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by twen_ty 66 days ago
This is what happens when there's no effective opposition. Where are the dems? Where's the press?
8 comments

> This is what happens when there's no effective opposition. Where are the dems? Where's the press?

The US is functioning as a banana republic style totalitarian regime for a few years. Even Venezuela has a tougher opposition.

What are they supposed to do here, exactly?
Country wide strike would be a nice start.
That would require a level of class consciousness that has been violently suppressed for decades. Although maybe there's some hope based on continual record breaking no kings numbers
Managed opposition requires qualitatively different resources than a general strike.
This is Israel's war and the American democrats have traditionally been very supportive. Last place to expect anything like what you are calling for.
The dems had clear red lines in how far Israel could go. Palestine? sure, do whatever the fuck you want.

Iran war that would lead to a fucking global economic crisis? Hell no! shut up Bibi!

That's in a gist the difference between the Democrats and the entity who call themselves the Republican party nowadays.

No, this is now America's war. Israel has a part in it but the US is the main belligerent at this point and if Trump follows through on his threats he all but guarantees the downfall of the United States. This has gone way too far already and since the internal checks and balances of the United States appear not to be working it will be up to the rest of the world to draw a line. We can not afford to let this spiral into another world war, especially not with multiple nuclear powers involved.

Think of it this way: Iran is isolated on the world stage. But turn it into a significant enough victim and there will be two major religions on either side of a war. That's a recipe for something that could potentially make WWII look 'mild'. I know there are people that actually want this, but let's at least see clearly here: nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody will benefit from that. Even the ones who think they will benefit. Democrats that are supportive of this are hopefully a small enough minority that sanity will prevail.

Think avalanche: you can start one, but you can't stop one. Avalanches stop themselves, but only when all potential energy is expended.

I agree.

What I mean by Israel's war is that the motivation was Israel's, they got Americans to be their grunts.

I don't see this de-escalating soon unless Europe shows more teeth.

It's pretty much nightmare fuel out there.

> I don't see this de-escalating soon unless Europe shows more teeth.

Can you describe what you have in mind?

The technical term seems to be: entrapment. The war could have ended after the first few "successful" days.

And still every day it continues, it becomes a little bit harder to back out. Like Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan this war cannot be won.

> the internal checks and balances of the United States appear not to be working

There is one last test, but it's not until November. Until then, Trump is on a speed run to destroy everything he can

You need to get to November first.
There's the 25th too but I dont think anyone with access to that option has the spine.
One side controls all branches of the federal government and by and large it controls the media as well.

So how do you propose this strike happen?

From where I'm looking, any kind of resistance is becomes a target to divert the guilt from any failure.
Look at the kind of obstructionist histrionics that repubs were doing during Obama and Biden and amplify 10x given the severity of the situation.
I'd also ask what can we regular Joes and Janes do to avoid this disaster?

I can't think of anything other than going out and standing on a street with a placard. can we do anything better than that?

The question isn't what must be done; look to the very founding of the United States for wisdom on that topic. The only question is, do people have the collective courage to do it?
Where are you?

What precisely are you doing other than posting stuff that pretends that a party in minority in both houses of Congress could actually stop a president, unless some politicians in the majority chose to join them.

And, as underwhelming as the press are, the facts are that surveys show that American's broadly disapprove of the war. Presumably because of what they have learned about it from the press and the opposition.

The people who are responsible are the people in power and their remaining supporters. Aided, arguably, by people who espouse cynical, self-soothing complaints that ignore what most people learn about civics in middle school.

Are you trying to say that the majority of dems don't support this war? Cause they do.

Also are you going to ignore the propaganda pushed by the press leading up to the initial attack? Or that they are still breathlessly parroting propaganda and self censoring right now?

The entire ruling class is responsible for this. The military carrying it out is responsible for it. Anyone in positions of power that have done nothing to stop this but post some strongly worded tweets is responsible.

