And it's a problem there too. Both Australia and Canada need to cool it with the anti-immigrant scapegoating unless they want to end up like America. Ultimately the main reason I chose Australia over Canada was due to it's further distance from the US making it less likely to get embridled in geopolitical conflicts with the US, like Canada already is with these tariff wars

Yes, I'm very aware that Australia (and the whole of the world for that matter) also has rising far-right and anti-immigration sentiment. I'm not sure why so many people in this thread think I was born yesterday and have done 0 research on the matter of where I hope to spend the rest of my life. Ultimately anywhere is better than the US though, and I can't allow myself to be so caught up in self-defeatist thoughts like "everywhere has rising far-right politics" or "nowhere is safe" or "immigration is too hard" that I stay paralyzed in the line of danger.

My decision to choose Australia over Canada was ultimately a matter of degree. I felt a country further from the US would be more safe geopolitcally, Australia's higher foreign-born population would lead to a less xenophobic culture, and compulsory voting laws would keep far-right politicians from gaining or maintaining a foothold, thank you for your concern

I'm well aware of the Australian housing crisis, and of it's far-right politicians like Dutton. I was also aware that there were other reasons for Trudeau being unpopular besides immigration (hence why it wasn't the sole statistic I provided, I used Trudeau's approval ratings as somewhat of a general metric for Canada turning against left-leaning politicians, and I used the other two statistics to try to show Canada's anti-immigrant attitudes. Without spending exorbitant amounts of time studying Canadian politics this was the quickest summary statistics I choose to look at).

I criticized Canada for having poor attitudes towards immigration, and I would criticize Australia for the same, these two opinions aren't mutually exclusive. Ultimately my personal decision to attempt to immigrate to Australia rather than Canada came down to choosing 'the lesser of two evils' (which as an American I am very practiced in doing. ha. ha.)

Specifically, I thought Australia's further distance from the US would make it safer geopolitically, it's higher foreign-born population would make it so that way 'anti-immigration' sentiment didn't become 'anti-immigrant' sentiment, and it's compulsory voting laws would make it harder for far-right politicians to gain and/or maintain a foothold. I truly did not intend for my personal decision to go to Australia over Canada to be some kind of dig at Canada, though I did get defensive at the dismissive claim that the limited research I have done was just "propaganda getting to me." Apologies if I was a bit aggressive in my critique of Canadian attitudes towards immigration

It's a matter of degree. Australia has a housing crisis and many want to lower immigration, but their starting level of immigration was already incredibly high, for instance 30% of the population is foreign born, as compared to Canada's 21%. A marginal difference, but it still contributes to a culture more accepting of immigrants.

You know, I think somehow the rhetoric has gotten mixed up here though. I have said 'As a victim currently being forced to flee my fascist home country, I think Canada could stand to be more accepting of immigrants' and you have heard 'Canada sucks so hard I won't go there even though I'm American (and thus an uninformed idiot).'

I think it's part of an overarching narrative I've seen, of people from non-US countries hating on Americans for not voting/volunteering/working hard enough to stop Trump from being elected, that 'America = Bad' and '[Insert My Country Here] = Good, and we would never be like Bad America.' It goes without saying that I voted Harris & phone banked often. I don't think Canada is a bad country, I think it's amazing, even! But I also find the sheer amount of nationalistic rhetoric I've seen both around and directly here in this thread deeply worrying.

Like, you do realize that you're essentially responding to a trans person, a potential victim of genocide, with 'Haha, you're such an idiot! Don't you realize nowhere is safe for you? Don't you realize everywhere has rising far-right politics and hatred of immigrants? Have fun immigrating to a country that hates you to escape a dictatorship you tried to stop but ultimately had no control over!'

