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What fire will we light? What will we do? Prisoner dilemma is in full effect. There are hundreds of millions of Americans spread over billions of acres of land. This isn't like getting past the tipping point of protesters in a few major cities, as would happen in Europe. This would require a movement the likes of which the world has never, ever seen in all of recorded history. And we've been purposefully divided for generations now, to avoid such a thing. Bread and circuses.
Lemmy is the real place people are huffing their own farts. People imagine, in leftist bubbles like this, that Average Joe down on Main Street USA believes some of the same. They don't. I'm in a gayborhood full of progressives, exactly where you'd expect to see movements coalesce. Everyone is trying to get through their day, still. Because no matter what any one of them do, 300 million Americans will continue doing their thing. Their rent and mortgage won't get cancelled because of this. Their kids schools won't suddenly become free, their groceries won't suddenly buy themselves.
I really encourage people to study game theory and understand the reasons underneath it that nothing will continue to happen, no matter how many impassioned speeches they type out on a forum. I really encourage people to go speak to non-leftist Americans, who are the majority.
I'm in a capitol city in the US, an today we had about 10 people on an overpass, holding up "fuck trump" signs and big banners that said - nothing about Venezuela or Greenland. They were Jan 6 banners. And not a single mind was changed towards our side. If anything it probably peeled a few more folks off our side, thinking "wow they look pathetic, everyone else has moved on, there's less than a dozen of them." We stopped realizing how we're perceived by the others here.
And let's talk about that. Jan 6 was the most troubling day our democracy has EVER FACED. I watched it unfold live, thinking, "surely this will be what breaks the maga coalition." You know what happened? Maga got stronger. They were emboldened. It was normalized for Gen Z, they think this is just politics as usual. And look how they voted in 2024.
Venezuela and Greenland are likely building his strength. Americans are idiots, they love strongmen, even if they're illusory. Surely that should be obvious to everyone by now. People associate the military's strength and legacy with Trump whenever he uses them. A lot of folks have hardons thinking about how our forces dropped from the sky and yanked a world leader out of his secure base in just 140 minutes. They think, wow look at us go! We're so strong, god bless the troops.
Yes, this is more or less what I've been telling people for almost a year now.
For all the doom and gloom stories you see about the US, life has changed very little for most of us. Your average American is living their life as usual, focused on one day at a time. As long as we're not hungry and don't fear for our physical safety, there's little that would compel us to risk imprisonment or deportation to oppose this regime. Those in power ensure that life is just comfortable enough for most of us that we don't dare disrupt the status quo. Even for those that oppose Trump/MAGA, the vast majority won't do anything more than attend a Saturday afternoon protest once or twice a year and then pat themselves on the back.
Conservatives have been wildly successful for generations at defunding and dismantling public schooling in this country. Our news media has been dumbed down by the likes of Fox News and relentless disinformation campaigns to the point where the news is more entertainment and propaganda than actual reporting. The result of poor schooling and a propagandized news media is that many Americans aren't able to distinguish between fact and opinion and they'll believe anything at face value. That's the abridged version of how we ended up with so many dumbasses that consistently vote against their own interests, if they vote at all.
The Americans you meet on Lemmy and Reddit aren't the norm. Most Americans are very poorly informed about world events and not curious enough to educate themselves. I would bet most Americans never had a single thought about Greenland or Venezuela until the last year or so. My MAGA neighbors don't care what happens in your European country and they almost certainly couldn't find it on a map.
You all need to stop waiting for Americans to rise up and save ourselves. I promise it's not going to happen. Cut your losses and build up your militaries. Even if we all get lucky and MAGA implodes, our electorate is stupid enough that it's only a matter of time before we'll vote in equally terrible leadership.
All those words, just to justify defeatism and despair.
I sure hope there are some Americans with some fight in them. All I've heard for the last 50y is how tough and patriotic Americans are. This is the time to prove it.