I’ve been trying to do what I can in this time, online and IRL. It is really disorienting living in this nation, not knowing what’s working or what’s not; or what the situation is going to look like in a week or two. So many assumptions that I had of basic protections and securities are just Gone. I genuinely do not recognize or understand the people or systems around me anymore.

At least if we’re doing something it’s changing the scenario. It’s not like things could get much worse. “rather live two days like a tiger, than two hundred years like a sheep” ~Tipu Sultan

oh, yeah, of course Musk’s companies go on there… and I saw a few things about Oracle’s surveillance efforts.

I’ll confess this was me and now is me. Trump got elected when I was middle school-aged. I really, really believed that was the low point, and for the rest of my life, the USA would get better. I believed the USA population was just ill-informed, and I did not expect this global rise of fascism and digital surveillance. I assumed people would never vote to strip away freedoms if they knew that was going to happen. I assumed the internet would always stay anonymous, and always be a free space.

Obviously there was an immense amount I did not know about. I had heard of the Trail of Tears and Slavery and the Civil War, but I didn’t grasp institutionalized racism beyond police brutality; didn’t realize the Left was losing the internet, didn’t recognize the danger of the manosphere; didn’t understand how wide-spread the propaganda campaigns were, didn’t grasp that billionaires and centi-millionaires would want fascism, and would enact it across the Western world.

When Kamala announced her campaign, I deemed her president. Every step of that campaign, as the Republicans careened more extremist-right I became more certain that even their party members would deem them insane. I knew people were struggling financially under Biden, but, that guy’s holding signs reading “MASS DEPORTATIONS”, has two moronic side-kicks (Musk and Vance), and his term was filled with economic hardship. Also, Jan 6th, 2021.

In hindsight I’m ashamed of my naive optimism. I’d beat myself up for it more, if I wasn’t living in the middle of my personalized hell.

Benny Johnson is a serious prolific MAGA influencer that has been invited out by the administration to cover Alligator Auschwitz in Florida. Benny’s podcast was also why Jimmy Kimmel’s show got suspended - a member of this Republican administration made a veiled threat about Kimmel on Benny’s podcast and that is why Disney took the show down.

What happened to “Don’t share your real identity online”? Oh… Social Media.

Well before the UK online ID laws, I saw some memes about people getting asked for ID as proof of age for NSFW servers, just to send to server admins. I figured it was a ID fraud scheme of some sort, but now I’d chalk it up to manic “protect the children” believers.

Have you seen the USA? UK? Russia? China? I really don’t want the government making any system to tie internet to any identity. I really don’t want any government having any role in the internet.

So if we ever take back this country, we’ve gotta destroy Palantir, Apple, Google, Meta, Disney, Microsoft, Amazon, CVS (working to compile a medical database on all USAmericans)… and every company that backed Trump’s Nazi campaign. Start making a list now. The corporations alone will be a life’s worth of work.

My fear is that, in the event that we get a fair 2028 election, Gavin Newsom will be pioneered as the golden child, as Joe Biden was in 2020 – drowning out the actual Leftist voices. Then those progressives are pressured to drop out because this election is sooo important. Cue a Newsom presidency where we get 4 years of macro-economic recovery while the common folk suffer, and then the cycle repeats.

I agree with you. He’s 100% rallying up a presidential bid, and what worries me most is I see other liberals idolizing him, reposting his tweets at Trump, praising him as able to destroy Trump… Who knows if we’ll even have an election, but Newsom’s sure poising himself to waltz right in.

People need to stop posting Newsom tweets, and instead post content like this that frames Newsom as the corporate shill he is. Newsom is crushing homeless encampments, Newsom created the “CARE” courts that stripped autonomy from the mentally ill, Newsom is attacking transgender youth; and Newsom is going to continue doing all of this, harder, to poise himself as a “middle ground” between rational people and fascists – instead of upholding his responsibility to protect California residents.

They way I’ve broken off every website I no longer want to support is to delete my account (if there is one), then wipe it from my browser – right click on a page from the site in my history, and select “Forget about this site…”. Then remove any bookmarks, if I have them. It feels like burning a literal bridge. I no longer see the icon or page titles in my history, and no longer have a one-click entry back into that place.

Those two go hand-in-hand.

okay admittedly this is the first I’m hearing of the Italian Brainrot ‘meme’ - probably because it’s AI slop.

I miss when alt-right propaganda masking as “edgy humor” was made by people with MS Paint graphics…

“The concert of the Italian Brainrots” yeah that’s a “fellow kids” product if I’ve ever seen one.

“and himself, a true Democrat” uhh, Cuomo, you’re running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary. You’re opposing the Democrat Party. That’s the exact opposite of a Democrat.

ooh he means neoliberal corrupt corporate sellout. Got it.

and for workers who want to lose their jobs, and for tenants who want to be unable to pay their rent

“go get a job as an essential worker!”

I recall that happening, but I would note that the division in the Republican Party was between MAGA and the “Tea Party” fiscal conservatives, the latter of which have all been branded “Republican In Name Only” and cast out. This division was also why the MAGA plan to refuse to certify the Electoral Vote on Jan 6th, 2021 failed. I’m not talking about the insurrection – there was a genuine argument being made to try to overturn the electoral votes of several key states that voted for Biden, with passionate arguments made for and against completely rigging the election in Trump’s favor.

That speaker debacle was during Biden’s term, after the ousting of Kevin McCarthy specifically because Kevin McCarthy was one of those fiscal conservatives. The Republicans did eventually elect Mike Johnson, and I don’t see him getting kicked out any time soon.

We can not cling to this vision that the Republican Party will collapse in on itself. It’s a nice thought, but us waiting around is exactly what our rulers want. There are US Military soldiers and secret police agents on our streets right now – Today – trafficking people right now. Every day that we continue to play this routine, participating in the corporations and institutions that engineered and empowered this crisis, the USA and the corporations and the Christian Nationalists all get what they want.

A General Strike could put some strain between the corporations and the politicians, but that’s a movement that each of us must partake in. Right now, big business including Silicon Valley, as well as the Christian Nationalists, are quite content with the status-quo.

UK moment. If this was a Muslim group, they would have been hauled off for “terrorism” well before the story hit the press.

Ukraine’s victory was enabled in large part by the financial support of the United States, which for most of the war, was run by the Democrats. As much as I’d like it, a “gangbang” of the USA is also impractical, given that the USA has many nuclear weapons, both in the country, and abroad. The USA also has military bases across the world.