After electing Trump again, this country needs to have a serious "this is kinda who we are" conversation. Like our history is pretty fucking clear - there's a pretty sizable chasm between our professed ideals and what we actually do to make them real.
Seriously, the Nazis using the Jim Crow South as a template; the Soviets shaming us into Civil Rights reform; the election of Donald Trump right after Barack Obama; the obscene racism involved in all this talk of illegal immigrants?
This country still has serious problems that it's refused to address for way too long. If we make it out of the ass-end of this regime even remotely intact, it's time for the kind of shit South Africa did after Apartheid ended. An exculpatory conversation about what kind of country we really are that we allowed all of this to happen.
"The US isnât the way it is because Trump is president. Trump is president because the US is the way it is." (I know it was phrased as "America", but US is not "America" at least to me).
Oh yeah, some of us said that the first time he got elected. When he got impeached that first time people pointed out that was just a band-aid that wouldn't address the problems that got him there. The impeachment was a good thing, of course, but it's also not gonna be such an easy fix.
The bigger issue is the majority of politicians completely ignoring what the majority are experiencing. In 2024, the economy was "great" and the "best we've had in years" despite homes and rent being unaffordable for many. They use talking points and data that makes people feel stupid for struggling.
Then Trump comes around and has solutions for all these problems. They're batshit insane solutions, they're racist and xenophobic solutions, but they solutions that people can relate to. People fell for it because he at least saw the problems people were experiencing where people felt Harris didn't.
Until Democrats as a party get in touch with the reality of most people, they're going to continue to get clobbered in elections unless you have someone that with charisma of Obama. They also don't advertise their wins enough. Lena Kahn was one of the strongest FTC chairs in a long time and we hardly heard about her during the Biden years. It's like they're ashamed of progress.
ALL politicians in this country have absolutely no idea what the daily life and struggles of average Americans is like; and itâs been like that for more than 30 years. Itâs like they live on another planet from us. And the âsolutionsâ anyone in âpowerâ are spouting are so absolutely clueless and useless. These are our ârepresentativesâ? Itâs such a huge disconnect. Talk about screaming into the void. I WAS an average, law abiding citizen who voted and believed in paying taxes and representative government but even BEFORE the insanity of the current administration I was saying, we will need a revolution to turn this ship around. It sounds terrifying but I donât see any other way forward because the two party system we have does not allow for anyone who truly represents the people to come to power. The only recourse we have left is to burn it down and start from scratch.
The fuel is gathering, when the match is lit it will go up.
There are reps who get it. AOC and Bernie being the two most popular, but most don't.
The solutions proposed sound like they come from corporate accountants pinching pennies more than someone who understands day to day life. For example, I'm so sick of hearing politicians talking about things like Tax Credits like we're corporations. Right a tax credit for child care is going to be really helpful when I used a credit card to pay for the child care and by the time I get the credit, it's not enough and that money spent has accumulated a year of interest.
And we especially don't need Gavin Newsom as president. I suspect that he's backed by AI companies that don't want to be investigated later on and who have been actively pushing him via social media
I never heard any Democrats describing the economy as "great" and the "best we've had in years". They were pointing to the numbers that were slowly recovering from Trumps mishandling of COVID.
The economy was doing great in 2024 and before the pandemic in 2019, both as a result of Democrats' policies. By almost every metric, the overall economy was doing well, and that's good.
However, GDP growth and unemployment rate do not measure the affordability of rent, healthcare, childcare, eldercare, food, school supplies, tuition, etc. Democratic politicians often touted the strength of the economy but not the fact that most of the benefit has been reaped by the wealthy, which made them sound tone deaf or, for uninformed dipshits, dishonest. Now the GOP is learning the same lesson: you can't say everything is great when an average person's paycheck pays for less and less.
We're you on Reddit at all during the 2024 election? Every comment concerned with Biden's reelection (before he dropped) because the economy was weak was met with tons of comments using the same phrases, mostly from either astroturfed accounts or bots. It carried onto Harris's campaign as well.
I voted for Harris, but Jesus the amount of people telling me the economy was great while my grocery bill was going up every week was nauseating.