I'm very aware that Australia also has an upswing in anti-immigrant rhetoric. I find it deeply unempathetic of you to try and use it as some sort of 'gotcha' to prove that your country is amazing (or that other countries are just as bad). I'm currently having to flee the country I've called home my entire life due to political persecution. I think it would be helpful if people could remember that I'm an actual person and not just another 'stupid American'

I don't think I have all the answers, buddy, I'm just defending myself from the accusation that because I happen to not have a favorable view of your country in regards to immigration (and mysteriously, it gets less and less favorable the more actually interact with Canadians) that means I've somehow fallen prey to propaganda

I tried to defend myself by showing the statistics I had seen showing that Canadians aren't currently partial to immigrants, and you are responding by essentially saying 'responding with statistics must mean you think you know everything, you know-it-all.' I am willing to learn and engage with actual evidence, this is just an ad hominem attack

Genuinely, where do you think I should get my impression of Canada from? Perhaps this Lemmy instance, where the prevailing response to me going: 'hey, Canada has a lot of hatred towards immigrants, as a victim of a fascist government forced to flee my home country I decided to search elsewhere' was 'um, ACTUALLY, the place you have chosen to go to ALSO hates PEOPLE LIKE YOU, and you (the victim of a fascist government trying to kill you for being a minority) should've DONE YOUR RESEARCH(??) because Canada ALSO HAS A MASSIVE PROPAGANDA PROBLEM which is why you should COME TO CANADA INSTEAD'

Frankly, I fear all I have learned from this is that Canadians, unlike the stereotype, are deeply unempathetic people who currently seem to be pushing a narrative of "Canada good, America (and Americans) bad." Hence the claims I've seen on Lemmy that 'Americans deserve to suffer under fascism' because 'we didn't work/vote/volunteer hard enough to stop it.'

In this case, America = Bad bc American doctors (smart) are leaving. Canada = Good bc American doctors want to go there. So, under this framing, me criticizing Canadian attitudes against immigration somehow becomes me (stupid American) hating on Canada as a whole. Queue the dogpiling about how I'm an 'uninformed idiot' and I've 'bought the propaganda' despite the fact I've been researching how to immigrate for the past few months

Forgive me if this came out a bit hostile, I'm a bit frustrated right now, you know, from the whole 'fleeing my country that wants to genocide me' thing. As a warning, I'd be wary of dismissing the blatantly nationalistic attitudes of your fellow countrymen as "oh that's just how Canadians on Reddit behave." After all, glossing over just how many fascists my country had was what got us Trump.

I wasn't reading news articles so much as I as reading Reddit comments (back when I still used Reddit), which is certainly still not a completely comprehensive read of the whole Canadian population, but it's about as close as I can get without being in Canada myself. To be honest though, having most of the media controlled by right wing groups is another concern, though I do hope your elections go well

I think it's important to remember immigration isn't just some lever you can turn on and off: "oh we're having issues with quality of life so let's stop letting immigrants in," "oh but we want highly educated people like doctors so lets let them in." Prospective immigrants will remember at best the wishy-washy stance on whether or not immigrants should be let in, at worst the outright xenophobic sentiment they had heard. This especially goes for people in highly educated professions like doctors, who are desirable immigrants in any countries, and thus have options to pick and choose where they want to go.

I know when my parents (who are both doctors) started looking into investing a bit in other countries, Canada wasn't even considered, they went straight to investing in Europe. When I told them I was looking into foreign colleges, they suggested schools in New Zealand, in Germany, in Sweden.. they didn't once recommend Canada. Well, this is just anecdotal evidence, and I'm sure many many American doctors will flee to Canada. But I wouldn't assume just because doctors are leaving the US necessarily means they're going to Canada

The funny thing about immigration is that it turns out I don't need to research every single 'might be good, might be bad' country out there. I only needed to find a single country that had lenient immigration laws and would be accepting of me. Australia was that country for me, though it has it's own issues as all countries do. Personally, I don't think I should need to have some degree in foreign politics to be able to decide which countries would/wouldn't be welcoming to me. If anything, if Canada has some massive propaganda problem where all searchable metrics (58% Trudeau disapproval ratings, 58% think too much immigration, 41% anxious immigrant rights get too much attention), then perhaps "too much propaganda" is yet another reason to avoid Canada.

Sure, but not to the same degree. I don't know much about Canadian politics but for a time my social media was filled with post after post bashing Trudeau and favoring more far-right politicians just over immigration policy. It was enough to turn me off of your country as a whole, if immigrants are so hated there.

