fine.. for instance people came together to get some comedian back on tv.

Just over 9 months, not a year.
(And yes things were pretty bad before but the graph has really gone hockey stick...)

The decline and direction was started way before Trump.

At this point the rest of the world has to assume that everything is A-OK with America, and this is the America we need to plan to deal with going forward.
The American people (as a whole) have given us no sign that they are anything more than mildly concerned about the situation.
Please spare me the "but protests" and "I have a family" BS. The last No Kings should have been, far and away, the biggest protest in US history. It was not even close. Almost triple the amount of people came out, for (can you believe it) Earth Day in 1970.
The US is so, so far from where they need to be to stop this, and I'm 100% positive that when people start throwing their lives at this problem, it will be far too late.
- Yeah..... Things are not great for America, but it's unfortunately a bigger problem than that. Democracy in general is being put against the ropes around the world, and isn't putting up much of a fight.
  Pretty much every democratic nation with a large economy has been flirting with fascist the last 10 years, America is just being the trail blazer. Democracy has become too entangled with capital. Instead of creating boundaries and limitations upon the predation of capitalism, we've largely just traded social security and stability for economic exploitation.
- How easy it is for you to provide insight from outside the prison.
  
  I'll second this. Some of us do "have a family" and we are just trying to get out like it's 1940 France...
  
  Right, because you can't possibly understand, recognize and prepare yourself for fascism unless it's actively in your country.
  Woe is you.
- Not everyone at Earth Day was protesting, though. The last No Kings protest was the largest number of protesters in US history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_and_demonstrations_in_the_United_States_by_size
  
  The George Flloyd protests were bigger and not just a single day. I'd put that as more active than No Kings on the single day. Regardless, this shouldn't even be a debate. It should be unequivocal that protests should be larger and more frequent than anything in American history. Anything short of that is a failure.

Honestly, it's not like it was that great one year ago. Granted it wasn't quite as bad.

Strategic

Middle class White, Asian, and Latino people waking up every day, terrified that they're going to be treated like it's the Reagan Era and they're black.

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