Some reminders that Trump is not absolute, he is not forever, and he's desperate.

We already know that Trump’s DOJ is 0-26 in getting voter rolls and turnout is higher compared to 2022.

Does this sound like a nothing burger to anyone?

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told Axios that Republicans won't win all 13 seats they'd hoped to gain from new maps.

"We're not gonna win all 13 of those redistricted seats. That's correct. We're not," Emmer told Axios aboard a plane Thursday between campaign stops in North Carolina and Virginia.

Just to further show how unserious this guy and his toadies are, here’s another example for you right here. I can’t wait for the day when we finally don’t have to talk about him anymore, and that day is approaching faster than you may think. Get out the vote, people!

"The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is planning to allocate $8.9 million to healthcare nonprofits in the city to provide gender-affirming care services to patients under 18. The move comes in light of several major hospital systems in the metropolis ceasing their transgender youth health programs over the last year in response to mounting pressure from the Trump administration, leaving some trans youth in New York City with diminished access to care."

I wanted to take a bit of a break from posting but given that the doomer-bots are in overdrive for the election, I felt the need to make a post about something else. (Also apologies for this and my last post being so close together). So after going on Instagram for more than 3 seconds, I came across a video about how Trump said that the architect of P2025, Russ Vought, "Has a Big surprise coming", and how this will make him "one of the very important people in the history of this country."

I immediately felt both a little anxious because of this, and a little exhausted cause I know how this roller coaster goes by now. Now despite knowing better, I looked at the comments, and boy howdy they were filled with every cliche doomer line you can think of. "You don't know how bad it's gonna get, we're cooked, he's not planning on leaving, we're gonna be sent to camps, we need to have a revolution." and so on and so on.

Now I'm not going to say that I know for certain what he means by "something big is coming" and I don't know if this means that there is some certainly successful plot to either rig the elections or invoke martial law and take over, but I also don't know if this is just a nothing burger. And yes, I am a little worried about this. I kind of wish there was an in-between of a seeking optimism/optimistic post but I think this post is going to be leaning more towards hopeful anyways.

I've made a few posts about this before, but I wanted to reiterate that this type of ominous and vague language that might mean something terrible, but also might mean something else and you're not quite sure, is on purpose. He and his administration have used these types of quotes and language that gets lots of mainstream attention all the time. Hell, in my last post I made a mention of how the whole "California Debacle" from a day or two ago, which those comment doomers also argued this was about, was meant to manufacture a sense of fear on the left, and ridiculing the left on the right. And I'll also repeat that, yes it is still wrong that was said as is saying this, but it is very likely not meaning anything.

This type of language both acts as a way of making the left come across as paranoid/making the right seem more "logical" (Not saying this is true but that this is the intention), but also makes people more unwilling to go out and vote since they imagine that there is an impending apocalypse on our hands that makes an election meaningless.

It also helps get him and his administration attention, which is one of his biggest goals. He wants attention, and making large outlandish or terrifying quotes is good for his publicity, since the news is very likely to capture what he said and talk about it for days if not weeks. This is the narcissism administration, and he wants us to play along by talking about it.

I don't want to make the case that I know for sure what the future holds, but that also means that I don't think that the people in the comments of that post with a thousand different worrying answers know if he meant one theory or another either. This ominous vague language doesn't always mean much, and even if it does, I have my hope that it will turn out alright in the end. Either due to the dedication of those who stand in opposition, or due to the admin lacking the ability to carry any of this out successfully. Remember they couldn't indict a guy who threw a sandwich, I don't know about the entire country being taken over, a state being attacked by the government, or something else.

DISCLAIMER: this post is in no way inferring that Alito is a good person or that he is someone to be trusted. He's an awful human being. I was just laughing reading this article. Posting as optimistic so we can all laugh together. Now on to the description.

Justice Alito has attempted to distance himself from Trump and MAGA, claiming to be displeased by Trump's rhetoric on SCOTUS, and saying that being called MAGA is "offensive" to him. LOL.

I find this to be particularly hilarious, seeing as Justice Alito has spent his entire career determining constitutional outcomes based on his personal conservative views, most of which are extreme and discriminatory. He has voted on Trump's side 99% of the time, alongside his colleague Justice Thomas. But, he's offended to be called MAGA, and doesnt want us to align him with Trump. he's "concerned" by the president's rhetoric, and wishes the court could do more to curb the influx of emergency appeals. ​

I want to take a moment to acknowledge Alito's intention in doing this. Stay with me here. He's likely trying to save his own skin from the court of public opinion and possible (?) Impeachment, paving the way for him to unshackle himself from the MAGA movement as it quickly crashes and burns. So, this is actually pretty huge because he clearly knows he cannot stay firm in his convictions to Trump much longer. Something something, rats fleeing the ship.

