Nearly a third of Americans – 30% – say people may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll.
It’s a sharp rise from 18 months ago, when 19% of Americans said the same.
This reflects a feeling of being backed into a corner. What else are we going to do when our political views and goals and ffs human beings are being criminalized? Every decent thing getting rolled back and every horrible thing dialed up to 11. Fuck republicans. One way or another they will regret this. Whether people vote them out or get violent with them remains to be seen but this will not last, obviously.
Historically, it has always taken violence to remove fascists from power.
The problem with all of this is that the right is literally saying this exact same thing.
We dismiss it because it’s ludicrous, because they HAVE all the power, their guy IS the deep state that controls everything, but our media world has fashioned a narrative for our stupidest segment that they’re the oppressed underdogs.
Meaning, no matter what happens, even if we get our best outcome and drag this administration onto the White House lawn, we still have to live next to millions and millions of people who think we’ve been planning to do that to them for decades now.
There is no good solution that doesn’t involve some kind of new leadership that needs to be built from the ground up and will likely take generations to nurture and develop.
Not always. The Portuguese carnation revolution happened without violence. Spain democratised right after Franco’s death.
So violence, military coup or heart failure?
Heart failure sounds both easier and more likely.
This is just people waking up to reality. Trump has the White House, the senate, the House of Representatives, and the courts. He controls the military and has already begun deployment to “democratic” cities. His buddy in Texas is redistricting to help him consolidate power, and I am sure Abbot is not the only one. Every move Trump makes is designed to cripple opposition to his regime. Republican states are purging voter rolls and enacting bullshit laws designed to disenfranchise people of colour.
Milquetoast democrats have made only the most pathetic gestures of opposition to Trump. The first genuine thing Trump ever said was when he expressed surprise yesterday at how little resistance he has faced from the left. Republicans were right about one thing: the American left is a bunch of pussies.
If more Americans think political violence is the only way out of the mess Americans made, it’s probably because they are starting to develop a vague but accurate understanding of what is happening in their country.
Perhaps the Democratic Socialists (DS) can become the unifying source of resistance. They are the ones fighting, but there are too few to have political impact.
It’s up to the citizens to back them, and the DS must drum up the leaders and present them so citizens can choose them.
I think the DS values are the closest to the new deal approach that made America a wildly successful nation and beacon for just treatment of humans.
Heck, Europe and Japan took their governing cues from America during the Marshall plan. They are examples of following the ideals our leaders used to value. This is the real “make america great again”.
This is my fondest wish. I think many Americans are ready to rally around someone mounting a serious opposition to Trump, but no one has stepped up so far. I love Bernie and i believe he is important to the movement, but they need a young, charismatic, inspiring leader to start getting very loud about the real situation in the US. It will be an uphill battle because the media have been captured by people either cowed by or sympathetic to Trump. Maybe Lemmy can be the platform for DS in the states. Legacy media has failed (with maybe 1-2 exceptions).
Well, I think AOC is leading the fight, but she needs support to become a major player politically. Mamdavi is evidence of her rising power, and he can now be one of those leaders.
Jasmine Crockett is another. Sure, not DS, but easily a coalition member. I hope there is strong effort foran revolution of leadership in the Democratic Party.
Violence is how we beat the Nazis the first time. If there’s a cleaner option that’s actually feasible, then yes please… but failing that, cutting the head off the snake is a pretty tried and true method. And if it grows back, cut that one off too - they’ll get the message eventually.
Exactly. Ultimately these people don’t actually believe in anything other than power. Their arguments are in bad faith. Any compromise is just a temporary weigh station as they prepare to push even harder.
How did compromising with the right work for abortion? Parental consent laws became onerous clinical regulations became bans on performing procedures became making getting an abortion legally murder. How did compromising on trans rights go? A few “reasonable concerns” about girl’s sports became blanket bans on sports became bans on life-saving care for minors became restrictions on basic ID documents became attempts to criminalize the very existence of trans people. This isn’t slippery slope conjecture; it’s directly observed history.
The simple awful truth is that we have fundamentally incompatible visions of the world. They see The Handmaid’s Tail as an ideal to aim for. They think the literal God of the universe wants them to create this nightmare. And with God at their backs, they can justify any evil to create their warped utopia. Any action can be justified. Any lie can be excused. Any suffering by any number of people now can be balanced against the perfect lives they imagine we’ll all live once they force us all into their dream world. The worst thing about them, is that they actually think they’re the good guys.
This is the fundamental problem. Their vision of an Earthly paradise is our vision of Hell on Earth. We have fundamentally different visions for the future. They cannot convince the majority of the population to willingly create their vision. So they have to resort to violence, disenfranchisement, propaganda, and fraud. (All justified for the greater good.) And ultimately we’re going to have to use every tactic they use and more if we want to keep these monsters from turning our nation into Gilead.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
- Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, c. 1787
Not that I think political violence (or violence of any sort, for that matter) should be our first, second, or even thirty-fifth resort, but at a certain point I think one must come to grips with the fact that - whether it fits in with their delicate sensibilities or not - when confronted with an existential peril it does sometimes become necessary to defend oneself. (Fun fact: This is why self-defense can be presented as a valid defense against murder charges!)