I'm a current American bio student planning to go into healthcare, can confirm I'm planning to go to grad school abroad to hopefully escape the US. I'm not planning to go to Canada though, I'm planning to go to Australia. I decided not to look into Canada after hearing of it's rising far-right and anti-immigrant sentiment. If Canada wants US brain drain Canadians would have to be willing to accept American immigrants, even with how poorly many Canadians view Americans right now

Well, I get that Lemmy is an alternative social media, but it's not really an alternative to Facebook. Anonymous usernames, text-based posts, you can't follow people, Fediverse is somewhat confusing.. I'd recommend it as an alternative to Reddit, but probably not the website where boomers want to check up on their neighbors and friends

Outside of extremely extenuating circumstances, this isn't a worry. We already have proof-of-concept tech like DART to divert asteroids, aerospace engineers can use this to get governments to fund them even better, asteroid goes behind the sun for 3 years, asteroid diverting technology advances even further, in 2028 when the path of travel becomes more precise the chance of hitting us gets revised down to zero, and we've advanced our technology should anything more serious come our way in the future

Donald Trump and Elon Musk should be assassinated ☺️ 😍 😋 🤪 😇

Wow, just being able to say that when inciting violence is banned on most other social media felt empowering. I know to y'all this probably comes off as just another basic one-liner comment, but.. I've only recently started using Lemmy when I used to just browse Reddit without an account. There were times when I almost felt crazy, because I felt so much rage against these rapist scum I thought- given the opportunity- I would end their lives in an instant, consequences be damned. But on Reddit where any talk of violence (against the state) is banned (but violence via political persecution of minorities is A-OK!), I thought I was just a radical extremist.

And maybe I am a radical extremist, Lemmy as a whole is certainly small enough to be an echo chamber, but in a time where peaceful protest does nothing but paint a target on your back, free speech by necessity needs to include ushering people to make use of "the 4th box of liberty," the cartridge box. By god does it feel good to finally be able to say that.

I also feel like a lot of people have a lot of barriers to plotting an assassination, besides the obvious "it's illegal" and "they'll kill you for trying" and "who has the time and money to plan an assassination." To give people some ideas of these barriers, I personally:

• Am trans, so if I tried anything it would immediately be used as a Reichstag fire moment to start rounding up and killing trans people (I suspect the social minorities who will be most affected by the Administration will suffer the worst consequences for even trying to resist)
• Am too young to own a gun in my state (you need to be 21, I suspect some people have the opposite reasoning as well, 'I'm too old to be an assassin bc I have kids to look after' or 'because I'm entrenched and needed at my job')
• Since I have PTSD I don't trust myself to own a gun
• I think I can contribute more to the world alive than throwing my life away to be a political assassin. Specifically, I'm very passionate about healthcare reform (obviously universal healthcare, also focusing more on preventative medicine instead of waiting for people to get so chronically sick the pharmaceutical industry can harvest money from them for the rest of their lives, also giving people diet & lifestyle recommendations to treat the underlying cause of their issues instead of just drugging them up to combat their symptoms of disease), and think I have a greater chance of making an impactful change by devoting myself to that

In conclusion, the most convenient person to plot a political assassination is a 25-35 yo straight white man well trained in firearms with tons of money, mentally healthy enough to get a firearm yet crazy enough to throw their life away, ideally recently unemployed so they have nothing to lose.

So... a security guard affected by the mass government downsizing?

I would say AOC has a very emphasized presence in media that often allows her to break through into headlines despite corporate media's tendency to never cover anything good a Democrat does ever and instead push this narrative that 'if Democrats can't manage to pass some legislation it's Democrats fault for not doing enough and if Republicans do something awful it's Democrats fault for not stopping them.' The stereotype goes if Democrats hold rallies across all 50 states it's radio silence, but if Trump breathes it gets 24/7 news coverage at work to normalize him, etc.

To be honest I'm a bit guilty of this too. I don't actively search for what members of Congress are saying/doing, and I originally only watched AOC's video because it was being shared around on social media. That being said, I decided to search around a bit to see what members of Congress are saying:

• Here's Bernie Sander's YouTube, he's been talking about oligarchs lately
• Ilhan Omar saying Trumps executive orders don't have support from GOP in Congress on CBS News
• Ayanna Pressley at a rally speaking out against Musk
• Plently of complaining from inside the halls of Congress like from Greg Casar

TL;DR: I would say AOC is probably the best at messaging directly to the people, and perhaps other members of Congress aren't quite as effective as her, but a lot of them are still doing something even if we don't always hear about it

Aughaughaughsjscjf did some ppl just not get the memo, or is this more of that "I don't care if bad things happen so long as I'm not associated with the cause of it" mentality you usually see from non-voters?

