I’ll go one better - if the DNC hadn’t interfered and fucked us over, the people would have elected Sanders in 2016 and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

Actually, we got fascism by constantly moving towards it over a span of at least 60 years, with the only difference being that we sometimes moved more quickly towards it and sometimes more slowly.

We moved towards it under Biden too, and would’ve continued moving towards it under either him or Harris.

The only thing that’s notable about Trump as far as that goes is how much he moved us and how quickly. But this was always the destination.

The only way we could’ve moved away from fascism rather than towards it would’ve been to elect federal politicians who were actually good instead of just less bad. But we not only haven’t been given that choice, but have been indoctrinated into treating less bad as a virtue

And what you just described is the exact process by which governments descend into tyranny.

The much better way to deal with the issue, if you actually do care about your fellow humans, is to refuse to support a toxic candidate even if they are somewhat less toxic than the alternative, and make sure at every single turn that the blame is placed squarely where it should be - on the foul, loathsome, corrupt and compromised scumbags who arranged for the nomination of a toxic piece of shit candidate in the first place.

Less bad is still bad. If you settle for less bad, the best you’ll ever get is that things woll potentially get worse somewhat more slowly than they would otherwise. They’ll still inevitably get worse.

If you want things to actually get better, then you have to hold the scumbags’ feet to the fire. You have to make sure that it’s widely understood that they and they alone are the reason that the best we can hope for is somewhat less bad and things getting worse somewhat more slowly. And you can’t do that by meekly going along with them.

Which would be relevant if the goal actually was to cut spending, but it never was

The goal was to eliminate agencies and purge principled employees from surviving agencies in order to provide immediate benefit to the oligarchy, and to facilitate their longer term goal of institutionalizing their unchallenged dominion over the US. And at that, it was a resounding success.

Oh and…

The fact that this whole norion of a lack of lefty unity is complete bullshit was neatly demonstrated by leftist voters coming together to overwhelmingly support Zohran Mamdani.

And who didn’t support him? The fucking establishment neolib hacks - the exact same people who keep fucking us over by putting up shitty candidates then trying to guilt trip leftists into voting for them. We finally got a candidate we wanted and they couldn’t even be arsed to endorse him.

Supporting genocide is not fucking “minutia.”

I’m old. My first awareness of the world of politics was the Watergate hearings, so I actually lived through most of the run-up to this.

It’s certainly the case that the US has been moving more or less steadily toward plutocratic oligarchy since at least Nixon, and progress has definitely accelerated (though it really started accelerating with the Wall Street bailouts in the wake of the 2008 real estate bubble collapse and hasn’t really let up since), but that’s not really what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the literal insanity of Trump and his sycophants. They aren’t merely corrupt tools of the plutocrats like so many past politicians - they’re deranged lunatics. That’s not hyperbole - it’s simple fact, plainly obvious to anyone who takes a step back and honestly looks at what they do and say.

It’s not that the US has accelerated toward autocracy in less than a year (though it has), because yes - that’s the direction it’s been headed for decades. The astonishing thing to me is that the US has effectively gone insane in less than a year.

If the US was a person, it’d be on a psych hold. And that’s something I wasn’t prepared for, even as cynical as I’ve always been.

Oh look - it’s the DNC Defense Force, here to get an early start on guilt-tripping leftists who won’t vote for whichever shitty center right neolib hack the DNC will likely end up trying to foist on the voters at the behest of their corporate donors.

Fuck that. It’s not the voters’ responsibility to vote for a piece of shit just because they stink a little bit less than the other piece of shit - it’s the DNC’s responsibility to run candidates people actually want to vote for. And when they can’t (or more accurately won’t) even do that, then they and nobody else are responsible for the consequences.

That’s the most astonishing part of it to me.

Reality has gone completely off the rails. Virtually every day, I read another account of blithering insanity, and painfully obviously dangerous and destructive insanity, from this administration, and then I watch as all of the official entities that are meant to check that sort of insanity just treat it as another day and another press release from another President’s office.

It’s like The Emperor’s New Clothes, only far far worse.

And all in less than a year…

At this point though, that’s just noise.

Unfortunately, the mass media is complicit in the insanity - they’ve abandoned principles, integrity, honesty and accuracy in pursuit of profit and/or the owners’ agenda, whichever might be deemed more important in a given organization.

That’s not to say that that story is necessarily false. It’s simply that if it’s a spin that serves someone’s agenda, as this obviously is, then it will be published somewhere, entirely regardless of whether it’s true or not, so the fact that it has been published means nothing at all.

I know things were pretty fucked - I haven’t been a lifelong cynic for no reason - but still, it’s amazing how quickly snd completely the US has descended into screeching insanity.

And all at the hands of this demented lunatic, his psychopathic enablers and his legions of angry and stupid followers.

What a world…

That’s the current version of a power fantasy he’s had ever since he was the nerdy kid getting picked on by the mean kids on the playground.

Of course.

None of this is or ever has been about crime, or even really about immigrants, undocumented or otherwise.

It is and always has been about establishing precedents by which to expand governmental authority.

