I’ve never had a problem starting on step 4 and repeating a few times.

Of course we would. If the news said “we’re doing great” we’ll think we’re doing great. The vast majority of Americans will do 0 research at all into the actual state of the war, and either believe the news because it said so, or disbelieve the news because it said so.

They’ve been raised on the idea that taxes are bad, and never put more thought into it than that. They view things like the fire department as good, so they can’t really be funded by those bad taxes, right? …Right?

But if we point out that it’s happening, we’ll be called alarmists! No, it’s better to just keep saying things are going to happen, so people feel like they still have time to do nothing about it.

Careful, or they’ll go after the dictionary next.

Well, if you ever get the opportunity to punch Trump in the nose, I hope you take it and more.

Well, it matters for us if there’s enough people to punish everyone. It’s like speeding - there aren’t enough traffic cops to catch every speeder, so while my mom would’ve gotten plenty of tickets if there were, in reality she rarely ever got one. If we organize, we can overwhelm the criminal justice system. It’s not a fun prospect, and I’d really hoped we could pull ourselves out of this situation by other means, but our current president is actively advertising his plans to become a dictator - working within the system is no longer an option.

My mom used to always speed like crazy, and when people would complain, pointing to the speed limit signs, she’d always respond with something along the lines of “signs can’t limit speed, let me know if you see a cop instead.” Some people just don’t give a shit about the forms of soft power meant to keep people in line without taking real action against them. My mom was one, and our current president is another. The funny thing is that we’re going to have to ignore them as well to stop him.

They don’t just want to choose not to think, because then they might have pangs of regret from making that choice. They want others to tell them that women aren’t allowed to think, so that it’s no longer their decision, and so it can’t be their fault if it’s a bad one.

Oh boy! Soon there’ll be a new court ruling for Trump to ignore without consequence!

And I’m sure at Easter dinner my whole family will still be saying “Thank god Trump’s second term will be over in 4 years and things will go back to normal!” as if anyone in the government will actually be willing and able to prevent him from simply continuing on with his dictatorship. This cinches it for me - I’m convinced that we’re not getting out of this without American Revolution 2.0.

They’re in a country full of angry people with guns who have been trained over generations to think that there’s no need to use them - that protests will be enough because the only next logical step after that would be violence, and nobody wants that. But really, I don’t have a lot of faith that most will actually use them - I know in my heart of hearts that I won’t. I think we’ve been trained to have such faith in our loud bark that we’re left completely unable to bite. There are a few individuals who have worked up the courage to take real action, but we’d need a lot more than that to scare the wealthy into playing fair. I hope I’m wrong, but every time I think about taking that next logical step as a result of all the inconsequential protests, I fail to even come close to having the courage to do so, and I don’t think I the only one.

Believe it or not, cheap asphalt.

People like to commit, though. They want to commit. They want to make an account and be done. The ability for established users and communities to move around is a great feature that makes Lemmy superior to other sites, but it really needs to work on making new users feel comfortable enough to stay put when they’re first figuring things out, because if a new user decides to leave, they’re probably not switching instances, they’re switching platforms.

It never left. We just used to be confident that nobody in power was stupid or suicidal enough to use one given the mutually assured destruction, and that confidence has since gone up in smoke.

There’s a reason every American was raised on the mantra of “violence is never the answer” and “if you fight back you’re just as bad.”

A criminal is the head of the governing body that makes the laws. Why even bother asking why he’s not following them?

They say they want an efficient government not wasting time and resources on unnecessary things. What they actually want is a government that makes them feel superior to all the people they’ve been convinced to hate, in this case Mexicans and Leftists. Trump knows this, and gives them what they want so that he can get what he wants, which is free reign to exploit his position and his country for profit while his loyal voter base blindly supports his efforts to usher in their demise.

Yeah, if (more like when) things go south for the daughter, he’s going to want her to feel safe and supported enough to call him. If she feels pushed away she might not reach out for help when she needs it, which is the worst case scenario.

It’s America. One of the most common reasons for something to exist here is because it makes money, and this is making a lot of money.