I genuinely think the type of social media you use in your youth has a very strong influence on the type of person you become:

Instagram/Snapchat: Average, slightly sociable

Reddit/Tumblr: Insightful, knowledgeable about niche topics/social issues (respectively), better at writing, worse at socializing

Twitter: Argumentative, not really capable of cohesive long-form thought, great at one liners though

TikTok: Mindless beasts conditioned through a variable-ratio positive reinforcement algorithm to uncritically believe whatever thoughts China wants to insert in their brains: "The US is awful!!" Heck yeah! "Because of this, we're going to not vote/vote for Trump!" Wait, what?

I watched AOC's "What's Happening & How You Can Take Action" video and thought it was really impactful, so much so I decided to write up a summary of the insights, copy pasted below.

TL;TR for what you can do about it:

1. Know your rights and teach other people their rights
2. Contact your representative
3. Help organize for Florida special elections to elect Gay Valimont & Joshua Weil

Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:

1. If something like war ever breaks out, engage in simple sabotage when you can. Short preview of link: "Whenever possible, arrange to have the fire start after you have gone away. Use a candle and paper, combination, setting it as close as possible to the inflammable material you want to burn"

However, we're not currently there yet. We don't need to wait until things get impossibly bad before taking action. If you think all that stuff like "contacting representatives" & "organizing for elections" will do is slow our collective downfall, then realize that a slowed downfall means more time to organize a resistance and more time for vulnerable groups to escape the country.

Also, feel free to copy-paste this excerpt anywhere if you'd like!

TL;TR End

---

Insights from "What's Happening & How You Can Take Action" by AOC:

Executive Orders are not that powerful: For all the Executive Orders being signed, know that they're not actually as powerful as they might seem. Congress can block Executive Orders, courts can block Executive Orders (you might have heard of this being done for the EO ending birthright citizenship), and they're essentially more limited in scope/permanence than actually signed laws. In fact, much of the EOs Trump has signed are meaningless or completely unconstitutional, which is not a pointless distinction, because as mentioned before, courts are blocking these EOs.

Fascist dictators thrive on perceived power instead of actual power. They want to "flood the zone," pump out so much terrible nonsense the populace becomes overwhelmed and docile. Don't believe them, don't become docile and don't consent in advance. The reason Trump is using Executive Orders instead of actual laws is because he knows he only has a slim majority in the House (218R-215D, ie 2R's could flip a vote, 2 vacancies in FL to be voted on 4/1, 1 R departure in NY-21 to be up for another special election)/Senate (53R-47D/I, ie 4R's could flip a vote), and he doesn't want his perceived power to crumble, such as when 3 GOP Senators John McCain, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski blocked an Obamacare Repeal Bill "Health Care Freedom Act" from going through in 2017.

(In this case, by erasing this womans history NASA is doing a little thing called complying in advance.)

Action Being Done by Democrats: Apparently Trump did a bunch of stuff while Congress was on recess, and they only got back in session Feb 5th, which was why there hasn't been much news from democrats. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently released a 10 objectives plan for House Democrats to obstruct the administration

What You Can Do: While I'm sure we're all positively exhausted with everything going on, at a minimum, you can know your rights regarding ICE Raids: Don't let them in without a Judicial warrant signed by a Judge, don't answer their questions even if you are a citizen, don't talk to them without a lawyer. If you have extra energy, you can:

1. Educate people on their rights by printing up Know Your Rights Cards to hand out
2. Contact your Representatives urging them to obstruct Trump nominees while Elon is invading the Treasury
3. Help Organize for the Florida special elections 4/1 for the House of Representatives. While it would be difficult for these +30R seats to flip (Note in the Jan 29th Iowa special election for Senate (a state Trump won by +21) actually flipped to Democrats), even switching a +30R district to a +10R district lets Republicans know their policies are unpopular and they should think twice before supporting Trump's policies. Additionally, there will eventually be another special election to fill a House of Representatives Republican vacancy up for grabs in NY-21.
4. Help Organize for other Swing Elections near you

Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:

1. If something like war ever breaks out, engage in simple sabotage when you can (short preview: "Whenever possible, arrange to have the fire start after you have gone away. Use a candle and paper, combination, setting it as close as possible to the inflammable material you want to burn")

However, we're not currently there yet. We don't need to wait until things get impossibly bad before taking action. If you think all that stuff like "contacting representatives" & "organizing for elections" will do is slow our collective downfall, then realize that a slowed downfall means more time to organize a resistance and more time for vulnerable groups to escape the country.

