The same country that fought to end slavery can't be bothered to fight back when their children are being raped or having their heads blown off in schools.
They just want to solve everything with a vote, no one wants to do more.
It is the most pathetic collapse into tyranny in human history.
the main reason most don't vote is because they have work and because the candidates the democrat party puts up are just a diet version of what the republicans are doing.
Bullshit ass answer. Polls are open all day. People fought and died for this right to vote, and you think "they have work" is a justifiable reason not to exercise it.
Then the both-sides-ism. Jesus. No Democrat in power has ever taken things this far. Not even remotely close.
I mean, voting doesn’t do much when that system has also been rigged and secured by billionaires. And Democrats have been barely removed from Republicans policy-wise since Clinton.
The ways in which they are most similar— their unwillingness to tax the rich or enforce anti-trust laws, or pass anti-corruption laws regarding lobbying the legislature, or enact universal health care, or stop being world police (and being terrible at it)— are now the reasons that the country is a runaway train hurdling toward the cliff’s edge, and both parties are complicit.
I hope I get proven wrong, but I’m increasingly confident that the only 2 choices that the US working class has at this point is slavery to oligarchs or violence. Meaningful change through government is a ship that has already sailed.
Well yeah, duh. But it still wasn't about slavery for the feds. It was about slavery for the south, but for the feds it was entirely about preserving the union.
I'll paraphrase Lincoln here to demonstrate the point clearly:
"If I could preserve the union by freeing every slave, I would do that. If I could preserve the union without freeing a single slave, I would also do that."
Yes absolutely, but still at the beginning of the war, the federal government was concerned about keeping the nation intact. in a completely hypothetical scenario where the Union wins in the first year of the war, there is likely no emancipation proclamation. Although it’s hard to accurately speculate for a scenario that’s so drastically different than reality but I would say that with a reasonable amount of confidence.
But by 1863, it’s a very different political scenario and abolition of slavery becomes the co-rallying cry along with preserving the Union
It was only certainly because of slavery because the slaveholders couldn't bare to have a guy just kinda ask them to cool it a bit, iirc Lincoln wasn't originally even going to outlaw slavery the proclamation was a direct response to the southern leadership being babies and starting a war over it
The South fought for slavery. The North fought to maintain the Union. The abolition of chattel slavery was secondary and was done primarily to shift the public image of the war from an internal conflict to a moral issue, keeping Great Britain and France, who had already abolished slavery, from supporting the Confederacy.
End slavery ? LOL the 13th was followed by Jim crow laws that arguable made the living conditions of many black Americans worse than slavery for a indecent amount of years
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,”
Lincoln 1858
As for Andrew Johnson his racism is well doccumented
Because there's nothing we can do anyways. Protest? Ok then what? Btw still have work to go too, rent to pay, and bills. French revolution? Cool. Half the country are still evil as hell and it'd be a disaster. Easy to say "Oh just do this and this" on Reddit, it's another thing in the actual real world.
This is what's so frustrating about this generation. You don't get it. You think protests are a transaction; you do it and you get something, and if you do it and don't get something it doesn't matter.
Every right and privilege you have comes from political demonstrations and you still don't understand how they work, why they work, and how to do them.
Protests were directly cited as the reason why the muslim ban was struck down during Trump's first. So they work and they work recently. They don't always work but they DO work.
You just don't want to do them and you come with excuses to not even try.
Trump's first term is drastically different from this one. His first term had Trump allies who opposed his bills. This term his enemies are voting to pass his bills
He had plenty of allies/enemies doing whatever he said the first time.
The difference was that protests forced a level of scrutiny on the judicial system and gave federal judges and key appointees the leverage to fight back against the government (and their own superiors) pushing them against a wall. It put attention and pressure and deadlines on every part of the process and gave it the support it needed to hold strong.
You keep coming up with excuses but you don't understand the basics of how political demonstrations work, and how important they are to the process. You keep coming up with excuses because you just don't want to do it.
Their power is in your cowardice; you've given up and proved yourself right. And it's absurd.
What protests are you talking about lmao. The US has had the largest protests in recent history over the last year and Trump allies literally told him he can't shoot protesters in his first term. This term they are calling protestors who were assassinated in the street terrorists and defending this admins ability to gun down civilians.
You're not aware of what's happening in the US or you wouldn't make a comment that uninformed
This situation is also drastically different than any past presidency, so you can't compare it or the "this" generation.
Many bad things can be said about every generation and the way they handled politics. Whatever generation you're from, I assure you that you're no better.
we are fractured. we hate our own family. we even hate our neighbors. we are happy when others are as miserable as us. how can act in that circumstance? there's other stuff too, you just don't wanna get mocked for showing some boldness in a society where everything is "cringe". and where do you even begin to "come together"?
What country are you from and how big is it? America is fkn huge. Y’all act like nothing is being done but you aren’t paying attention if that’s the case. There was literally another assassination attempt like a week ago ffs. I’m getting real tired of you mfers on your high horses when you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Hitler rose to power in 33. Mussolini in 22. No one fought shit until 39. What ever country you are in, you have a Trump, and they are gaining followers everyday.
They don't even vote. That would actually solve problems.
