Community organizers and vocal opposition are at the top of the list Palentir is making right now. Scrub your social media and start taking your data privacy seriously if you aren’t already. Degoogle and take your opinions off Meta and Reddit at the very least.
They’re going to test the waters by going after some brown protestors first, but the end game is all political opponents and uncontrolled opposition.
I think (and hope) that one key difference here is that the US is much more divided politically and culturally then Nazi Germany was. At least right now, there is no way the US declares a war of aggression against a former Ally and doesn’t fall into Civil War. It will take a hell of a lot of internal suppression for that to change, the act of which will likely ignite the Civil War itself.
My hope is that the next few years will be less “What if the Nazi’s controlled the most powerful nation in history?” and more “What if Francisco Franco controlled the most powerful nation is history?”
Europe and China likely have time to prepare, and they really fucking need to. If they’re smart they’re already covertly looking into ways to arm and fund internal opposition in America.
Sort of, but it’s more a comforting theory rather then a true belief. I came up with it when I was younger, doing a lot of psychedelics, and meditating often on the nature of existence and reality.
My theory is that God is everything. The earth, the stars, our fellow beings. All of reality makes up a complex web that I loosely refer to as a “consciousness” for lack of a better word. The nature of this “consciousness” is incomprehensible to us. It does not activly intervene in our daily lives, and operates on a scale beyond our comprehension. Mostly, it simply is. It is the oblivion from which our consciousness was once plucked, and it is where we will one day return.
In essence, each of us is a tiny fragment of reality experiencing itself. The meaning of life is to experience it. All of it. Joy, pleasure, and suffering. It is all a part of the whole of existence. When we die and return to the infinite our individuality is lost, but maybe God learns something about itself.
I think they’re starting with foreign prisons until the process becomes more normalized. Right now it would be too risky, the victims would have too many pesky rights. Need lawyers and journalist afraid of being sent to the El Salvador Death Camps before we can open the American ones.
I mean… kinda? Its no excuse, but Trump, Musk and the lot of them seem to all have deep insecurities rooted in childhood trauma. A toxic culture that encourages abusive behavior and discourages self-reflection and accountability certainly doesn’t help.
The memes about it how these men would rather destroy America then see a therapist are pretty real.
I daresay he almost looks… Stately in the portrait. It’s like a look into an alternate reality where Trump was loved by his father and got into politics out a desire to serve his country, and were he’s also done the bare minimum to care for himself for the past 79 years.
I mean, it could be a shitty disfunctional country with a very poor QoL, but still an independent country.
Small states will likely form coalitions with neighbouring states with whom they share culture and values. Texas, California, Florida, and New York might be independent, with nearby coilitions of states falling into their spheres of influence, or they may be the dominant power in a coalition of states.
It would be interesting to see what becomes of the states in the Midwest and the Great Basin. None of them have the economic power to stand on their own, and they will be reliant on having good relations with States that have ports.
Border disputes and tensions will be widespread, and the state-lines we know today will likely be completely redrawn. It’s likely too that many States will be facing their own internal succession movements from regions on the other end of the culture wars. Not to mention foreign powers pursuing their interests in the remains of the United States. The only certainty in this hypothetical future is that is will be a big, bloody, mess.
A chilling look into what could be the first real steps towards the Balkanization of the United States. It’s sad that it’s gotten to this point, but realistically I don’t see another path forward. It may be unconstitutional, but unfortunatly that founding document has lost its legitimately as the current administration wipes it’s ass with it on a daily basis.
A rare moment of honesty
That’s why I dislike these kinds of memes that say, “Oh, I shouldn’t be working all day; I should be living a life of leisure and free to create”.They feel like the conservative strawman of the “lazy leftist who just envies the rich”.
Living as the meme describes inherently requires the exploitation of labor. Unless a society becomes technologically advanced enough to achieve fully automated post-scarcity, meeting a person’s needs still requires a certain amount of human labor. The issue under capitalism is that some people do live as the meme describes, and they do so by exploiting the labor of others through capital. As a result, the rest of us struggle even more.
Oh I agree completely. There is a fascist aspect inherent to Superheroes. Cap is just one lf the less egregious ones.
Captain America is a weird one to include. Not denying it’s propaganda, everything is, but throwing Cap in with copaganda is such a surface level take. He’s propaganda for American exceptionalism sure, but also embodies it in an old school New Deal way. The character has been consistently anti-facist over the years.
