I will preface this by saying I understand that I am more radical, revolutionary, and extreme of a leftist than most. Despite that, I still ask that you actually engage with this as I’m asking in good faith.
When is enough enough? We have elected a fascist into the highest office and handed the keys to him and his friends. Is now not the time to actually get organized, involved, and armed? In my opinion, the time for peaceful, democratic means of avoiding fascism was before the election. But we have failed to do so, and as such there will soon be a tyrant in power. Are we going to wait until troops are rolling down the street to stage any form of resistance, because by then it’s far too late. Now I want to be clear that I am not advocating for random acts of violence or an insurrection like January 6th. But is this not a point of radicalization? Is this not where we start organizing within our communities and getting involved in mutual aid and resistance? How much more do we need before people are actually ready to stand, fight, and maybe even die to avoid continuing down the path that we are on? Fascism is not on the horizon, it is here. Are we really to do nothing about it as a society except lay down and accept our fate? Because that doesn’t jive with me. That makes absolutely no sense to me.
ETA: To the people responding, I will admit that I was heated and frustrated when writing this post. Having had time to cool off, reflect, and get some differing viewpoints my stance has changed to focus more on what needs to happen first and what’s practical. You may have seen that in my responses. That being said, I don’t disagree with what I said here, and I’m still frustrated we’re at this point at all. I’ve linked a comment though that elaborates upon what I actually want to see done though, which is a lot more reasonable and is still inline with this post.
I’m not an American, but I can’t help but notice something:
A clear majority elected Trump. Over 71 million Americans went out of their way to vote for him, saying “I am proud to be a Nazi.”
If you are going to fight (either figuratively or physically), then understand that a majority of the USA supports a fascist state.
71 million in a country of 262 million adults. 27% voted for fascism. 74 million voted for trump in 2020. This wasn’t a shift towards fascism, but the opposition party utterly failing to win voters.
The country has never been majority rule. Every modern election has split the country in thirds, about a third votes one way, a third votes the other and a third choses not to vote.
Over 70% of voting aged americans did not vote for trump.
edit: spelling correction.
And over 70% of eligible voters didn’t vote against Trump.
Wait, did Trump win with 27% of votes!? How do you still use this system?
No, he got >50% of all votes that were cast. The voting system wasn’t the problem this time, the voters were.
If the voters are the problem every time, the problem probably isn’t the voters, it’s probably the system. The US always has bad turnout.
A turnout between 60 and 70% is actually pretty standard for a Western democracy without mandatory voting.
The voting system wasn’t the issue, here. The people around you are.
No, that’s a misleading number.
27% of the entire eligible population voted for him. Less than that voted for Harris. About 45% of eligible voters didn’t bother.
So Trump got more than 50% of the popular vote, as well as the majority of seats. First past the poll is a terrible system, but it’s not the system that’s at fault here, it’s the voters.
HE won the fucking Popular vote!?!?!
no, “didn’t vote” won the popular vote.
As is tradition
Likely, although all votes are not counted yet. All while getting fewer votes than previously, so he was very beatable. It seems people were just not excited to vote for Harris.
Coincidentally, a woman has never been elected POTUS, and she shifted right to embrace “former Republicans” while shrugging off progressives. Total coincidence.
I’m starting to think that America just really doesn’t give a shit about politics if one of their choices is a woman.
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Tradition dear boy
This isn’t even a system issue (FPTP, electoral college).
What you’re remarking on is the need for mandatory voting and a federal holiday on voting day
Unless you make voting mandatory, that will always be the case. Regardless, the split amongst non-voters is statistically likely to be the same as the people who actually voted. Consider the election to be an information poll, with a sample size of ~65% of the entire eligible population.
So with updated numbers, Trump got 72.5M out of ~240M eligible voters, so yeah you could say that 70% of the population didn’t vote for him. But then to be clear, you should also look at Harris’s 68M votes, and say that 72% of the population didn’t vote for her.
The people who mark and deposit their ballots are the only measure we have of the nation’s opinion, and in that contest a majority of the votes went to Trump.
If literally everyone is forced to vote things actually lean more left. The way you force people to vote though can affected different socioeconomic groups differently so can have a wide range of effects.
