He'll be the death of us all.

It's funny, they say fascism happens in slow motion and no one expects it to actually happen until it's to late.
I really feel like we're watching it happen in America.
Everyone's laughing at Trump's stupidity while the systems to stop fascism are slowly destroyed behind the scenes.
Feels like he's just a distraction from what's actually happening.
- No one's laughing at trump's shit anymore. Anyone with at least a lukewarm iq and even a cursory knowledge of history can see his fascism. It's just the system is rigged to give regressive areas more voting power
  
  You don't even need any of that, he explicitly told everyone that he's gonna be a dictator
  
  complaining about the rise of fascism
  infers anyone who's not going to vote fascism away is a dunce
  mentions lukewarm iq
  mentioning iq at all
  guess there's just a predetermined, genetic based, level of intelligence hey mate? scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds, comrades.
  I'm not American, I dont get a vote, I laugh at trump, and all of America, to keep myself from crying.
- I keep saying it, but no one wants to join my radical and poorly regulated militia so this will be everyone else's fault.
  
  my radical and poorly regulated militia
  Talk about fighting fire with fire!
- It does happen in slow motion, and every single time, some people see it happening. They march and wave their arms shouting FASCISM! whilst their neighbours call them hyperbolic.
  If you read contemporaneous accounts, you can feel the frustration.
  Or… I thought I could feel the frustration, until recently (eta: if you haven’t read They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer, please do as soon as possible). Now it’s doubly frustrating. I keep wracking my brain, wondering what I can do that they didn’t. I can’t stop this, so I keep saying ‘if you were a German in the 1930s, knowing what you know now, what would you do?’
  I don’t know the answer to that. I know many Germans saw it coming and couldn’t stop it.
  What the fuck can we do? Because it is absolutely coming.
  e: oh, and worse, trump isn’t actually the problem. He’ll likely lose, then everyone will high five that we’ve defeated The Problem, but Trump is just their carnival barker. He could die tomorrow and the threat wouldn’t change. There’s a solid fascist movement in the US and elsewhere that will not stop with trump’s defeat. There are thousands of them in high levels of the US government , and they’ll barely miss a beat without trump. He barely matters, and I’m afraid when he loses, the fascist movement behind this will find a wide opening.
  
  Not an answer, but food for thought: https://effectiveactivist.com/
  
  I keep wracking my brain, wondering what I can do that they didn’t
  These internal questions are what led to me finally realizing how powerless I really am. I can't even convince my close personal friends to re-evaluate the batshit crazy things they learn online, let alone change the trajectory of a nation.
- Read world news. This is in no way just America.
  
  No but this post is about the US

Massive Coronary 2024.
The only sane choice.

Lol pick a candidate that is likely going to be in prison come election time! Geniuses!
- Zero chance he is in prison by election day.
  
  A man's gotta have a dream
  
  At this point the only things between Trump and a jail cell are:
  The courts must rule in the coming days (probably this month, Jan 2024) that Presidents are subject to criminal prosecution. We know Presidents are not subject to civil prosecution, but the courts are deciding about criminal prosecution now. (Trump argues it would be "bedlam" if Presidents were subject to the law).
  A jury decision in mid 2024. If that jury says "guilty", it's over, Trump is a convicted felon.
- Most of the people I know who plan to vote for him think of that as a good thing. It's the whole "drain the swamp" thing that he's been rallying people behind for years; they think bad actors in the government are trying to hold Trump down, and him being in jail is just another attempt to do that - from their perspective, electing him even while he's imprisoned would be a big "fuck you" to those bad actors.
  It's sad that they can't see that Trump himself is the bad actor, but to most of them, Trump is their last hope to hold on to their beloved world of racism and misogyny, free of any "woke bullshit." They'll overlook anything he says or does at this point, since they don't see any other way forward than through Trump.
  
  I just don't understand the appeal. Forget all of the gross shit he's done over the years, the terrible and fraudulent business he's conducted, he's just gross period. Like standing there, sounding like a rambling lunatic, not finishing sentences, $10 spray tan, and ill fitting suit. How does that track as "wow what an amazing businessman!"
- Haven’t you heard? He’s the second coming of Christ and his cross is the US legal system.
  I really wish I was kidding.
  e: link
- Trying to prosecute him for his real crimes is honestly damaging the election chances of Biden, lots of voters with a vicarious persecution complex through Trump.

I think DeSantis might be even worse
- Rhonda?
- He absolutely is. Anyone who thinks Trump is worse is caught up in the media slop. DeSantis is worse.

