Understand that this is not happening in a vacuum and that attempts to convert your democracy into authoritarianism are coming for you too; in the UK it’s the Reform party, and they’re using the same old tired canard of demon immigrants to gain power. Keeping authoritarianism and fascism out of your own country, wherever it may be, helps us all.

By yourself you can’t change the world (yet), but you CAN immunize yourself and prepare yourself, so that when your turn comes (may it never, but here we are) you can readily act in your own community.

First, educate yourself: get your news from multiple sources, preferably from multiple continents, so that no one voice or group of voices can manipulate your worldview. Be an armchair expert on British history basics so that you know the bullshit when you see it online. Familiarize yourself with your own constitutional rights and how they are codified, so that you know when they are in danger.

Especially, be aware that corporate-owned, centralized social media is artificially manipulated, and instead of thinking you can’t be drawn in, be aware of the power of even seeing a headline that is worded a certain way to shape how you mentally frame a subject, for example. It’s subtle but it’s real. So tread carefully, or limit your time altogether.

Understand also that over time, social media teaches us how to self-censor and encourages us to value the opinions of others as highly as our own, giving oversized power to group pushback, when in fact it’s all just an artificial space where nothing is real and our natural instincts get very blunted over time, making us ever more intellectually malleable by tiny increments. By way of strong contrast, there is an absolute amount of power inherent in speaking your own truth, uncensored, full of the passion you feel about your subject: stick to online spaces that foster this, and limit your time to whatever lets you feel healthy and whole and still participate.

Secondly, get to know your own community in person, as much as you can. Is there already some kind of protest or direct action going on near you, like an effort to clean up a local waterway or stop an unwanted corporate building project? That’s a great place to get to know people. Even just doing little things like this you learn that just showing up has so much power. Just showing up. You don’t have to save the world. You can just be one person among many, and getting to know your local neighbors and community is the way to do it.

And that’s it. That’s how you start. Educating yourself (and protecting your mind), and getting to know your own community. That is all that Minneapolis has done, but look at how well they are resisting intense provocation and bringing world censure to the wrong that is happening to their town. That’s community working together, just doing what they can do.

You’re doing both of these things, educating yourself and getting to know your neighbors, because change does not come from “speaking truth to power” or strongly worded letters; it comes from simply knowing your neighbors, and amassing with them in large groups when the time comes. If more is ever necessary, then from that place of mutual agreement the best path for that time and that place is formed, but even that all starts with knowing your neighbors and knowing a basic level of truth about whatever you’re facing. It is far, far easier to do this if you’ve already done it before, and it helps when you already know from personal relationships that what you hate for your neighborhood, your neighbors hate too.

Your power comes from being one of many. You have something you can say or do that, in combination with many others, absolutely can make it incredibly difficult for evil to win.

That’s what you’re seeing in Minnesota, and why you’re drawn to help. Ignore the people who would tell you that none of what I just wrote matters, and look instead at Minneapolis: what you’re seeing is exactly this. They learned from the George Floyd protests, got to know their neighbors, and are relying on personal networks to do everything they are doing. The media isn’t talking much about it but ICE has been having to go farther and farther into the rural areas because neighborhood networks, made of people just like you, are making it insanely difficult to get to anyone anymore, and meanwhile relentlessly documenting all their excesses. That’s what’s winning this war: just regular people, like you, like me, doing whatever little tiny thing we each can do.

Also, thank you for your kind and supportive words. Here in the US we are relentlessly firehosed with propaganda from every direction, and to stand against this horrible thing can feel very isolating and alone. When we protest, it is consistently either undercounted or ignored altogether by mainstream media. So hearing you say that you are standing with us in spirit is very heartening, and I know that you’ve protested our insane president before, in many ways and at multiple times: it really means a lot.

Apologies for the wall of text, and thank you again for caring enough to ask the question. Hope it helps.

Legend.

This is great. It is my sincere hope that Janet Mills in Maine takes a clue from Walz’ use of the National Guard in Minnesota, because this is brilliant.

No, Jack Smith finally got to testify last week and according to him, one of the main points of evidence he worked to produce in order to convict at trial was that Trump was very aware he had lost the election in 2020.

