The majority of Trump’s supporters are making a choice.
I don’t think so. I think people like Elon musk are making a conscious and deliberate choice to embrace fascism. He understands exactly what he’s doing and is voluntarily taking steps towards it.
Most Trump supporters are just the Cubans in my previous example. Ignorant and afraid.
I’d never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile
Ignore the political system and look at the economic system. The US is capitalist and as it turns out- capitalism is not mutually exclusive with fascism.
If a human being lives long enough, he will eventually develop cancer. It’s simply a natural physical consequence of repeated cell division. Eventually there’s some mutation that leads to a chain reaction. The cancer spreads enough and there’s no going back. Capitalism, similarly, will always inevitably embrace fascism.
Marx got it wrong. He believed that the workers, realizing their position as class consciousness increases, would inevitably revolt against the power structure. The reality is more depressing.
Capitalism has cycles of crisis. Sometimes the economy is doing good which leaves the workers content. Sometimes the economy is doing bad. The problem is when the economy is doing bad coincides with some other set of crisis, the combination of events radicalizes the workers. This part Marx predicted. However he was mistaken about human nature.
Really, our problem started back in 2008. The global economy never fully recovered. Interest rates were kept low in a desperate attempt to increase spending to keep the boat from tipping. Then COVID pumped up inflation to historic levels- supply chain shortages wrecked chaos. After that, the Russian invasion of Ukraine pushed up inflation even higher. Prices go up but wages lag behind.
Workers, naturally, become more radicalized- as Marx predicted. The issue is Marx was too optimistic about human nature. Humans as a whole are fearful herd animals. They need a shepherd to point somewhere. And eventually, inevitably, some megalomaniac with a vision will take advantage of a vulnerable system and point somewhere. In the 1930s it was to the Jews and the communists. Today, it’s the illegals and “wokeism”.
All this to say that this shouldn’t be surprising. Left wing voices have been warning about this for a long time.
If you were born in southern Florida to a set of Cuban parents and told your entire life that communism was the devil and that Trump is the savior against the communist DNC, you’d believe the same thing.
Doesn’t matter if you have the whole of human knowledge accessible to you. The human brain is very good at filtering out things you don’t want to see.
This idiot seems to be oblivious to the fact that there is no official language in the US
It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. “Small government and low taxes” but when you want to triple the size of ICE and institute historic tariffs (aka taxes) it’s OK. “Party of law and order” but when you don’t let asylum seekers into the country- overtly breaking US law, it’s OK. “The constitution is sacred” but when you sign an executive order that explicitly contradicts the 14th amendment- it’s OK.
Nothing matters. There is no consistency whatsoever. There doesn’t need to be. The more disjointed, the better. You make people so disoriented that they’ll accept anything.
The ADL is likely giving a calculated response because of what happened last time Nazis took over a western country
Israel is far-right. Far-right actors will align itself with other far-right actors. This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that the militaristic society who actively perpetuates the worst apartheid in living memory would naturally align itself with the far-right.
The next fascism will not be anti-Jew. That’s all ADL cares about
they can’t ban everything, the Internet is too big. people will find a way
they don’t really have to ban everything. for example, the persistent chinese internet-goer has the ability to view things he’s not supposed to see even though China bans large swathes of the internet.
but by making it as difficult as possible for most people and creating strict punishments for breaking the rules, you can effectively ban most things you want for majority of people
if posting on lemmy makes you an enemy of the state and the state is becoming increasingly harsh with its punishments… would you still be going on and posting regularly? i would certainly think twice.
I have a feeling this place and other decentralized social medias will be banned in the near future. Look at what’s happening to TIktok. You either bend the knee or you get axed. It’s why the other social media giants bent the knee. They understand the writing on the wall. There’s more going on behind the scenes that they don’t share with us. I think we’re sort of watching a quiet coup.
Honestly, nobody really knows until they are in such a position. I’d like to think I’d be noble and rebel but honestly I think I’d just try and stay quiet and under the radar. The older I’ve gotten, the more cynical I’ve become about positive change.
I’m more worried with making sure me and my family are in a good position. And if I start posting dissent online and end up in a gulag or just get dissapeared for it… it’s not quite conducive to that goal.