I liked things better when I didn’t have to worry about masked men in unmarked cars abducting people off the street based on their skin color.
And for those thinking “no that’s not what’s happening at all!” It 100% is
https://old.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/1o0qsb8/getting_chased_for_being_brown/
Shoutouts to the the fucking masked videographer. Jesus Christ.
If it hasn’t happened already, skin color soon won’t be the only criteria.
It already happened years ago. This isn’t the first time protesters were kidnapped and stuffed in rental vans while Trump is President.
it’s easier to pick a time when it didn’t happen in the USA
Shoutouts to the the fucking masked videographer.
Some commenters in the thread you linked are claiming that the videographer was working for ICE for a promotional video.
You can see in the video that he climbs out of the same red van as the ICE thugs, so that seems like a solid bet to me
*morning tantrum
demented morning tantrum
Morning dementrum? Demantrum? We can workshop this.
The minute JB removes protections for federal agents from ICE, DHS, and the FBI, and declares them guilty of state level treason, and is willing to deputize people to go after them, I’ll be more than happy to assist
Unfortunately, the violence directed at them is what many on the right and even Trump himself want, because it will be used as a pretext to interfere in the mid-term elections coming in 2026.
I mean, they’re going to try anyhow, and stirring up shit will just give them that much more leverage to do so.
As rage-inducing as Trump is, just biding ones time and voting and getting everyone you know to vote in the mid-terms for the Democrats - even if the candidate is an absolute stinker - is what is needed to put the brakes onto this administration.
getting everyone you know to vote in the mid-terms for the Democrats - even if the candidate is an absolute stinker - is what is needed to put the brakes onto this administration.
We did that for Biden already. The Dems had 4 years to do something, anything, of significance to protect democracy and what did we get? The most feeble attempt at legal charades that I’ve ever seen. They ran out the clock and let Trump cancel the only real investigations into his own behavior.
Yes, Democrats are clearly better than Republicans but those limp-dicked cowards are not going to save us. Many of them can barely muster the courage to condemn what’s happening now, much less convince anyone that they actually want to stop it.
Who said they were going to save us? We have to save ourselves. The reason we vote for stinker Dems is to get more time to establish our own salvation.
Maybe that’s what you mean but I don’t get the impression that’s what most people mean when they say that voting for Dems is the answer. They want some external force to do the work for them. They don’t want to be directly involved any more than checking a box every couple of years.
If we’re just talking general population, then yeah most people just wanna check a box and not think about it. If you’re talking about the people actually advocating voting Dem, I think my perspective is much more representative.
Who is out there saying that the Dems are great and we need to vote for them because they’re actively good? The vast majority of people I see advocating Dems are very candid about it being a harm reduction strategy. It seems weird to assume that “most people” mean the opposite of what I see them actually saying.
I’m much more worried about the people finding idealistic reasons to criticize harm reduction strategies.
Who is out there saying that the Dems are great and we need to vote for them because they’re actively good?
Almost all mainstream media that isn’t intended for right wing audiences. Every person who has knocked on my door, sent me an email, or called my phone to talk to me about Democratic candidates for the last 25 years. 80% of the people I have had political conversations with in the real world who aren’t Republicans. Calling it millions of people would be a conservative estimate as best as I can tell. The only people I hear saying what you’re saying, which by the way isn’t too dissimilar to what I have been saying for the last decade, are people in niche online communities like Lemmy and the occasional outlier politician like Bernie Sanders.
The vast majority of people I see advocating Dems are very candid about it being a harm reduction strategy.
I’m all about harm reduction. I think it’s a great strategy that most people can get behind. However, when I say harm reduction I don’t just mean slowing the rate at which shitty things happen. I mean reducing the amount of harm in the world. So the question is, do Democrats reduce the amount of harm in the world or do they simply slow the progress of shitty people?
Now, I understand that a lot of people think slowing the progress of shitty people is it’s own reward, and in a vacuum I think that’s true. That being said, are we actually slowing it down indefinitely or are we simply delaying it while at the same time making it inevitable? There is a difference. Biden slowed MAGA down for sure. While he was President they could not actively pursue their goals to the same degree that they could with Trump in the White House. However, I think Bidens policies in general but especially his refusal to go after Trump in a serious manner have made our current situation more likely, not less. The only way to prevent what we have now was to clamp down hard on Trump’s lawlessness and executive overreach when we had the chance or to improve the lives of the average American significantly enough that they would not fall for Trump’s lies about the economy or immigrants or whatever else. Biden could have done at least the first pretty easily. Instead, he decided to mostly maintain the status quo and hope Americans made the right decision in the end. Well, given that Trump’s 2016 win was, in my opinion, largely a rebellion against the status quo, that seems like a bad move. Further, giving Trump four years to strategize and consolidate power within the Republican party led to worse outcomes in 2025 than would have been possible in 2021.