Imo Iron Man is the much more harmful propaganda. You can pretty much draw a direct line between the characters rise in popularity thanks to the MCU and the rise of Elon Musk.
Idk, I know a pianist and his house is just filled with boxes and boxes of sheets music!
The plan to make up for immigrant labor is prison labor. Tank the economy, further criminalize homelessness. Wouldn’t be shocked if debters prisons make a big comeback.
I’m going to be the nerd who talks about how difficult it is for modern, post-Industrial Revolution humans to truly understand how medieval peasants lived. Really, this applies to how ancient and medieval people of all walks of life lived, but for now, let’s stick to the topic of this meme. Is it entirely relevant to this post? Eh, probably not, but I’m bored at work and in the mood to ramble.
That meme about how peasants had so many more days off than modern workers? Those “days off” were simply the days when their labor wasn’t solely for the benefit of their lord. The days they “worked” were the ones spent fulfilling their feudal obligations—working their lord’s fields to stock the larders and granaries of the nobility and clergy. The rest of the year was when peasants worked to sustain their own communities.
Make no mistake: a peasant’s life was one of constant toil. For a medieval peasant, there was no sharp distinction between work and home life like we have today. There were no modern conveniences either—everything required labor. When fields didn’t need to be tended, and livestock didn’t require care, that was the time for milling grain, baking bread, brewing ale, weaving cloth, etc. God, crafting and maintaining your clothes took so much work, not to mention repairing and upkeeping your cottage.
Granted, these duties were often divided among family and community members. Unless you were a hermit living alone in the woods, no one was expected to do it all themselves. One of the “nicer” aspects of medieval peasant life was the close bonds within families and communities. People provided for one another. Children and the elderly, while still expected to work, had lighter duties. Bartering and trading goods or services with neighbors was also common.
That said, I don’t want to romanticize their lives too much. Here are some of the harsher realities:
If you were a man, you could be levied into your lord’s army at any time. This meant marching far from home, and risking death in battle. You really, really do not want to find yourself on the losing side of a medieval battle, something completely out of your control as a levied peasant. You also had to provide your own equipment. If you were relatively well-off, this might mean a spear, a shield, and padded armor. If not, you’d bring whatever you had—likely a farm tool. Refusing or deserting would leave you an outlaw, and if you were caught you would be flogged and possibly hanged.
If you weren’t called to war (because you were a woman, a child too young to fight, or too old or infirm), you lived in constant fear of armies rampaging through your village. They could destroy your home, steal your valuables, and rape and murder you, regardless of age or gender. With your lord’s army far away (or defeated), you’d be left to defend yourself, and running was your best option.
Medical care was rudimentary. Alcohol was the primary painkiller, and while there were herbal remedies, their effectiveness was often questionable. Nearly every illness or injury carried the risk of an agonizing death. Infections were almost always fatal. Childbirth was a leading cause of death for women, and as people aged, they faced constant pain with little relief.
Medieval peasants lived lives that, by our standards, were horrific: often short, brutal, and full of hardship. They were at the mercy of powers far beyond their control—victims of the whims of history. Yet ignorance truly was bliss. They knew no other way of life. If they were blessed with good times, free of war, famine, or plague, many peasants could lead fulfilling lives, and some, may have even considered themselves happy.
Fucked regardless but how fucked remains to be seen. Just as before, Trump will spend his presidency golfing, what really matters are his cabinet picks. Best case scenario is that just like 2016-2020 in-fighting and general incompetence make the administration a revolving door and keep the Christian Nationalist from realizing their darkest ambitions. Worst Case is that the Fascist have learned from their mistakes. I also think Trump either dying or being forced to step down (with a pardon of course) is a possibility that is on the table. Vance is a much more competent Fascist and this is definitely a worst case scenario.
Regardless, I think there are a few things that are guaranteed to happen:
Smoke em while you got em, it’s about to get rough for everyone. We are in the death throes of the Neo-Liberal world order. Buy a firearm and get a vpn. Keep your vehicle as fueled as you can, and if you are able keep a sizable amount of cash stored somewhere safe. There’s never been a better time to go vegan and get in shape. Do what you can for the people you care about.
Shaxs has some great anti-facist quotes!