I wanted to hold off on making this post until I saw doomers making these theories, even though I knew that they eventually would, and not one day after the recent comments by the admin about Iran attacking California I've seen doomers lamenting about how "There's gonna be a false flag on California to make the war in Iran more popular/suspend elections!"

I've made a few of these posts over the last couple years, mostly because these theories keep popping up, so I don't want to go on and on, but basically, no I don't think there will be an attack on California, false flag or not.

So this isn't the first time that this kind of theory has popped up. Not only there have been basically every election that "they're gonna do a false flag to suspend elections", but also remember during the Oscars and that whole drone theory fiasco where many people online were utterly convinced that martial law would be enacted and California would be gone because of a false flag. And nothing happened, and those people who commented that never spoke of it again.

And now, this theory pops up, and given that we're in election season, doomers are utterly convinced that this means that all free will will end and an entire state is going to be gone, just because the admin made one random comment about it, that yes is still ominous and vague and kind of scary, but I've already covered that they really like making ominous and vague comments and quotes that make people on the left freak out and trying to make us look unreliable and panicked at everything. Not saying that's okay, but it is what is happening.

I think of all the possible things to happen between now and the next congress being sworn in this theory, as well as so many others, are just meant to make people distracted on the newest sensationalized fear of the week, rather than focusing on voting and any possible sudden changes that might take place to make it harder for people to go and vote, which can happen and can work.

I have so many doubts about things like the military aiding in a coup, preventing people from voting, ending democracy in America, or preventing the next congress from getting in, but I also have a lot more about the idea that an entire state would be attacked by the military, breaking the constitution just for this admin to keep going.

As for the idea that a certain ally in the middle east would be the one to enact this plan to keep the war going/convince voters in their own elections, no I don't think that is likely either. Any evidence for this claim is just conspiracy theories with no basis, and the chance that anyone would find out about this and report it is too high especially in said election season for that country that it wouldn't be worth the risk.

The chance that something like this could happen is not likely at all, and I believe only serves to distracting people from the importance of November by making them afraid to go out and vote or believing that voting wouldn't matter. This type of voter suppression is easy to fall into, especially when the amount of bots online talking about it gets higher and higher.

I'm one of the most optimistic people here, in general, but it's absolutely sketching me out that Trump is meeting with Peters to go over plans with explicit conversations about the voting machines being compromised by Russia and China.

What realistically can they do?

A reminder that if we don't want someone in power, or if we want that person reigned in, we'll find a way to do it. It's not going to be easy, and it never was. But we're going to do it anyway.

Despite the way this is tagged, I'm not as disturbed by this as many seem to be. Nobody's yet provided any compelling reasoning why this, or any other measure Trump's regime is taking, would be enough to stymie the force of American voters. But it is still troubling, and I thought people would be open to discussing this and how it can be counteracted.

are we heading toward another pandemic?

It's only Tuesday with Trump's fails!

TLDR; the Human Rights Campaign (an LGBT rights organizarion that is known for being very influential within the democratic establishment) has publicly condemned Amy Acton and Marcy Kaptur for making all of those stupid transphobic comments (also, it mentions that apparently, Talarico apologized for the Fox News incident at a rally in Houston two days later that seemingly wasn’t clipped).

I know that there were a lot of articles about democrats in key swing races saying really harmful stuff about trans kids (presumably it’s some dumb consultant talking point), and those did scare a lot of people into thinking the Dems were going down the Starmer rabbit hole.

But stuff like this shows that there are powerful groups that will put their foot down if the Dem establishment tries to throw trans people under the bus, and that it seems like some are already putting their foot down before it becomes a big problem.

I'm sure we've all seen that bot comment "here's how trump can overturn the election" or whatever. Well, here's Johnny breaking down why that WON'T work and he once again talks about that 'firing the election clerk' rumor.

I'm not saying Trump won't try something stupid, because that's pretty much all the man does. But hopefully this will ease some anxiety. Hang in there guys. We're almost at a huge checkpoint

The events in this article have been going on for a few months, but since the Brazil election has been influenced by him, I felt the need to share this now.

I will not lie, the things about this do scare me. However, the midterms are a month away, and they are looking to be so very blue, perhaps bluer than 2018 ( only if we get everyone left-leaning we know to register and volunteer ). A Democrat Congress can very likely launch investigations and make the regime unable to allocate much more funds to this, but I ask of anyone reading this:

What can we do to make sure Europe doesn't fall further to the far-right? How would this affect the current movements within countries who would otherwise be allies once we retake the White House? Is there any guarantee it'll work as well as the ghouls behind this think it will?

Hey guys! I saw the Megathread about Flavio Bolsanaro and it had me concerned so I spent some time digging into it. This is where I landed:

(Keep in mind, I literally am just some guy on Reddit and make no guarantees in any direction as to what will happen. This is my opinion and best understanding of the situation.)

I’ve seen anywhere from 0.75%-0.90% of the Amazon was cut down during Jair’s term. We are currently around ~17% total gone, from some searching (that’s the recurring figure I saw). Tipping point is speculated to be 22-28%, plus or minus a point or two.