You solution to people not voting is not to appeal more to those people but to force them ? lol
That would not move anything to the left. Democrats would feel free to go as right as they want knowing that the are the only big party that is not the Republicans.
I can already see it, they would spend sooooo much money to make any actual left party unable to compete, then they would shift as much to the right as possible, and then loose.
This is meaningless though.
You said “a clear majority voted for Trump”. In fact: a majority of Americans didn’t vote for a fascist. That is a good thing.
Neither did a majority of Americans vote for a milquetoast centrist, but I don’t expect anyone to take a great deal of comfort or pain in that fact.
We should give people tax breaks if they vote.
republicans do voter suppression and purge voter roles. victims of either of these practices would be punished with a larger tax burden. not ideal.
voting should be compulsory
It’s disappeared ballots and a bought electoral college.
Not twenty million of them.
I understand that wholeheartedly. But I personally refuse to be one of those people that sit back while everything deteriorates. When Hitler was elected a majority did nothing, but many chose resistance. I refuse to be the majority who live as cowards under fascism, so if that means I die resisting then so be it.
Hitler never even got close to a majority in any election. That’s the scary part about this: Trump didn’t even have to seize power, the population just handed it to him.
I don’t think you actually did get my point.
The fascists are the majority. The majority will do nothing because they chose this, and you - the people fighting fascism - are in the minority.
I’m not saying I disagree with you, but it is important to understand that your revolution is actually going against the will of the American people.
You’re right, but resistance is more than just revolution and even if everyone else is ok with living in 1984, I’m not. I know plenty of people who aren’t and I have a feeling the majority of the people where I live aren’t either (especially based on the voting data). Resistance to tyranny and injustice itself is just, and it can take many forms. Ideally yes there would be a revolution to remove the fascists from power and build something better, but that’s mostly lip service. I won’t lie, i was very frustrated when I wrote the post but in cooling down I am remembering that the resistance will have to start small and will have to grow. You’re welcome to see some of my other comments for what I’m talking about that isn’t revolution.
In absolute terms, they aren’t the majority. 73m voted for him out of the 161m eligible voters in the US, or ~45% (Harris has ~43%). Still a frighteningly high number, but it also means it’s possible to find support for resistance, at least if things start to get bad enough. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Americans that like to think that politics don’t concern them and that we should just be apolitical. So they’re going to need a wake-up call first before they would lend their support. Trump will likely give it to them in short order as his fascist policies start to directly affect them.
Also, keep in mind that the total population (~334m as of 2023) is much larger than the population that is eligible to vote. There are many young people that are too young to vote now but still old enough to fight tyranny, former felons who are ineligible to vote but eager to fight oppressive systems, not to mention the scores of people not counted among eligible voters due to not being registered to vote, either through complacency/disillusionment (see above) or active sabotage and disenfranchisement by Republicans (and in many ways, you could say these are one in the same).
Fascists may have power and have won the popular vote, but it doesn’t mean it’s the will of the people. It means they’ve successfully gamed our very broken system. But real, average people living their lives will fight when the oppression comes to them. Maybe it will be too late, but maybe not. Revolution only needs a single spark.
Australian here. I see in America a similar pattern than what happens here, one party (conservative) receives a functioning government and proceeds to fuck things up with absurd policies while at the same time immediately claiming credit for the state of the country as soon as they get into power. Takes years to change the momentum of a country and by the time a new party is elected the country is almost bottoming out at which point the new (left leaning) party spends most of their first term fixing things up only to get blamed at the next election for being in power when things turned to shit. The electorate will never understand that a new government needs years to undo the fuck ups of the likes of the GOP. This time the Dems haven’t had enough time to fix up all the stupid shit the GOP did last time so I expect these next 4 years the country to hit rock bottom while the GOP is still in power and it will sadly be a moment of “Americans got what they voted for”
That has been happening here (US) for decades. The real problem is the escalation of stupid shit that Republicans do is on an exponential growth trajectory.
It was going to take decades to recover from how badly Trump fucked up the government last time he was in power, and the economy was only just starting to recover. With another term, its unlikely we’ll be able to recover within my lifetime, my children will be left worse off than me.