Sure, we should absolutely make any and all attempts to be inclusive (Republicans HATE this!) and tolerant (GOP: hiss IT BURNS!) and attempt to reach solutions through education, research, negotiation, compromise and all that lovely (woke?) stuff, but… For some reason, it seems like there’s consistently only one side that ever shows up to the table willing to actually do any of that. And that’s just how it’s been for fucking DECADES now. There’s probably a lot of you (just generally speaking, not necessarily meaning Lemmy’s demographic per se) who aren’t even old enough to remember a time before the GOP began using “government shutdowns” and “debt ceilings” and “literal fucking coup attempts” as part of their standard, day-to-day politicking. Believe it or not (and I know this will probably be the hardest one to buy, but I swear it to be true) there was a time when the Republicans would - even if they WERE NOT in power at the time - STILL SHOW UP AND DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS. I know, what a concept, eh? Imagine going to work every day and just… doing your job, like a fucking idiot, instead of throwing absolute meltdown tantrums over your lack of control over other people’s genitals.
Does any of this strike you as the behavior of (an) entity(ies) engaging in anything even remotely resembling something that could be construed as “good-faith negotiation” - let alone even approaching something as audacious as “compromise?” This isn’t a willing, eager party to an arbitration, quite, is it? No… Something more akin to an assailant with a knife at our throat(s) demanding to inspect our genitals to make sure we’re where they think we should be at the moment certainly sounds more apt to me…
I don’t want there to be violence. Any. At all, really. But at what point does the moral imperative toward nonviolence get outweighed by the moral obligation to the people being kidnapped by masked (supposed) government agents and disappeared to very real, literal concentration camps? How many genocides at once do we need to hit the tipping point where it’s finally acceptable to stand up and say, “That’s enough. This far. No farther.” But actually back that up, for a change.
If that means by force, then unfortunately, so be it. Might doesn’t make right, but that certainly doesn’t preclude it from enforcing it, does it?
He who saves his country violates no laws.
-Donald J Trump
He defined the ROE in January of 2021.
Well, editorially, I suggest you break up those paragraphs into smaller ones, and maybe add some headings for a “wall of text” like that, but you make well thought out arguments and I totally agree.
When it becomes clear that the citizens no longer have a controlling voice in choosing who leads us, that is when revolution is a valid choice.
BTW, I’m one who is old enough to remember (like Pepperidge Farm - there, proof I’m old enough)
Ugh, I know it’s a mess as far as the nuts and bolts go at a minimum (and we’ll not get into any inherent flaws in my reasoning, thank you very much lol) but in my defense I had just recently woken up and was in dire need of chemical assistance, and I honestly didn’t even think I’d gone on like I did but I was fired up! lol
I have become worried I’ll need to defend myself against violent republicans because they are always talking about and actively hurting others.
define back on track
Not fascism?
you mean covert fascism. many of the elements were there, it’s just out in the open now.
There is no historical precedent for an electoral solution to a descent into fascism.
There is no historical precedent for an electoral solution to massive wealth inequality.
Depending on how the question was worded Im willing to bet a large portion of those means violence against the lunatic leftists.
I mean, I’m for it. Just waiting for the green light when it’s ok to punch a Nazi and be considered a patriot and not a criminal…
Be clear, I believe in peace first. But when peace and negotiation is no longer an option, your hand is forced until peace and negotiation is an option.
Think of it like this. Bully attacks you, you ask them to stop and they don’t. One day you decide to put the bully in an wrist lock! Bully is now screaming in pain. Bully now agrees to stop attacking you. Peace has been restored.
Soap box, ballot box, ammo box. They’re trying to take away the 1st 2, so…
As always, Republicans lead the pack, with more Republicans supporting political violence than Democrats. The scary part is how much the Democrat statistics have gone up, and the fact they’re getting close to the levels of support seen in Republicans
America is fucked up. I don’t have a solution, just pointing out the sad state of affairs
Things always go to shit when the wealth divide gets too big. People and companies shouldnt be big enough to own the government. The last time this happened was the guilded age in the 20s which led to the crash. who knows where this one will lead.
You mean Dems finally realize the threat? I hope you realize how silly you sound when put into historical context. “Well obviously those crazy Nazis are talking about violence, they’re always talking about violence. What REALLY concerns me is all the non-Nazis bordering Germany that are talking about arming up in case the Nazis decide to attack!” Yeah, the state of things sucks, but it’s not the people going “oh shit, these psychos want to slaughter us and they currently have most of the weapons, maybe I should have the ability to defend myself” that are the problem
You can’t argue nazis out of your government. Churchill didn’t convince Hitler to back out of Poland over a friendly cuppa.
Unfortunately that appears to be the only way to get rid of them. They continually ignore the established laws and protests and " sternly worded emails/letters/phonecalls.
The Rest of The World: “duh!”
John Brown was right.