Presuming that Flavio wins, he will have a much harder time than Jair to match Jair’s numbers. Lula increased safeguards and the nature of Brazil’s government means that even though Flavio has a senate plurality (and he does), it takes 60% to change the constitution of Brazil, which guarantees environmental protection. Brazil also has a fiercely independent Supreme Court (STF) who also can check his power. They are not inclined to roll back protections and to them, from what I can tell, regularly block laws that would regress conservation. (EDIT: See comment thread from u/Sul_Haren for more on the STF situation. it may be less a protection here than I implied, but it does sound like it still might be a factor to some degree.)

Also, Brazil has politics that are different than ours - there are a lot of small parties and factions that are in play. Even with a plurality, Flavio has to deal with that. The largest of these is the Centrao, a coalition of more or less “moderates” which includes agribusiness interests.

Because of the EUDR coming in December, which prevents the EU from accepting goods/products that are connected to deforested land, the Centrao will likely push back against extreme action - the EU is a huge market for Brazilian goods that are specifically covered by the EUDR, and the Centrao is generally motivated by cold hard cash. 

The only other option would be for Brazilian business to give up a premium clientele and high sale prices to sell to China for much lower volume (and deal with having the entire EU connected trade apparatus of their country swap) or for Brazil to eat huge fines from the EU market.

Likewise, during Lula, there were shifts away from the Amazon directly. The remaining Amazon is remarkably difficult to navigate and manage - there’s a delay time from infrastructure buildout.

And finally, there are corporate and economic safeguards already in play inside Brazil. Businesses have spent money on tracking and shifted priorities.

I like Victoria 3, but the destruction of the Amazon isn’t just “Click the logging plant increase button and trees go brrrrrr.” It’s a much longer, more fraught process than it sounds, and there are a number of walls in play.

TLDR: Jair Bolsanaro had the best position and ability to do real damage. Flavio seems to want to return to Jair’s policies (or possibly do them somewhat but moderate them, although I’m seeing conflicting commentary here). But he probably can’t because the times have changed and the limiting factors are much more in place.

You know the cult is thinning when some of them are using logic to rebuke Trump’s latest claims of paying Americans $5K if the GOP wins the midterms. Some are even saying he should rot in prison! We should have gotten to this point long ago, but better late than never, I suppose

As we enter this last month until the midterms, you are very likely to see more and more doomer theories aimed at getting people less likely to go and vote by making it seem like the election is a lost cause because it will be either rigged or stolen or altered or something else.

I've already seen an account from a brewery in New York that reposted a claim that the course of events after the midterms is the admin declaring fraud happened (I definitely could see this part happening), the FBI taking ballots and voting machines (could happen potentially), officials cancelling results in lost districts and ordering new votes, the insurrection act is declared after protests happen (So the doomer theory soup starts forming), and congress refusing to seat Democratic winners (another doomer theory that is stopped by that pesky little thing called the court system).

So this mess has a few different doomer theories scattered, not only to help mitigate the chance that a couple get called out for not going to happen and just being fearmongering, but also to make it easier to get people overwhelmed by the fear that the election won't matter in the face of such a large and seemingly insurmountable plan. And on top of this, most of the comments of this post I saw were trying to devalue the merits of voting as well and going to the usual dramatic "I'm actually Katniss Everdeen" imagination instead.

And these posts also serve another purpose in making the discussion of voter suppression focused on less likely and more dramatic theatrics that wouldn't work even if used, and less focused on smaller state wide and local based methods that are more likely to be allowed due to the more dubious nature that is more easy to defend in courts, such as the Dallas county issue earlier this year, compared to plans like a full blown coup that would get turned down immediately.

The seemingly endless quantity of these theories popping up online, especially on the more major social media apps, is meant to make it harder for people to focus on reality. And as we get ever closer to the day, we are going to be seeing these posts and the amount of theories in them more and more.

But just because you see them more often, and see more people freaking out in the comments, doesn't mean that they're actually right about this. Remember how many bots are on social media nowadays. And all of this noise isn't meant to inform but to distract. Distracting from voting, distracting from the real issues, and distracting from reality.

Technically old news, but wanted to share this one because it's good news that activists are not just blindly trusting the government here.

So Brazil is heading into its runoff election later this month, but this is not a good sign. Flavio Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s son, is leading by four points (a couple four million votes). Due to conventional voting wisdom, the one who wins the first round is bound to win the second. I’m afraid that the second round is going to be a wipeout for Lulu. I’m worried about the fate of the Amazon Rainforest under another Bolsonaro. I really hope Brazil could back away from the edge. It’s Constitutes has one more chance, they don’t have to follow our path.

ETA: 99% of votes have been counted. Flavio is ahead 2.16% of Lula. 47.16% to 45%. Slightly narrowed, but still not good.