This happens in the US, Canada, and many other western democracies.
The difference this time is that it’s not just the GOP being shitty, it’s an unhinged Nazi who just got elected, and has spent four years purging the party of unfaithful.
So the only way of breaking the cycle is to keep the GOP in power for 8 or 12 years. Result is a massive decline and nobody to blame but themselves. But yeah, that probably won’t work because someone else still gets the blame…
Seems like you’re advocating:
- “Get organized/involved” - What’s that mean in more practical terms? Start attending social gatherings put on/hosted by radical leftist organizations? And maybe start ones if they don’t exist in your area?
- “Get armed” - So, acquire firearms. To use in some particular way? (You mentioned you’re not advocating for “acts of violence or an insurrection like January 6th”, so not that, apparently.) Or just to have for when “something” happens? If so, what specifically?
- “Don’t wait until troops are rolling down the street to stage a resistance” - 'K. Not really helpful until I understand more specifically what you’re advocating for people to do.
- “Start organizing” - Same as that first bullet?
- “Get involved in mutual aid” - Yeah, ok. I’ve read Eisenstein. I know his book Sacred Economics has some tips for how to get involved with existing mutual aid organizations. I definitely need to re-read that bit and read other sources about that. But at least I have an idea where to start with some of that, I guess. I’d still like more specifics on what in particular you mean by this, though.
- “Get involved with resistance” - So, let’s say you’re a respected voice in a mutual aid radical anarchist collective with guns and enthusiasm. What do you suggest they do?
- “Stand, fight, and maybe even die” - How? Not January 6th, but… how then?
- “Don’t do nothing”/“Don’t lay down and accept our fate” - Not really helpful on its own if we don’t know what you’re suggesting we do instead of “doing nothing” or “laying down and accepting our fate.”
I don’t really know if this is a “I can’t really say what I’m advocating for because I’ll be banned, so I’m dancing around the issue and hoping you’ll stochastically pick up on what I’m not saying” thing either.
Without knowing more concretely what you suggest we do, I don’t really have a take on whether I agree or not.
Are you expecting someone to provide you with all the answers?
Organize literally anything; a labor union, tenant union, alternatives to capital, a community garden, etc. Getting involved means doing whatever you have the capacity to do. Sometimes organizing is long and challenging, sometimes it’s short and sweet. The thing is, there’s different recommendations for different types of organizing. A post like this really can’t get any more specific, because organizing is actually that broad of a topic.
Arm yourself to defend yourself and others from random acts of political violence. Use the arms to defend drag time story hour. Use the arms to protect the people you care about. Use the arms to watch cops. Get a gun, learn how to use it, and then only use it in emergency self defense. Having a substantial presence of guns at a protest against capital is already self defense, because cops know they can’t push the crowd too much. That’s why you shouldn’t wait for tanks to be rolling through before you arm yourself.
Mutual aid is part of organizing, and will become incredibly important over the next few years. If you want more insight then I recommend reading Kropotkin’s book on the matter.
If you’re looking for someone to follow, I recommend following yourself and your ideals. It’s very obvious that the point of the post is to take action, not to follow OP.
Are you expecting someone to provide you with all the answers?
Only to explain the answers that they’re already bringing up.
And, honestly, your answer and OP’s answer are exactly the sort of answers I needed. Thank you.
I guess the short restatement is something like “work with others to create an alternative to depending on the capitalist/fascist system for crumbs and then protect that alternative system on a self-defense basis with firearms. (And be ready to before you actually have to.)”
“Get organized/involved” - What’s that mean in more practical terms? Start attending social gatherings put on/hosted by radical leftist organizations? And maybe start ones if they don’t exist in your area?
“Start organizing” - Same as that first bullet?
“Get involved in mutual aid” - Yeah, ok. I’ve read Eisenstein. I know his book Sacred Economics has some tips for how to get involved with existing mutual aid organizations. I definitely need to re-read that bit and read other sources about that. But at least I have an idea where to start with some of that, I guess. I’d still like more specifics on what in particular you mean by this, though.