That’s part of what makes everything Trump did afterwards the actual crime of election interference and not just sour apples.

Yep. It’s coming. It’s hard to imagine now but these are people who, if they live long enough, they inevitably die miserable.

You, maybe. Not everyone.

Funny you should say that, though, because the government shutdown ended months ago and I STILL haven’t forgiven Schumer and the eight motherfuckers that ended it right when they were starting to get traction. And I kind of suspect I never will. I made a point of remembering their names, and the fact that Jeanne Shaheen of NH made it clear, in those words, that Chuck Schumer was kept notified throughout. When I see their names, I remember.

Similarly, I will always remember the name of Jonathan Ross as cursed, and the names of Renee Good and Alex Pretti as those who were brutally murdered in cold blood by sociopaths cheerfully getting paid to play The Most Dangerous Game (it’s a very old movie ref) for the crime of caring about their fellow Minnesotans.

You can change my mind, or try, but I’ve kept powerful grudges for far less. I don’t carry many, I’d rather forgive where I can, but these infamies will never die for me until they have been fully addressed to my own satisfaction, and that’s a line that I draw for myself. You don’t get to draw it for me. No one does.

And I’m not alone. Lines have been crossed now that have never been crossed before.

Not all of us have the memory of gerbils.

You put it very well. I’ve been feeling the race to the finale for a while now, and of course there’s been January, but yeah. It’s going to blow. And then it is going to be very different.

Beyond what you’ve pointed out, the only new thing I’ve noticed are obviously foreign accounts wanting to talk about a renewed version of the events of 1860-65 (I’m specifically not using the term) while claiming the Constitution allows for this sort of “succession” and “national divorse” [sic] but when challenged they drop right off and refuse to engage on anything but that specific talking point. (Along with weird account stuff, like the language patterns of more than one person posting on it, typical paid behavior.) Going by the way they don’t care what is said as long as anything is said about those events, I’m guessing they just want to normalize the discussion of it. I refuse and start talking about how magnificent Minnesota is, and wonder out loud why we would want to get rid of a great state when the problem is one pedo in the white house. And then I ask about Putin, lol. The last one I asked about the $500 million from stolen Venezuelan oil that rump parked in Qatar and told him I wanted to know his views on that; strangely, I have not heard back.

Yeah, I’ve noticed about the establishment Democrat thing as well. The problem is that they lost my respect when they ended the shutdown, so I haven’t really been paying any attention to comments pumping them, though I probably should be: if they are using the same social media manipulation apparatus as others now it’s worth noting. Whether it’s socially “acceptable” or technically legal or not, it’s a corrupt thing to do, a marker of having left the conversation in favor of trying to shape it. Just in terms of actual candidates my eyes are on the progressives now.

Also in recent discussion, FauxLiving pointed out something similar that could be added to your running list of “Things About to Blow Up” and that is a brewing war over on r/Conservative between the 2Aers and the rest, because they don’t like what they’re hearing out of the administration about how “Alex Pretti lost his gun rights by carrying to a protest.” Even the NRA is shaking in its boots over that one, lol. That too is, as Faux pointed out, playing with fire.

But yes. We are heading toward an inescapable finale of some kind. And while I agree with everything you said, I almost suspect the final crisis will not come from here, as strange as that may seem. I think it will come from the other side of the world, if/when Putin finds his days limited and realizes he will have failed utterly at building his great Russkiy Mir. I think if that happens, the day he understands that he will have utterly failed in the one thing that motivates him, the West will feel a Leviathan’s tail we never saw coming. If we’re lucky, someone sane will just put a bullet in his head first. Or not. But as crazy as the West has become, don’t forget the East just yet.

Your comment is great, a pleasure to read. Thank you for taking the time to write it.

Heh, try that on someone who actually gives a shit what internet randos think of them.

Minnesota, Minneapolis, and Tim Walz are holding the line. They are fantastic. The very best of us. I literally could not be more proud of them, and of us, right now.

You, on the other hand, got nothing but empty words, talking about cowardice from behind a pseudonym and a keyboard like this is a junior high popularity contest and you’re jealous of the other girl’s miniskirt.

Seriously, try it on someone else while I go watch the news and see how Minnesota is refusing to take the bait.

You can’t tell the difference?