There’s a lot more to say here and I feel like I’ve been going on too long already so let me sum it all up like this; I believe that putting Biden in the White House in 2020 on the basis of harm reduction was worse than a Trump win would have been. Biden didn’t do anything significant to either disqualify Trump himself or materially change the conditions that led to his election, which made Trump’s eventual reelection both more likely and more dangerous because Trump and his cronies had four years to plot out their strategies. In the end, aiming for harm reduction actually increased harm.
Almost all mainstream media that isn’t intended for right wing audiences. Every person who has knocked on my door, sent me an email, or called my phone to talk to me about Democratic candidates for the last 25 years
I mean, I wasn’t counting people whose job it is to promote the Democratic Party.
80% of the people I have had political conversations with in the real world who aren’t Republicans.
Weird, most of the non-Republicans I know think the Dems suck but they’re better than the Cons. At best they think the Dems can be pressured into some civil rights here and there. I can’t say I’ve encountered many fans of the Dems outside explicitly political events.
The only way to prevent what we have now was to clamp down hard on Trump’s lawlessness and executive overreach when we had the chance
It’s not like he wasn’t on trial for lots of the lawlessness, he’s just actually really good at dragging out trials. Mishandling that could’ve sparked civil war, it had to be ironclad. Clamping down beyond the proper channels wasn’t a better option.
improve the lives of the average American significantly enough that they would not fall for Trump’s lies about the economy or immigrants or whatever else.
They actually did get a surprising amount of decent stuff through, but no improvement is going to make people stop falling for lies about the economy and immigrants. That’s just how people are, I’m sorry.
Further, giving Trump four years to strategize and consolidate power within the Republican party led to worse outcomes in 2025 than would have been possible in 2021.
I doubt it, the Heritage Foundation had this shit drawn up decades ago. They didn’t need the extra years to plot, if anything it threw off their timing.
They already consolidated power by 2021, the Republican party was MAGA . They already had their people in their stations, they would’ve been more effective if the cabinet didn’t have to transition out and back in.
Oh and COVID definitely would’ve been way worse overall too. That could’ve been a much bigger disaster.
So no, I don’t think Biden was worse than Trump would have been in 2020. It’s on us for not doing anything with those 4 years.
There’s no salvation. The US isn’t functional anymore.
It WILL be a Democrat or a Republican group holding power in Washington. You can pretend it won’t be but it will be. It has been that way for untold decades. You cannot and will not change that.
So you either don’t accept this reliable truth. Or you want Republicans in charge. Which is it?
I never said it would be anyone else in power. I said Democrats are not going to fix this problem. Those two things are not equivalent in any way.
Still, if you want to take this conversation in a totally different direction I’ll play along. if you base future decisions on past outcomes you’re only guaranteeing that change cannot occur. People said exactly what you just did about the divine right of kings for centuries. It was true until it wasn’t just like what you’re saying now.
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No the summary is that you’re clearly incapable of keeping your assumptions and biases from changing the meaning of what you read.
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I mean, not really. We keep waffling between 45/55% of our government being controlled by fascists.
If 45% of the governing body is still fascist, that makes it kinda hard to actually do anything when most of our government requires more than a simple majority to get things done.
Just look at Trumps approval rating right now. It’s still not below 40%.
Merrick Garland didn’t need Congress to do his job. Biden didn’t need Congress to pressure Garland to do his job. Stop making excuses for their inaction.
I agree that Biden is going to go down in history as a bad president for not doing more to prevent the current state of things, but when half the country keeps voting for facisim the problem isn’t just the politicians.
Stop making excuses to once again hand Republicans future victories.
According to the Lemmy left, this is . . . *checks notes* . . com . . complissit . . librul . . bou . . bourg . . I can’t say that one - uh, compitulation.
Look at the demographic of any “left” and you generally find kids that don’t understand how societal power works.
Taking a few classes on sociology and reading Marx is fine and all that, but they need to understand the framework of conformist, consumerist America and leverage that… and as it’s anathema to what Marx says… they’ll forever be smacking their heads against the walls.
Then they grow up and become Wall Street brokers.
Sause: Am 60, and have seen this same shit happening over and over - for decades.
That’s a distinction without a difference, so what’s stopping you from going after them already?
Organized leadership instead of lone-wolf vigilantism is not a difficult distinction to identify, dude come on.
removes protections for federal agents
The consequences before/after protections are removed are the same. No one is ever getting a free pass to hunt federal agents.
That doesn’t contradict what they said at all. The absence of state-level protection is objectively a difference in consequences, too.
Please just stop with the nonsense.