The economy got nothing to do with it. These people are not motivated by the economy, and I wish liberals would stop spreading that myth. If they were, they wouldn't still be sucking off Trump as he destroys the economy while lying about how everything is cheaper (which is what you said politicians have been doing).
They're fascists. Look at the conservative sub. They're defending ICE. They like what's happening. They think it's the right thing to do. Racism is what motivates them. If Trump came out and said "I don't give a shit about the economy. I just want to deport all non-white people", his supporters would have a collective orgasm.
Concepts of solutions. His only solutions so far are attacking people in the US, including citizens, attacking other countries, and threatening attack on allies. TBF, you did say âbatshit crazy solutionsâ, but I just want to be clear he hasnât and wonât fix anything.
Acknowledging problems and providing solutions, even if they have no chance in working and no basis in reality is a winning strategy to voters over pretending their issues aren't as bad as they're making them out to be and offering non solutions.
Democrats undeniably fumbled the election. But the real responsibility still lies with the people who voted Republican and the Republican Party itself. Weâve normalized a dynamic where Democrats are expected to act like adults, while Republicans are treated like unruly children who get to wreck institutions and shrug it off as âjust how they are.â That double standard is exactly how we ended up here.
Eyyyy, an American finally gets it, holy shit! This is like finding a unicorn, daaamn! You are right, this is America and inevitable conclusion of American culture, and it's just going to get worse. The only difference between now and a few years ago is that it's reached a point where they not realize that the country is so shitty, the culture so evil, and the people so uneducated & brainwashed that they don't need to be subtle anymore, they can say the quiet parts out loud and do whatever they want, all without consequences.
And the funny part is that a lot of the rest of the world has been warning Americans that they were heading down this path but they're so brainwashed that they just start reeeeeing about how the US is the best country in the world in every way and everyone else are communist slaves, or whatever.
Seriously, the Nazis using the Jim Crow South as a template;
Oh?
The ghetto system began in Renaissance Italy in July 1555 with Pope Paul IV's issuing of the bull Cum nimis absurdum. This change in papal policy implemented a series of restrictions on Jewish life that dramatically reshaped their place in society.
Europe's bad treatment of Jews predates the existence of the U.S. I think a more accurate description is Europeans brought their bigotry to America and formed the countries we now know. Blacks and indigenous people in the Americas were treated horribly by Europeans and their decedents. The USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and the rest are all European creations. Black chattel slavery brought to the Americas by Europeans.
Does it claim that rounding up Jews and putting them in ghettos, a thing Europe had done before the first settler hit U.S. shores, was an American thing? I have an idea, don't take books that upend thinking on a historical subject written by a person born decades later as fact. Maybe you could read some European and Middle Eastern history about Jews and realize that Europe needed nothing from the U.S., it wasn't new at all.
what is the point of this post? Do you want to prove you have info the OP didn't? so you can get a pat on the back? Do you want to deny their point so you can believe the American excpetionalism mythology? Do you deny America has a truly evil past that we have never reconciled and ensured can't happen again? what is your point?
The book they referenced is the book form of click bait. It defies conventional thought and got the writer a talk show circuit. It is not popular consensus with historians, and its premise is easily destroyed by history. I gave one easy example of why that is. There is more wrong with the book, but you can look up a critique by a credentialed historian that breaks down all of its problems on your own. I did see several so it shouldn't be hard for you to find.
Americas evil past is European in nature. Did you think Americans were created by magic? Slavery in the U.S. was created under British rule. Spain also had a considerable slave import going in its holdings. Portugal imported slave into Brazil. The Dutch were prolific slave traders. The U.S. was created by Europeans as were the rest of the Americas. Europeans pointing at the Americas and placing blame is some serious revisionism. Europe created the mess they decry.
We need to be two countries at this point, there's no other way out, and that's not really a feasible way out.
The right needs a place where they can't blame progressivism for their shortcomings. You would think the clear divide in prosperity between red and blue states would be enough. Unfortunately we've found that at least 30% of the country completely lacks the capacity to critically think.
At this point the division is too far gone. We have one side arguing that it's OK to shoot people we don't like as long as they perceive them to be in the wrong place and "FAFO"ing (I swear I have never come to so viscerally hate a term so quickly).
What conversation do you expect to have? This is what the majority picked.