What they’re building is a system in which anonymous federal agents will be seen to have the right to black-bag anyone, regardless of whether they can be charged with a crime or not, and disappear them.

They started with undocumented immigrants justifiably accused of other crimes because that was the easiest case to be made both legally and popularly, but they never had any intention of stopping there. They’re going to keep expanding until they reach the point that they can do it to anyone, any time, for any reason.

Never seen it.

Off to see why I apparently should…

…Ah. I see.

That’s a specific approach I’ve never seen before, though the broad strategy is tediously familiar.

I’m amazed and pleased. I almost never encounter anyone who shares my views, even among self-described 'anarchists."

Most of them carry around lists (figuratively at least) of all of the things that will be required and all of the things that will be prohibited in their “anarchism,” antagonistically immune to the fact that by doing so, they’ve already stipulated institutionalized, hierarchical authority and thus proactively eliminated anarchism.

I don’t think of it as a political philosophy but more just as a description of how I believe the world actually is when stripped of the systems we’ve laid on top of everything.

Very much yes.

My anarchism is rooted in my view that authority is a contrivance, and an ultimately unjustifiable one.

Tom lives alone on a desert island. That means that Tom, within the constraints necessarily imposed by simple reality (he can’t, for instance, flap his arms and fly) enjoys complete freedom of choice.

The only way that that freedom can be constrained is if another person is introduced and that other person acts to constrain Tom’s freedom.

So as you note, the state of affairs in which Tom’s freedom is constrained beyond anything determined by simple reality is some additional element that’s laid on top of the base state.

And as such, it’s the thing that must be justified. Tom doesn’t have to justify being free from constraint imposed by another - he already was so free, and would have remained so were it not for the fact that the other has chosen to try to introduce constraint.

Therefore, the introduction of constraint is the thing that must be justified

And there’s no possible justification for it that doesn’t ultimately establish a hierarchy by which the other person is seen to effectively be a superior being, such that their determination of what Tom may, may not, must or must not do is superior even to Tom’s

If the tacit presumption of innate superiority isn’t made, then any and all noninal justifications for authority over Tom’s decisions fail, since any argument by which any other party might justify imposing their will on Tom is also an argument by which Tom might justify imposing his will on them, and any argument by which they might claim to be rightly free of the imposition of Tom’s will is also an argument by which Tom might claim to be rightfully free of the imposition of their will upon him.

This is where and why institutionalized authority inevitably goes wrong, which in turn is why I’m an anarchist.

Without first hand knowledge, I couldn’t say in any detail, but I expect that ambitious, greedy, power-hungry psychopaths are already angling for Council positions, from which they’ll exercise tacit authority until such time as their positions and their authority can be institutionalized, at which point they’ll become the new generation of corrupt officials.

That’s not to say or imply I oppose the effort - if nothing else, they’ve gotten some breathing room. And hopefully the next time they throw off their tyrants, they’ll remember how they got their start and reject authority in and of itself and entirely, rather than deluding themselves that it can be constrained.

My anarchism.

Anarchism in general makes me the other when dealing with most people, but the specifics of my views on it also generally make me the other when dealing with most “anarchists.” (I oppose any and all attempts to institute anarchism - I believe it will arise organically or not at all - and I similarly reject any and all stipulations regarding what sort of standards, norms or systems may, may not, must or must not be a part of an anarchistic society),

So here’s how I see it:

Someone is goading/bribing Trump into acting so that they can take control of the Central and North American narcotics trade.

That’s why he pushed for invading Mexico to fight the cartels, and when that didn’t work out, he shifted to starting a war with Venezuela.

It’s obviously not a sincere effort to stop narcotics traffic, or he wouldn’t be pardoning Hernández. It’s much more likely that he’s pardoning Hernández because he either already is or is intended to be a well-connected and experienced ally to Trump and whoever it is that he’s working for/with.

Where can I say F*ck, respectfully?

Fucking anywhere. If you feel some fucking need to self-censor like a little bitch, that’s on you.

Where can I call women sl*ts and wh#res when they disagree with me on opinion?

Wherever the fuck you want. You’re just likely going to end up facing some sort of consequences for being a sexist piece of shit. If you’re too much of a little bitch to deal with that, then maybe you should rethink the idea.

Where can I call men bitch*s, when they try to correct me?

Anywhere you want bitch.

Where do femcels, Andrew Tates and wizards talk here?

They mostly don’t because they need an echo chamber so they can pretend they’re something other than weak, pathetic little cowards, and Lemmy won’t give them one.

Where is the place where we say things we couldn’t say elsewhere?

That’s Lemmy

What you’re looking for is a place where you can say things that you could say elsewhere - where you can post the same sort of cowardly, bigoted, noxious crap you can spew on Reddit or 4chan or X or Facebook. You can do that too on Lemmy if you want - you’re just not going to get a safe space to do it in free from consequences. And again, if you’re too much of a little bitch to face the consequences you deserve for being a bigoted piece of shit, you should maybe rethink the idea.

Feeling a bit North Korea in here.