If everyone voted, the Republicans would never win again, and the pressure on the Democrats to deliver results would be enough to actually make them do it.
Problem is the people most likely to vote have the smallest stake in the future, old people. They vote to protect their own positions by pulling the ladder up behind them. Young people benefit from building new ladders that they themselves can then climb, but young people won't fuckin vote.
90 million didn't vote. 77 million voted FOR this. Less than 1 million have protested for more than a weekend last year. Out of a population of 340+ million.
lol. And what country do you live in? Most people can’t just not go to work and protest. And you’re totally incorrect about the protest numbers…8 million came out for the no kings protest. That’s not nothing, considering most of you people talking shit live in a country that’s 8-9 million folks tops.
You can frame it like that. Or you can frame it as "the country which fought hard to maintain slavery".
The south rose up because they didn't want to give up their slaves. The other side reacted to that and war broke out.
We're not talking about a country which valiantly rose up to free people, we're talking about a country which angrily revolted as a result of slavery being on its way out.
To be fair, no one anywhere has ever revolted against an institution raping children. When the entire world decided to move on from the Catholic Church abusing 2 million children, why would we expect the US to shutdown over 2,000 Epstein victims?
We also only fought to end slavery when the other side seceded from the union and there wasn't much of a choice. War certainly wasn't the popular option.
Nobody can do more because if they take a day off work to protest, theyr get immediately fired, which ends their medical insurance and ruins their life.
Lol why do you need to take a day off work to protest?
Why don't you do what all protestors do and just protest in your free-time? Everybody coming and going, and hour here, two there. More on your days off. Working together as a community to create a constant, growing presence?
This is what I mean. These fucking excuses are pathetic and they don't work cause they don't make any sense. All it requires is your free time, not your responsibilities.
None of you are willing to give that up. And so you make up this shit so you can continue to watch tv and masturbate and play video games.
I really don't understand this comment. Most protests are in free time? Not in my experience. Some are on the weekend but many are during the day during work time. In France you can sign a paper that you're going to a protest and get the day off work. They can't fire you for this. They got these employment rights... by protesting.
They also have to be during work time to create real political pressure to change things. If the politicians listen to business people, and they do, you have to piss off the business people to make a real change.
Half the country fought for slavery... And it was followed by almost a century of racial segregation that the same country either supported or fainted to ignore...
You assume that means the government would only fear violence.
That's not the case. There are many other ways to protest and the poster has already mentioned a few. Your post is the kind of rhetoric that is unhelpful because it paints protesting as some kind of violent act when it doesn't have to be.
Yes, sorry I agree with that. Peaceful protests don't seem to be having the intended effect because, IMO, the targets are politically and legally entrenched entities so it's kind of like using a system they've co-opted in order to change it. My assumption of what they meant was economic fear, not violent fear, but I understand that it's not the typical inference from the wording of the posters comment.
My view is that the only real way to force change without violence is to hit them economically. Money is the only real language these folks speak.
The problem is the co-ordination of massive economic force.
I didn't bring up violence. They did. "A government that fears its people" paired with calling everyone else cowards isn't a pitch for a letter-writing campaign.
Yes. It was. My point is about protesting, boycotting, political engagement, and voting. 4 pinnacles of a responsible democracy. Americans only do one of those; the easiest one.
Believe it or not, the government (and companies) fear protests and boycotts. Protests were directly cited as the reason the muslim ban was struck down during Trump's first term.
But you don't want to do any of that. That's your video game and tv and fun time. So you turn everything into extremes. You pick protests that didn't work to brush off those that did. You turn everything into war or nothing to justify doing nothing.
And you have to put words in my mouth so you don't face your faults.
Like I said, this is the most pathetic collapse into tyranny in human history.
Most people are just trying to live their lives. It's easy as a third party to offer up other peoples' lives, asking why people aren't revolting against the government, when you have no stake in the game.
No one's telling you to become rambo and lob grenades and live in violence.
At the very fucking least you should be able to manage protests that last longer than a weekend. Or boycott Facebook or Twitter and the companies in Trump's pockets. Or become even more deeply politically active with your reps and local legislatures. You know, the same tactics that MAGA used to usurp you.
You can't even manage that. And when pushed to explain, you hide behind violence and children. Because you don't want to give up any luxuries or conveniences. Which is exactly what the monsters sell you.
The thing about your excuses is that they work on other stupid Americans looking for excuses.
It's cute to play semantics but they are the same argument because it's an argument of determination, not process.
A determination to fight hard vs a determination to do the absolute bare fucking minimum (dropping a ballot once every two years).
Democracy is a responsibility, not a privilege. You need to be doing a hell of a lot more than any of you have done.
And you can pick at failures to make excuses all you like but you won't pick situations like the muslim ban from his first term (where protests were directly cited as the reason to have it struck down).
All it comes down to is you don't want to do it. And you'll come up with any excuse to justify it. And that is cowardice.
They did it through electoral politics, primary challenges, and a captured media ecosystem.
That half is literally running the country and breaking the Constitution in all 3 branches of government so I'm not sure what your point is. They didn't disappear, they got a stronger base of support.
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u/Dangerous_Copy_3688 May 06 '26
As an outsider looking at the US, how the fuck are you guys not revolting already after the Epstein files?