Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned that the Trump is deliberately overwhelming the public with chaotic news to induce passivity.
Citing Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone” strategy and historian Michiko Kakutani’s comparison of Trump to Mussolini and Hitler, she argued that Trump uses the internet to spread disinformation, much like past dictators used film and radio.
Urging people to stay engaged, she emphasized that collective resistance can slow harmful policies and that small acts of opposition make a difference.
Great, now I’m burnt out and feeling guilty about it.
The key is to tune out and organize your resistance with your peers. Find energy in love for others
most people are in denial and carrying on like business as usual, making plans for 5 year projects as if the last remaining shreds of whatever used to pass for “checks and balances” were not being obliterated as we speak
“Do what you can. And what you can do is enough,” she said. …Ocasio-Cortez reminded her followers several times that no deed of resistance is too small.
Honestly, continuing to exist/taking a moment to be nice to yourself in an administration that hates you counts. Keep existing.
A lot of these click-baity titles and over-simplified summaries seem to be adding to this very problem of guilting people for being overwhelmed.
Unfortunately that’s the system but please don’t feel guilty for being human. Kindness and compassion is resistance, and starting with yourself is a valid step.
Fuck the forces who are selling a solution to a problem they created but are trying to say is your fault. /endrant
The first thing she said is to take a breather. If you’re unfocused, tired and afraid you can’t do anything.
The second thing is to learn, educate yourself, figure out that Trump, Musk and billionaires are not stirring up chaos and havoc just because they feel like it. If these were 100 unconnected random actions, tackling them feels impossible. Once you understand that it’s all around the theme of Musk, Trump, media-owning billionaires want maximum money and minimum accountability, their actions simply fit within that and a strategy to tackle it is easier.
Third is to “lock in”, focus your energy on what you can do, big or small. Even if you are too afraid to talk to another soul, knowing your rights is still action. Knowledge is power. Talking to your friends and family is action. Calling and writing to your legislators is action. Joining a protest/rally/meeting is action. Organizing, volunteering leading is action. The point is do it to what level you are capable at the moment. There are far more non-billionaires than billionaires. Every bit of action counts.
Last, make them abuse their power, do not just allow them to or assume they will. They are going to do horrifying things, you don’t have to submit to it in advance. You can slow it down.
The thing the idiot billionaires didn’t realize is that they already had maximum money and minimum accountability.
Money. Which would you rather have, a million dollars or a million rubles? By grinding the US economy to a standstill, they may have more dollars, but they’ll be worth less.
When they complete turning us into a fascist oligarchy, they’ll have more accountability, not less. Nearly every single one of them will have to spend more time worrying about getting thrown out of a window by a “superior” or shot in front of a hotel on their way to a conference.
They’ll have to fear everyone above and below them. They discarded a set of rules that originated from general agreements to help us all get along, and have chosen power and blood as the deciding factor over laws. Well, that goes both ways. Democracy requires some good faith, and we’ve taken that for granted.
The founders understood this. It’s why they invented our system of democracy. It wasn’t just out of the goodness of their hearts. That all happened around 1776, as you know.
Between June 14 and July 27, 1794, hundreds of nobles, shopkeepers, clergy, corset makers, vintners, and other “suspicious” citizens were executed by guillotine at Place de la Nation in Paris.
That sentiment didn’t arise out of the blue. It was around for decades before it got to that point. The founding fathers were very aware of what was happening there. The English civil war happened in the mid 1600s and the king was executed.
It turns out constant power struggles were often not great for those in power.
But we’ve forgotten that. So now, instead of learning from history, we’ll repeat it.
So glad i’m not a rich person who’s betting their families lives on the success of the markets. Lots of finance bros living in populated cities gonna find out the hard way that food doesn’t grow from money.
I’m running off of spite at this point.
It’s constant dead cats on the table.
Exactly. People need to stay focused. Trump and his henchmen are going to do everything they can to keep the masses fighting amongst each other while they rob us blind. This is what “class war, not culture war” means.
That’s both party’s strategy since Reagan got his former opposition on the take.
Thats what both parties are bribed for.
Stoke social issue wedges and protect our oligarchs grift economy from us.
You can have scapegoating and oligarchal exploitation or affirmation ribbons and oligarchal exploitation. That has been the extent of our voter’s power for half a century.
Im glad the Dems support trans rights, and vote for them as harm reduction, but don’t pretend DNC neoliberal democrats give a shit about a poor Trans person’s right not to die in an underpass of exposure for the crime of being poor as a warning to the other poors.
I have started to want this to become an extension of hate speech laws - if a lawmaker makes remarks or policy advances that target a specific marginalized protected class (eg, race, sexuality) while also engaged in other policy decisions, they must provide EXTREMELY compelling evidence of those policy advances (just about always impossible) or face extended criminal prosecution for attempting to use the threats as a distraction.
Feels like Trump has done more in 17 days than Biden in 4 years
Turns out the party of “nothing will fundamentally change” didn’t need to do anything to keep their promise. Even when they tried, Republicans masquerading as Democrats stopped them until Republicans won the house and stopped everything.
Then this chucklefuck wins and says “fuck norms, fuck the law, fuck everyone who isn’t rich. I do what I want.” and Republicans just nod while fox news chants about how he’s “killing it.” Real defenders of the Constitution, those folks…
The sad thing is that no Democrat will say fuck the norms to undo corporate fuckery, or to fix serious problems of inequality, or to slash the military budget, or to save the precious planet we live on from climate doom. They’ll insist on doing things the right way but get 1% of their agenda done before the other team takes over and rolls all progress back 50 years
Cutting government waste and increase efficiency is almost always popular to most Americans. In the past politicians often talk the talk but never walk the walk. I disagree that cutting government waste and increase efficiency is easy at all. It is actually the hardest thing in government.
I’m just holding out until we start taking to the streets at this point.
If you haven’t heard Run the Jewels, they are the spiritual successor to Rage. Their latest, RTJ4, is their best and hits harder than rage. Zach de la Rocha is on a track too.