Get involved with local organizations, preferably radically left (because otherwise your options are more centrist or conservative, which imo is how we ended up here), that will help you set up mutual aid networks for basic resources and protection. Organize your communities so people have a support structure that isn’t dependent on our broken and corrupt system so that they feel comfortable protesting and resisting tyranny. Build it up so that within the networks you have access to secure communications, free access to information, basic necessities and resources (i.e. food, water, healthcare, medicine, etc.), and planning for resistance and direct action.
“Get armed” - So, acquire firearms. To use in some particular way? (You mentioned you’re not advocating for “acts of violence or an insurrection like January 6th”, so not that, apparently.) Or just to have for when “something” happens? If so, what specifically?
“Don’t wait until troops are rolling down the street to stage a resistance” - 'K. Not really helpful until I understand more specifically what you’re advocating for people to do.
“Get involved with resistance” - So, let’s say you’re a respected voice in a mutual aid radical anarchist collective with guns and enthusiasm. What do you suggest they do?
“Stand, fight, and maybe even die” - How? Not January 6th, but… how then?
“Don’t do nothing”/“Don’t lay down and accept our fate” - Not really helpful on its own if we don’t know what you’re suggesting we do instead of “doing nothing” or “laying down and accepting our fate.”
Get armed, trained, and be prepared to fight so that you can protect those mutual aid networks when the fascists come to dismantle them. Be prepared to fight and lay down your life for those in your community who are bigger targets (i.e. women, people of color, queer and gender non-conforming people, immigrants, etc.) just as you would want them to do for you. As much as possible, become a unified force against the tyranny.
I’m not advocating for random acts of violence or Jan 6th like action because yes that would get me banned, but that also will not be an effective form of resistance. Effective resistance will need to be directed, organized, and focused with specific goals. At some point that may look like fighting a revolutionary war or a coup, but the American people need to crawl before they start walking, let alone run. We need to build strong communities, whether virtual or physical, where we can support each other and try to minimize the harm being done.
Yeah, good answers. Thank you.
No problemo, i welcome the feedback and criticism. Thank you for engaging in a good discussion
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I’d say over half. I and many others in my circle are already executing on our escape. If we even can…
America is done.
For those that can’t leave, find a community, build a commune, and support each other. Strength in numbers.
What is the goal you’re trying to achieve? A more democratic government?
Cause it sure as hell looks like the majority of the population isn’t against fascism anymore.What is the goal you’re trying to achieve? A more democratic government?
That’d be great but I think at this point achieving something other than fascism would be nice.
I mean what you saw last night is exactly why your revolutionary movement will be snuffed out. If the fascist has that kind of popular support, there is no revolution, only martyrdom. Maybe civil war.
Right now. I’m done with this shit.
First of all, I’m not from the USA so take this with a grain of salt, but are you suggesting the election was rigged or fraudulent? Because if not you’re the one trying to impose an authoritative regime. Like it or not he was elected democratically, and this time you can’t even use the excuse that your voting system is weird because he also got the majority of votes. So the majority of people in your country think that he’s the correct person for the job, or in any case don’t oppose him.
So what you’re talking about is for a minority to raise arms against the democratically elected government. You are the one who’s being anti-democratic. Even if you were to win the revolution you would need to put a tyrant in power because calling a new election would result in the same outcome.
Like it or not the majority of the people in your country are stupid enough to either want that or not caring. That’s one of the dangers of democracy, but starting a revolution to remove a democratically elected president in the name of democracy is just as dumb.
but are you suggesting the election was rigged or fraudulent?
no.
Because if not you’re the one trying to impose an authoritative regime.
also no, I’m advocating for community organizing against a very obviously fascist regime. im advocating for mutual aid and self reliance. y’know, the things people who are typically targeted by fascists need.
So what you’re talking about is for a minority to raise arms against the democratically elected government.
again, not what I’m saying.
Even if you were to win the revolution you would need to put a tyrant in power because calling a new election would result in the same outcome.
not necessarily?