I don’t understand how you can’t know the difference, because this is your own claim.

Where’s that “legal route of succession” that’s already in the US Constitution? You know, the “national divorse” by way of the “constitutional way of states removing themselves from the Federal Government” you led with. You openly claimed,

There’s literally a constitutional way of states removing themselves from the Federal Government, that’s what national divorse means.

Your exact words. So, where is it? A simple enough question for someone as conversant with the US Constitution as you are, right?

This is very interesting to me because you have a lemmy account that’s barely a month old, and much of the time you are fluent in English, and other times – like in your interactions with me – you seem to be barely hanging on by your fingernails. But either way, you’re always desperate to push a narrative, and never able to answer any questions put to you about what you’ve already written.

So let’s talk about that “legal route of succession” that’s already in the US Constitution, the “constitutional way of states removing themselves from the Federal Government,” because YOU cared enough about it to bring it up.

Better yet, let’s talk about constitutionally evicting that orange kiddie rapist and doing a 25 for 47, because I’d far rather keep Minnesota in the union. No need to throw out a perfectly good state when one useless syphilitic pedo is the real problem. Do you think he’s being paid by Russia, Putin’s bitch? Or do you think that $500 million he banked in Qatar from selling stolen Venezuelan oil is the real story? I’m interested in your views on this.

EDITED to add direct quotes

God I hope so.

Yeah, I clock her as a True Believer as well. She’s also a person who believes the end justifies the means.

Put those two things together and they explain everything she’s ever done, including Jewish space laser claims.

A convention of states to amend the constitution;

Uh, no. That’s not a constitutional way of states removing themselves from the federal government; that’s a constitutional way to amend the constitution.

And why would we want to? I am so fucking proud of Minnesota right now you can’t begin to imagine. Why would I want them to leave? They are arguably the very best of us.

No, the one that needs to leave is the orange chancre and his minions. Why are you not talking about that? Minnesota’s not the problem here.

inserting another legal route of succession into the constitution.

Another? I’m still waiting to see the first.

Only thing I will give NYT credit for is the way they recently put together a bunch of the Renee Good videos, determined they showed (what the rest of us already knew) that the murderer was not in front of the car along with a visual explainer, and put it on the front page. That got the unvarnished visual evidence in front of a lot of people that would otherwise have not seen it.

But that’s just one thing, and they’ve been sanewashing for years. Beyond that, both the WSJ and the NYT is a big part of the reason we’re here. Maybe if they hadn’t worked so hard at bothsidesing insanity and lies they would not have lent such a helping hand to the speedrun into fascism that was 47ths first year.

10 day old account trying so hard to ragebait, regularly inciting violence, but accusing someone else of supporting rump.

That’s fucking rich, lol. Blocked.

She could just reupholster herself in a nice neutral pleather, like Erika Kirk did. She’ll be fine.

Anyone else remember the wild accusations all these years about how tHe LiBrUlS wAnNa TaKe Ur gUnS!

But wait. Anyone noticing how it’s not the “libruls” shitting themselves right now, but the NRA and right-wing 2A groups who want no part of this new narrative?

For anyone paying attention, this was always the right wing plan. Always.

National divorse

constitutional way of states removing themselves from the Federal Government

that’s what national divorse means

Not from here, huh. Well, that’s alright. 1860 wasn’t the same everywhere around the world, of course.

Never forget she was AG of Florida from 2011 to 2019, and could readily have prosecuted Epstein herself. It’s not like he stopped offending in 2008.

For myself, I think the NRA is both culturally irrelevant AND completely fucking complicit in ALL of this.

Every word you write is true.

That said, to answer your question, the NRA is shitting itself because if gun ownership – or any facet thereof, like open carry – becomes illegal in the US that’s very bad for the NRA, and possibly the abrupt end of the gravy train for them if the rights of 2A suddenly become as irrelevant as, say, the rights of 4A.

This statement is nothing more than spin because even the execs counting the right-wing cash can see that this was murder and not even remotely any legitimate act of law enforcement. They just don’t want to be on the receiving end of growing public anger.

That’s extraordinarily insulting to Canada: our neighbor to the north does not rely on the US in any way for its sovereignty. If anything, it’s the other way around (looking at you, 1812).