And no motorcycle chase at the end?
3 Likes
I’m willing to take that example as a promise rather than another bottle of his racist snake oil, per Masha Gessen. Let’s further assume that he could somehow accomplish that goal within four years. What do you think it’s going to take for liberals and progressives to stop it?
Mass demonstrations will help, but it’s not going to be barricades in the streets, smashed Starbucks windows and burning police cars that ultimately do the job. It’s going to be thousands of those small defiant moments I was talking about: liberals and progressives and others joining together to stand in front of the ICE black marias that are trying to take away their neighbours. Followed by those same liberals and progressives being sent to the pokey for a bit after the cops show up to drag them off. Followed by media exposure, followed by lawsuits, because white people really don’t like being sent to jail for defending their peaceful neighbours.
It’s a slow and arduous and (sorry, drama queens) mostly unglamorous process, but it’s one that’s been proven to work in the U.S. (see the Civil Rights Movement against the racist police states of the South). That process can be further avoided through the existing system, even our weakened and compromised one, if democratic institutions are defended before the disease of fascism gets a real foothold.
Maybe one for @lasermike026 . Sounds like he needs it, but no guarantees that he’ll end up with just a week in the cooler.
5 Likes
It just occurred to me to wonder what fraction of Americans agreed with the Civil Rights movement? Because right now we’ve got 40-45% with us. Most of them are not the demonstratin’ kind, but we have a history of success to look back on, which is one definition of confidence.
When the oppression starts up in earnest, this will be an exciting country.
10 Likes
I really want someone to tell me how to fix this. The dog really dislikes people putting things in the letterbox which we had fixed outside the door because he really disliked people putting things through the door. I really do not want to have to put the box any further away.
…oh sorry, was this about something else?
11 Likes
What if these so-called conservatives are living backwards through time and their nostalgia is for the theocratic dystopia they’re always working toward?
22 Likes
Make it clear to the dog that the postman is part of your pack… I don’t know what we’re talking about now.
11 Likes
A cold, wet nose is healthy nose! A leash is freedom!
6 Likes
That would explain a lot.
24 Likes
We also have culture, both popular and high, on our side – no small thing in our society. Even if some states won’t recognise his holiday, Martin Luther King has the civic saint stature of Washington and Lincoln in the media and entertainment industries. Still, it’s not a sure thing: during a time when popular culture was going all-out to paint us as the last hope for defending democracy, ordinary Americans were stealing from their Japanese-American neighbours who were being sent to internment camps.
Which way things will go is difficult to say, even taking into account the popular vote. As you say, interesting times, in the unfortunate sense.
8 Likes
29 Likes
And your little dog, too?
4 Likes
4 Likes
8 Likes
I want to believe what you say, but I’ve watched some movies and tv shows, and they seem to show Team Authoritarian in a much better light than the data collected in the cold hard light of reality might support.
6 Likes
I was talking more about the culture’s portrayal of the Civil Rights movement, but you’re correct that there all too many popular "24"s and "300"s out there for comfort.
6 Likes
Not just VOTE for these. RUN for them.
Also, learn to use other forms of citizen power. Calling and lobbying congresspeople, for one. Get together with a dozen people, put up a web page, come up with a $1000 donation.
Somebody should write a book for “millenials” on practical politics. Come to think of it, SF writer Fred Pohl actually wrote a book by that name forty five years ago:
7 Likes
10 Likes
That, plus dandelions and cockroaches.
5 Likes
17 Likes
Strange things are afoot at the Circle KKK.
13 Likes