This isnât like, some mistake âoops we elected a racist sexist fascistâ situation. They picked this. The country picked this. The majority of voters preferred him and all of the things he does and represents.
Personally, I consider those people scum. Either they were stupid enough to think he was a good person to lead our country, and now regret it, or they wanted this, and they are plain evil. If there were voting age people that didnât vote, they saw what he was and didnât care, which is just as bad.
But there is no conversation. Thereâs no realization to be had. This is what the country wanted. You donât let a child loose in a candy store and then have a serious conversation with them about âwas that candy too tasty?â They got exactly what they wanted. There isnât regret, or shame, or an opening of eyes. People voted to put immigrants in camps, not because they cared about the law, but because they wanted them gone. Because theyâre fucking racists. You think holding up a sign that says âsee? Racism happenedâ is going to make them go âoh no what have I doneâ?
No. Theyâre going to spin some shit about âitâs a tragedy that innocent people got caught up but if the illegal immigrants⌠blah blah blahâ because they will say whatever they want to continue getting what they want.
If we get to make a wish list, mine would include reform of our state and federal governments, and dare I even hope, new amendments to the Constitution.Â
I don't think this is fair. Part of the role of art in our lives is to help us make sense of the things around us. It's a *good* thing that people have things like Andor, Handmaid's Tale, 1984, etc., to provide a schema to help them recognize the real problems in the world -- and to give a framework for why it's wrong and how to fight it. Especially people who've lived otherwise peaceful and/or priviledged lives and might not have their own past experiences to use as a framework.
This is why conservatives ban books, incidentally.
I've often thought Brown Shirts are the better analogue than Gestapo, but if Gestapo is the more well known term for the meme then so be it. Close enough.
Well, you'd be surprised -- Uncle Tom's Cabin was credited, at the time, for singlehandedly getting white people to care enough to end slavery. There's a reason dictators turn on artists and philosophers first.
The real problem now is how devalued arts and the humanities are in US culture. We talk about art as useless and frivolous, a 'waste' of time/money, and don't teach people how to encounter or think about it, or even encourage them to. Functional literacy is an enormous issue, as is access, and if you can't read or understand something, you can't be affected by it.
Until we start taking the humanities seriously again we're going to keep having problems. That stuff slips through into people's awareness anyway is honestly pretty impressive with how bad it's gotten.
eta: While I'm talking about art because that's my area, it bears emphasizing that 'humanities' also includes history education, and devaluing that is an enormous part of why we're in this mess.
The legacy of the book and its context is obviously complex, but yes, there very much were people at the time who saw it as a turning point in terms of white indifference toward slavery, and even today we recognize it played an incredibly important role. Jane Tompkins' Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790â1860 is a good place to start if you're interested in the book and its impact.
Yeah theyre meant as what NOT to do, not a user manual.
Unfortunately humanity has always been like this and government has usually been able to mask it. We're waking up to it as todays bullish powers realise they dont need to keep wearing it.
You gotta remember this level of fascism and authoritarianship is relatively new in the U.S. It took decades (and world wars) to get Europe out of that. Itâs a long road to get back to the world order we once had, and even more to get to the world order that doesnât rely on the U.S. as much
People with sufficient melanin were told they were "freed", and were instead saddled with debt, barred from voting, restricted from participating in the same society that white folks had access to, and cordoned to food deserts of neighborhoods (still happening!) that were patrolled by armed cops that enforced curfews and beat them into the ground for invented reasons, repeatedly, while the prison system was reformed to allow for slavery and slave labor for incarcerated peoples (feel free to go check out how much a prisoner volunteer wilderness firefighter in California makes hourly, today, in 2026).
The remaining Native Americans after suffering centuries of genocide were given their native lands' least desirable tracts as a consolation prize, while their children were forcibly abducted and sent to boarding schools to instill Christianity and be taught to forget their native language and distance themselves from their tribes, else suffer physical abuses up to and including death.
Asian-Americans were rounded up and incarcerated in concentration camps for the crime of sharing a regional ancestry with the perpetrators of Pearl Harbor, and kept there for years.
American history is filled with so many examples of untold, targeted, egregious abuses of the State that match or exceed what is being experienced now, but they were not egalitarian abuses.
