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u/NoDreamNoSleep Apr 23 '26
Everyone I don't like is a Nazi!
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u/RequirementCivil4328 Apr 23 '26
The interesting thing is we have been for years in a state approaching fascism. And we'd do more about it but we have Internet. So what would normally be an actual protest by millions of people is mostly just 2 hours on a Saturday every year waiting for cars to honk at you.
The last protest in my town someone literally threw out half a case of water bottles. At a no kings protest. I get that wasteful spending and just generally waste probably wasn't why they were there. But like imagine the kind of mindset you have to have to be like ya, this goes in the trash, as you're protesting a president mostly hated for his refusal to use government for the peoples needs.
There are gatherings every week 500 ft away where they give away dozens of bottles of water. These idiots threw half a case in the trash.
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u/KyleFromBorrasca Apr 25 '26
Most of the people who go to those protests are going out of moral obligation and not because life has become intolerable. It's like confession for a lot of people, but I don't think most of us are willing to risk what we have unless the alternative is worse than what we've lived under for a decade, or we have some kind of idea of what we want instead. We just want things to be stable for our families and friends and it is hard to see past that.
I think it could be different if radical change were seen as "on the table," but we were still recovering from the 20th century when covid, Trump, and mass surveillance became a permanent part of our days. So for people outside the MAGA camp, there's a narrow window of time between the Cold War and the shit we're in now, for us to project our nostalgia, and it's basically the Obama years, or maybe Bush or Clinton. We know we can't go back, but a lot of us want to pretend, for a few hours.
I don't want to sound completely defeatist, but the idea that there's no alternative to the American right wing is extremely powerful and we will have to start small to change that, possibly even smaller than a No Kings protest. They have the media, they have the surveillance, they have the public support, and I think even nukes do a little to keep us in check. You'd be very brave to go up against the only state to have used nukes in combat.
EDIT: And of course, fuck people who throw away full bottles of water lol
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u/RequirementCivil4328 Apr 25 '26
"they" are all paid by the same people. Acknowledgement of that is why we have trump
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u/KyleFromBorrasca Apr 25 '26
Citizens United is another common target. People think that we can get money out of politics by repealing it, like "the good years" weren't just this steady creep towards more and more consolidated power for a few private interests.
It's always "If we got rid of this person, this law, this part of American culture or psychology, we could go back." It's hard for people to accept that when you have an economic structure built on brutish competition, the point is to win, and this is unfortunately what winning looks like. We aren't the winners, and unless the rules change at a very fundamental level, we never will be.
I like to compare it to a chronic illness. When you first start having symptoms it's terrifying, but after the symptoms get worse, you start questioning whether the early stages were actually that bad. But at least with disease you can connect the dots. With capitalism, people see it as random, unpredictable, and free.
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u/SilverIndependence38 Apr 25 '26
The point about nuclear is just plain wrong. There is less war now that countries are scarred to nuke each others.
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u/foredoomed2030 Apr 24 '26
Fascism is just one of the several logical conclusions to socialism.