Isn't the point of "conservatives" to tear everything down? Because then they just elected the right man for that.
- That's an accelerationist or a nihilist. If the status quo is pro-immigration and pro-LGBT rights, wanting to keep this status quo will make you a "conservative" because you want to conserve the status quo.
  People love to harp about the good ole days
  They're reactionaries.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism vs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States
- Nah that's just how they look from a sane individual's perspective. They think they're helping, it would be cute if it wasn't so fucking sad.
- This though. People love to harp about the good ole days but leave out that the good ole days were good cause only cishet white men could participate in the economy

If the media didn’t want him to win, they shouldn’t have called the race before even 10% of the state got a chance to vote. There’s going to be hundreds, possibly thousands of people who left caucuses early when they heard the race was called. The media is not only complicit in his win there, they have also exposed themselves to retaliation from campaigns and voters alike.

History. Since 1972, the Iowa caucuses have had a 55% success rate at predicting which Democrat, and a 43% success rate at predicting which Republican, will go on to win the nomination of their political party for president at that party's national convention. Source: Wiki

Anyone else looking into viable countries to move to if this shitshow happens again? Whats your top 3 list??
- The fashycons are taking over all around the world. They've managed to convince everyone that this shit economy is anyone’s fault but theirs.
  
  Neoliberalism is the gateway drug to fascism.
- netherlands, denmark, maybe germany, maybe finland. i'd most rather live in the netherlands or possibly denmark, although it'd probably make more sense for me to want to live in germany or finland because i don't speak dutch or danish lmao. regardless though getting permanent residence in denmark or finland is practically a hopeless goal for a majority of people, so they're basically out of the question
  i can get slovak, maybe german citizenship based on descent (i'm in the process of getting the stuff i need from the slovak government to apply for citizenship but they really take their sweet time) and i'm mostly a software guy so it'd probably make the most sense to move to one of those, however the netherlands probably holds way better opportunities for me
  for most people getting into another country (especially europe) is out of the question though, you either have to have extremely marketable work experience (like 3-5 years as an engineer or developer) or you have to happen to qualify for citizenship by descent and have the birth/marriage/death/citizenship/residence documents for it (e.g. anyone who had italian citizenship since 1860, anyone who lived in an area controlled by hungary ever since hungary existed, anyone who was polish 1920 or later, anyone who was czechoslovak or german for the past century, an irish grandfather)
  
  Yea citizenship would be a rough go in some places. Hopefully my work experience at least gets me in and see how it goes from there.
- Australian here. Planning my exit too. Probably Finland. Or maybe Ireland.
  
  Yea Ireland is on my short list. Maybe Germany, havent followed their recent politics too much though.

DeSantis is a much worse choice than trump. I would take trump over him any day of the week.
- Desantis has the veneer of sanity, and actually has a clue regarding how to make things worse. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Trump just flails about and expects underlings to figure it out.
  
  My only hope is that people as morally insane as Trump are rare, and there may be a correlation between his sociopathic traits, and how seemingly incompetent he is.
  What this hopefully means in practice is that even though this time around he will surround himself with yes-men over which he will have more control, few of them will be precisely like Trump and so not immune to actual concern for the future, and to Trump's surprise will not all follow his insane ideas without question, as Trump clearly wants everyone to do. He can't rule on his own. He does need some people, and people needing people requires at least a semblance of regard for others.
  In this same way, even his stacked Supreme Court I think will still be likely to put America itself ahead of Trump and a victory that would make a mockery of their own institution, the constitution, and just general common sense.
  It's only a shred of hope, but one which might enable civil society to survive another Trump presidency, and if we're really lucky, avoid it.
- I know nothing of DeSantis outside he's running. Can you or someone share a tl;dr. It's hard for me to imagine someone worse than Trump. But then again, never thought we'd have someone worse than George W...
  
  The short version is that he's gutted public services in Florida and made life worse for nearly everyone there - while engaging in massive culture war bullshit to distract his base
  Not to downplay that, it includes laws and discourse such as 'Dont Say Gay' and attacking school curriculums that are incredibly damaging. He's the guy that flew refugees to Martha's Vineyard to 'make a point'
  https://time.com/6266618/ron-desantis-florida-governance-essay/
  
  Desantis is basically a competent Trump. They both have terrible ideas but Desantis would be able to pull it off because he already has in ruining Florida.

LOL. Total land slide by just 15% of the votes ....where the heck was the rest of the population at? PTA meetings?
- It was cold AF. They didn't want to freeze. The entire Midwest....cold AF right now.
  
  Not just the Midwest - there was one weather station in WV that was reporting a colder temp than one of the stations in Antarctica for a bit earlier this week.
  
  The PNW is also just barely out of the freezer today. Lots of slushy black iced roads and such.