Because everyone loves to talk about how they are big strong men but (understandably) never want to act.
Either that or they are just looking for a legal excuse to commit violence. See also: ICE and Horseshoe Theory
There’s a whole lot of people acting, in Broadview for example. They’ve been hit with rubber bullets, pepper balls, and tear gas multiple times; live rounds at least once there, definitely elsewhere in the metro area; and people still show up every day. Trump keeps putting more boots on the ground on US soil. When shit pops off, it’s going to make Kent State look like a pillow fight.
Or were you standing up your notion of “action” as a strawman?
The minute JB removes protections … I’ll be more than happy to assist
This implies not acting yet.
Because everyone loves to talk about
This implies that the context has been shifted from the initial comment to the new one proposed by NuXCOM, which Triumph was replying to. Come on with this.
The greater context still applies. The comment doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It was a reply, not a standalone comment.
No it doesn’t, what are you even talking about. You were criticizing the content of a comment specifically responding to and highlighting the change in context - now you’re trying to say that the context is the same as that which you presented in your original comment. Please stop making stuff up to justify your position, especially in sub-discussions where your initial position isn’t even the subject.
Oh wow. I wasn’t aware that Broadview had apparently received legal permission from the governor and was deputizing people on the street to ensure they would face no consequences for anything they do.
You know. As opposed to people who have decided tyranny is worth risking everything to fight back against.
(Also, I was not aware of active armed resistance with most of what I hear being VERY isolated cases alongside the normal “peaceful” resistance. Which is the other aspect of what is being discussed here).
Ah, you’re one of those “unless people are doing what I think they should do, their actions are useless” ones.
… No?
I am one of those “actually respond to the discussion” kind of people.
The minute JB removes protections for federal agents from ICE, DHS, and the FBI, and declares them guilty of state level treason, and is willing to deputize people to go after them, I’ll be more than happy to assist
Let’s drill down on that.
The minute JB removes protections (…) I’ll be more than happy to assist
Heavily implies the previous poster is not doing shit.
willing to deputize people to go after them, I’ll be more than happy to assist
Implies they aren’t talking about protesting and are instead talking about violence.
Your post
There’s a whole lot of people acting, in Broadview for example. They’ve been hit with rubber bullets, pepper balls, and tear gas multiple times; live rounds at least once there, definitely elsewhere in the metro area; and people still show up every day. Trump keeps putting more boots on the ground on US soil. When shit pops off, it’s going to make Kent State look like a pillow fight.
Seemingly describes action as (mostly) peaceful protest. Which… I have Thoughts on the effectiveness of it and am increasingly feeling like it was a decades long trap, but I also regularly work with the people organizing those and encourage people to get involved.
To be clear: People need to be aware there are consequences to peaceful protest as well. Your face WILL be recorded and plenty of the olds who marched for civil rights and the like semi-regularly get “checked in on” by local law enforcement or find themselves getting “enhanced screening”.
The personal and societal consequences need to be considered. And it is very valid to be wary of sticking your neck out. Which is WHY those “parade protests” still serve a big role.
But it is also important to understand the difference between “I can’t afford to get fired” and “I want to be protected while I engage in violence”.
I liked it when everyone thought he was dead. That was a great time.
The fall of America is happening in real time. It’s a shame their politicians stand by and let it happen. Trump, Vance, Bondi, Hegseth, Noem, Patel, Kennedy, are all terrible human beings. And don’t get started on Leavitt. Why nothing is done to remove each and every one of them from office is mind boggling from anyone outside of the USA. It will take decades to have any semblance of democracy return for their citizens.
They’re already at the stage of demanding the arrest of political opponents. How time flies!
“Trump, Vance, Bondi, Hegseth, Noem, Patel, Kennedy”
Ooh, people who should be arrested!
Felon, rapist, probable pedo, and literal traitor calling for others to be jailed.
Do none of them understand that their bribe money is pointless if it’s printed in a currency nobody will accept in the next 5-10 years?
Why do they not drag Trump away in a straightjacket?
The gelatinous loser want pritzker jailed because pritzker doesn’t like him. That’s literally it.
Fuck off fascists!
How much time did Donald serve for his 34 felonies?
At least Hitler served time for his attempted coup
They’re leaning so hard into the whole “‘terroristic’ speech” thing, aren’t they? Just a naked contradiction, right out in the open, and it’s apparently working.
aww. poor dumpy is having a tanty.
I love that Pritzker looked straight into the camera & begged the POS to do it. This is what we need from leaders.
Dementia
Epstein files
Are the officers also duty-bound to get pepper-sprayed by the ICEstapo while they are kidnapping and disappearing naked children?
Just wondering what policy it is that Taco is pushing the Mayor to enforce…