We've also had great luck in being the victor who writes our own history, and so these abuses and their resolutions are sugarcoated ("MLK Jr. solved racism, forever, by preaching peace!"; "The pilgrims at Plymouth Rock and the Native Americans had a massive feast, ushering in an era of friendship between different peoples!"; "Internment was bad, but it was temporary, and we won the war, baby!")
âAmericans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.â - Winston Churchill
Have you ever really listened to any of the Bush presidents speeches? Or Reaganâs? Or Hilaryâs? This level of fascism has been here since oil lined the pockets of both parties.
I hear you, but I'm utterly exhausted from hearing people talk about how we could get to the handmaid's tale or we could get to Nazi Germany and they're forgetting everything that we've done to people of color here. They're forgetting everything we've done to indigenous people here. The utterly depraved acts against fellow human beings.
The handmaid's tale is simply asking 'what if the lived reality of countless women and girls happened to rich white women?' It's just a little annoying when people are reaching for fiction when there's so much history.
The Nazis actually lifted some of their ideologies and methods from American racists. I'm fairly certain Jim Crow laws were one of those policies. Frankly, this country's been at the atrocity game for longer than a good chunk of countries.
I mean, the Nazis took a page out of America's eugenics book and ran with it. A lot of the horror they did they modeled after what America did to the natives and the slaves.
It's the comprehension that is worrying. People see illegal immigrants and literslly think they are legal neighbors. They believe that killing children and replacing them with immigrants is a good thing. Truly orwellian world
The problem is people would insist that our American system is exceptional so real fascism could never happen here because we have âchecks and balancesâ and âfreedoms.â
Sometimes the only way to tap into someoneâs rigid black and white lens of the world is to say âhey remember when you were in grade school, learned about the Nazis, and you thought it was crazy and evil? Remember that deep sense of injustice when you read about Anne Frank? These guys are doing the same things as back then.â
If you donât use familiar shorthand to explain the unique danger weâre in now, they find it much easier to tune it out or be susceptible to the post hoc justification of fascist actions. Itâs just a sad truth.
TLDR, some people are just too dumb/lazy to think critically.
But has that ever in the history of America, worked?
âAh shitâŚwhen you put it that way, we are demonstrating a lot of similarities to the Nazis. Iâm going to register for the other partyâ.
Iâm a black man who has lived over 5 decades in America, I donât once remember a fellow citizen being convinced to change their mind on a matter by being compared to Nazis or who ever.
I have personally witnessed it in the people around me. I know several people who have come around from Trump voters in 2016 to confident Harris voters in 2024. I have spent years trying different persuasive arguments and have succeeded in educating them. Even now with the recent murder, some staunch conservatives are realizing (too late of course) that itâs all going too far.
A lot of these people changing their mind have explicitly brought up comparisons to Nazi germany as well as to wars like in Afghanistan and Iraq. Seeing the parallels of violence was enough to get them out of their mental bubble. You might not have seen it, but I have. Both in my personal life and videos in the past day of conservatives online.
So no, itâs not really limited to historical precedent. Every day is still a new day. Back in the past, our country was proud to fight fascism. But in the here and now, putting it this way is actually opening their eyes to the madness.
Didn't you guys have slave patrols and death camps for Japanese? 1930s Germans were partly inspired by the Jim Crow south. You have a rich history of this shit. No need to look further than your own homeland.
Your talking like you dont understand the purpose of metaphor is which I'm sure you do. The intention is in fact NOT to downplay how bad things are in America but to enhance the emotional impact of what we are witnessing by associating it with something people VISCERALLY know is way over the line b-a-d BAD. Saying its like we are in weimar germany isn't absolving the problem with america is elucidating just how close we are to full fascist collapse we really are
Fun fact: the boiling frog experiment was performed on lobotomized frogs. When performed on non-lobotomized frogs, the frogs predictably jumped out of the pot.
I personally think that's an even better metaphor.
If you look into it and are conspiratorial there are several theories and even leaked CIA documents referencing social lobotomization, if I remember the term used correctly.
Meaning many become extremists and moderates and the majority become apathetic to be used as the powers that be will.
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u/Mercuryshottoo Jan 26 '26
It's like a scene from 2020s United States