Contacting your Representatives: To contact your representatives, you can make a short 2 min phone call to their office, which will either be picked up by a staffer or go to voicemail. Representatives listen to phone calls when trying to get a sense of what their constituents care about, but other forms of contact (email, text, etc) are by and large ignored. Additionally, you should say where you live, because representatives only care about what their constituents think, not outside people. Note that the voicemails only record up to 2 min so be brief. You can find your representatives phone numbers at https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

To express your views to your representatives, the format goes like this: "Hi, my name is [Name] and I live in [City, State, Zip Code]. I wanted to ask for your support on [Policy, Bill, etc]. [Anecdote if you have one to be more personalized]. Thank you for listening, my phone number is [Phone Number] and my email is [Email]."

I personally have just called my senators to let them know I want them to vote NO on advancing/approving all Trump nominees, and that I supported them continuing obstructionist actions including the 30hr filibuster against Russ Vought, Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget pick. Florida 4/1 Special Elections for 2 House of Representative Members: Summary, trying to elect Gay Valimont (D) District 1 & Joshua Weil (D) District 6. You can sign up to volunteer on their websites (linked) if you'd like.

New York-21 Eventual Special Election for 1 House of Representative Member: Elise Stefanik (R) will be vacating her seat to become the U.N. Ambassador for the Trump administration, after which within 80-90 days a special election will be held for a new House member. While it's somewhat of a pipe dream, if Dems win all 3 of these House seats up for grabs, it puts the House at 218D-217R.

---

I hope this helped you get a sense of what you can do, feel free to copy-paste this anywhere if you'd like!

So, back in 2023 I discovered Lemmy, made an account, but after a bit quit again because I never checked it. I recently made an account again since Reddit has started getting really bad (tons of bots, tons of conservative posts on r/popular after the election, etc) and only recently started actually using said account.

I think using Lemmy requires a different strategy than using Reddit. On Reddit, if you wanted to subscribe to, say, a Linux discussion group, you would just go to r/linux, and there would be just 4 more even more niche subs you could join, like r/linux4noobs. On Lemmy, their are 6 main Linux groups and 14 niche Linux groups across several instances.

The first time I joined Lemmy, I subscribed to just one of these groups like I would on Reddit, but my feed didn't have enough content so eventually I got bored. The second time around, I created I've just subscribed broadly to every community related to my interests, so I if I was interested in Linux I would subscribe to all 20 Linux communities.

I then hypothesized that if I did this for every interest (ex, say my only interests were Linux & Plants, or something), that discussion of topics that was more popular on Lemmy, like Linux, would drown out my other interests. To avoid this being an issue, I made 3 accounts for 3 feeds

• My "general account" in which I subscribed to nearly every top sub, so if I found I didn't care about a certain topic on All I could unsubscribe instead of outright blocking those communities (that's this account)
• My "interests account" in which I subscribed to my personalized interests like privacy or environment
• My "fun account" in which I subscribed to just meme, gaming, cats, etc communities

That's all just me though, how do y'all use Lemmy differently from Reddit? I'm curious as to how I can git gud at Lemmy lol

For anyone who is undocumented (and people who are documented!), it's important to know your rights regarding ICE:

1. Don’t open the door for ICE. They aren’t allowed into your house or workplace without a warrant signed by a judge.
2. Ask them to leave.
3. Stay silent. Do not talk to them without a lawyer.
4. If you ask you your immigration status, your citizenship status, etc, don’t tell them anything. Don’t even speak to them.
5. Even if you’re a citizen, still don’t tell them anything. ICE destroys communities, and every second of their time you waste is one less second they will spend destroying people’s lives.
6. If you are detained, ask to talk to your lawyer. Note that ICE doesn’t provide lawyers so make sure you get one in preparation.
7. Do not sign anything or give them any documents whatsoever without a lawyer in that room.