When the Republicans bought up the press, they silenced the Dem voice. "Cancelled", if you will. Hypocrites through and through!
The fatal flaw in our separation of powers is that even if congressional dems had a super majority, congress is powerless to enforce anything.

And the press has been covering Trump's rhetoric and the war pretty heavily.

So the "checks and balances" we were taught in school was just nonsense?
How could it be that a political system which remained largely structurally unchanged since the freaking 18th century isn't equipped to deal with everything that has been going on in the world since then?

It must be due to bad actors.

Kinda yeah, much like how Americans are taught that they are a bastion of democracy, yet your convoluted electoral system has led to multiple instances of your president losing the popular vote.
They weren't nonsense until we had people in positions of power decide that they were.

At the end of the day, pieces of paper are just pieces of paper.

   > And the press has been covering Trump's rhetoric and the war pretty heavily.
 
The press is owned by the billionaires that paid Trump's campaign.

They literally bought the presidency for Trump.

You're preaching to the choir. The oligarchy has indeed thoroughly captured the fourth estate
I think they already captured all.
It's wrong to even frame this as a partisan question. When the leader of a democratic country threatens a nation of 90 million people with genocide, that should be the end of that government on that same day. Where is the entire US population? You hear nothing but crickets, what an utterly passive, terminally ill society.
The best example I've seen of things working correctly was with South Korea removing the leader that declared martial law. The South Koreans said nope to that, and removed the head of their government. They just had the moral fortitude to do it.
They made me incredibly proud that day !
Protests have been steadily breaking records each time they occur. Protests have been occurring across the country since he took office. This has all been widely publicized
Are you seriously asking or just using this space as a soapbox?

If you are, here's some useful info:

Every city in the United States has what could be categorized as a standing army in the form of a police force. They are ready and highly trained to violently stop civil unrest.

The police force deploys sophisticated technology and dragnet methodology to track and build profiles on all citizens that attend protests.

Similarly, the media and status quo is captured so thoroughly that all forms of mass protest appear eventually degenerate into lawless havoc to onlookers, which perpetuates a cycle of violence.

The state has no problem in engaging in mass arrests. And when the cultural moment has moved on, individuals are stuck fighting extreme charges and face having to make the difficult choice of pleaing out to resume what semblance of life remains. And if you want to fight, risk facing some of the most inhumane conditions in the developed world by spending some time in a federal prison.

So, "where is the entire US population?"

Mostly surviving and scared.

Yeah, why do people think every police department have been able to buy military vehicles and equipments for the last decades? To combat crime? LOL
Better question: why should I risk jail time or worse to protect a foreign nation halfway around the globe that largely despises me?
What's truly shocking is that a large part of what got Trump elected in 2024 (and the world in this mess now) was that the GOP cleverly stoked the fears of transgenderism via local-market ad buys during the election. This very play was the reason for much of Trump's gains with various demo's such as black males and hispanics/latinos. So many of these folks were completely triggered by 'grooming' and the ideas that girls are having to compete against transgender girls in their sports. The fact that folks were willing to elect Trump so that a very small number of women wouldn't have to compete against transgenders, is sad beyond words. Perhaps this (will turn into) a lesson well learned, although voters have notoriously short memories. Sophistication of this type among the masses is sorely lacking.

The ruling class has us just where they want us -- so focused on & fearful of losing our little jobs that we don't have context around much else so that we can do a thoughtful job of performing as an electorate. This is how you elect a Donald Trump, as THEY have now learned.

A lesson learned for the Democrats, hopefully. Despite being warned by so many inside and outside of their party about this issue, they gave the Republicans ample opportunity to exploit it. Really, it was quite unnecessary.
Most people I met who voted for trump may even agree with this, but voted for Trump not because of that irrelevant petit burgeouise fetiche question, but because, hilariously, they thought Trump would be a champion for the working poor and middle classes. Also, a lot of them also, hilariously, thought electing Trump would mean no more wars with the saved money used to save issues like housing and infrastructure.