That’s one of the dangers of democracy, but starting a revolution to remove a democratically elected president in the name of democracy is just as dumb.
nowhere did i say i was fighting in the name of democracy. I do think democracy is generally good, although i do not view the US as a democratic country. but that’s not what im advocating for at all in this. I’m advocating for genuine survival under an oppressive regime and solidarity amongst the people against tyranny. if shit gets real bad, do i think it’s just to fight against it and resist? absolutely. but as I’ve said in other comments, the American people aren’t close to that yet. we need to organize first.
So what you’re talking about is for a minority to raise arms against the democratically elected government. again, not what I’m saying.
Then I recommend you crack open a dictionary and check the meanings of “get organized, involved, and armed”, “stand, fight, and maybe even die” (your exact wording). Because raising arms against a democratically elected goverrnment IS EXACTLY what you are saying, albeit that you might not be saying you necessarily want to start that fight, but it certainly looks like it to me.
Yeah, nah.
Don’t tolerate intolerance, same goes with authoritarians, use force to remove them.
Sure, but so far he’s just the democratically elected president, if after his term is up he doesn’t want to leave then absolutely kick him by force. Until then any attack is, by definition, anti-democratic.
Late 2015.
Couple of things:
- Revolution sounds good until it actually happens, and then it sucks. It unleashes all the crazies and the outcome is uncertain. And it tanks the economy.
- If you look at exit polls, people told you why they voted for Trump. Rightly or wrongly, they don’t believe he is a fascist, or at least that the US system won’t allow him to indulge his fascist tendencies. Again, I don’t know if they are correct, but that’s what most people believe.
- The majority believe that the wokism and identity politics of the left is a greater threat to democracy than Trump.
So, the answer to your question is that you won’t find much support IRL because most people don’t actually think they are supporting fascism. Time will tell if Trump is an actual fascist or just a blowhard. I wish we didn’t have to wonder, but there you have it.
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I understand that. I’m not advocating for an immediate revolution but organizing and building mutual aid networks to protect those that are gonna be hit hardest. I also personally don’t care about the economy; i think caring about the economy more than people is how we got here.
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I understand. It’s really fucked up but that’s why we need to organize first. Whether or not a revolution happens, it’s never bad to organize.
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The majority also elected a fascist; see point 2.
So, the answer to your question is that you won’t find much support IRL because most people don’t actually think they are supporting fascism.
Half the country doesn’t think hes a fascist, but the other half does. Especially around the area that I am, I’m not worried about garnering support.
Time will tell if Trump is an actual fascist or just a blowhard.
Those who lie in bed with fascists are fascists imo.
OK, so what does this mutual aid look like? Are you talking about organizing armed resistance for when the Gestapo come for you? Or more like food-sharing for when the revolution comes and destroys the economy you don’t care about? I don’t have a sense of what you are getting at.
I answered a lot more in depth in the comment I’m linking below. I will say i was very frustrated and emotional when writing this post, and having had time to cool off, think about it, and discuss it with some other people my stance has softened (which you might’ve seen in my responses, the one linked included). But I don’t disagree with what I said, just changed my focus onto what needs to happen first.
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Bold of you to assume I have my shit together enough to do any of this. Sounds nice though, and I wish you all the best.
It’s been more than enough for a while now.
Meh, I did my part. 51% of America wants a criminal facist dictator supported by his MAGA cronies in all levels of government.
I’m just going to put my head down, make money and keep my family safe.
Yep, at the end of the day, it is the will of the people. To me it sounds like we just need to divide up the country. The two sides are hopelessly far from compromise, or even tolerance of each other.
When’s the last time you face to face hung out with someone who has a different political opinion than yours?
Often. I make it a point to engage with viewpoints different than mine because my perspective is paper thin, and only by understanding others can I hope to expand it.
That being said, I am having a tremendously difficult time understanding how we can willingly just invite fascism (I understand how it happened, I just can’t understand how people actually let this happen).
I just can’t understand how people actually let this happen
One if the reasons I gather is complete desensitization to language like bigot, racist, ablist, … to the point it’s in popular usage as a joke.
You also noticed how people call eachother that for joke?
I do, and logically it makes sense. I’m not historically inept, I largely saw it coming. But the very human part of me wanted to believe it couldn’t happen. And that same human part of me is trying to grapple with the fact that it did.
you’re sincerely asking americans, when is enough? dude