The problem is I actually see Trump winning by breaking every system in the process and the ramifications will be, well, bad
- His followers were loyal enough to ransack the Capitol building, what would he have them do in the face of his conviction or disqualification?

Someone strapping on a suicide vest would be a more appropriate image.

Honestly, picking Trump again is a good thing for the rest of us. We know he can lose and because of the last presidential election and his base is just getting smaller.
It's not like any Republican is a good candidate. All of them think abortion is a crime and will appoint shit supreme court justices. So give me the one I know loses because they lost before.
- None of the other candidates had a chance at winning. That is not the same as Trump having a chance at losing.
  
  I think he is implying that trump has already lost an election.
- Biden BARELY beat him the first time around and conditions are WORSE this time around:
  1: The electorate has a ridiculously short memory and aren't currently suffering from Trump being president.
  2: Related to but distinct from 1, Biden's main strategy of "at least I'm not the other guy" is much less effective for an incumbent than a challenger.
  3: Biden is currently alienating a large part of his own base by supporting two seperate genocides (Gaza and Yemen), one of which Democrats actually care about even when there's a Dem president.
  Don't get me wrong, I REALLY want him to win since he's by far the lesser evil, but for the above reasons and others, there's a significant risk of him actually losing if the traitor isn't disqualified as he should be
  
  Biden won by nearly 7 million votes with a 62% of votes under 30 years old and 52% under 45 years old.
  Actually the only age group he didn't win with was 65+ and they're the ones dropping faster and faster each month.
  So you're assuming people will take Trump over Biden because he was involved in genocide when he was involved in 8 years of drone strike champion before he ran in 2020.
- Except Bidens base is also getting smaller. The whole funding a genocide thing isn't exactly winning him any supporters.
  
  He's not funding a "genocide thing". The US has subsidized Israel for decades. Not yanking all of our support because they responded to a terrorist attack on their civilian population is not the same as "funding a genocide thing".

Makes it easier to decide at the actual election. The "RINO"s might be swayed to not vote for drumpf when they might have for someone else.

Good thing the DNC is picking a totally reasonable and non controversial candidate for the Democrats. Definitely not a straight up genocide supporter.
- this fucking guy again. every single comment is some form of Biden genocide. we get it. we don't like it either. but we aren't so stupid that we think trump would be better. he would be so much worse. he would probably be genocide plus fascist.
  
  You're all sticking your head in the sand pretending that only Trump would do genocide while Biden is actively committing genocide. It's real time Holocaust denial here.

Honestly this is just liberal strongman politics.
Please learn to identify and complain about the things that are actually increasing fascism and not just be like "bad people might make the country bad if they're in charge" Trump is a symptom not the disease.
- You still need to treat symptoms
  
  And if you only treat symptoms, what happens?
  Also no, in many cases you do not have to treat symptoms, and it can be damaging to do so. It's not a good extension of the metaphor.

- What’s wrong with Jewish people running some companies
  
  Is it ok if America buys out the owners of the Federal Reserve? A company is a company...a monopoly is a monopoly?

Honestly, if you're a republican, Trump is the only pic. I'm no fan of Republicans, but this is clearly the Republican party punching the Republican populace in the face.
- Honestly, if you’re a republican, Trump is the only pic.
  Why?
  
  You haven't been paying much attention to the Republican party as of late, have you? "Circle the wagons and toe the line" has been their schtick for a while now.
  
  Best polling to beat Biden. If you want to win or to get conservative laws passed, that is the way. Last time Trump was president, he put in a bunch of conservative judges, he has a track record.
- If I for some reason were a republican I would have voted for Chris Christie.
  
  Sadly, it's probably their least insane option.

Common China W. Americans literally dying as a nation day by day while China becomes the guardian of the world. Century of humiliation.
Guess the capitalism didn't pay off?
- China is mega capitalist bro
  
  Keep telling yourself that as the US slowly crumbles and destroys itself to satisfy the whims of a few capitalists at the top.
  The East is still Red and the West is doing high octane copium.

This is just American voters in general every single election. Vote red. Vote blue. Doesn't matter. It just keeps getting worse.
- BoTh SiDeS!!1!!!!1
  
  They're both right-wing parties that don't give a fuck about the working class lol; they're on the same side.
  And the supposedly "lesser evil" one is currently openly funding and supporting a genocide (even going as far as to bypass congress to do so) and is openly a zionazi.
  There is no representation of the other (leftist) side in the US, and there will never be until the system itself, that's specifically designed to prevent that and serve Capital instead, is overthrown.
- We could vote for things to actually get better, but mostly throw our votes away on worse instead.
  inb4 "clearly you don't get the myopic logic that brought us here"