Leopards Ate My Face

You dumb, dumb motherfuckers.

Regards, the rest of the world.

“Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.

That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives any more.

They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?”

Are you kidding? Watching it happen in real time, it makes less sense than it ever did.

Well the entire multiplatform astroturfing campaign from people who call themselves leftists worked! Democrats stayed home instead of voting.

Now Palestine will be completely flattened with 0 resistance at all, and redoubled support and bombs for Israel! Way to go! You really showed your support for Palestine by helping this happen!

They will probably come back saying "it wasn't our fault, we just pointed out the truth" while they shouted that a vote for Harris was a vote for genocide [so don't vote for harris] from every platform that they used.

Fuck, this his hard. As a father of a gay child, and a trans child, our immediate plans are passports.

So, place your bets! What's going to be that one announcement that suddenly makes your neighbours go all quiet?

• Repeal of the 19th amendment
• Mandatory military service
• Military sent to Ukraine
• Military sent to Gaza
• Additional protections to police
• The pardon of all January 6th rioters
• The relaxation of maximum presidential terms
• Repeal of Affordable Care Act
• Repeal of Social Security
• Increase in taxes of lowest and middle incomes
• Reduction in the minimum wage
• Shutdown of major news outlets of "reporting lies"
• Ban of reporting "bad news"
• New ability to farmers to hire for no wage
• New protections to reject hiring/customers/schooling based on colour
• Collapse of NOAA
• Atheists targeted as terrorists
• Democrats imprisoned for Socialist ties
• Mysterious disappearances of democrats
• Random deportation of American citizens for being first/second generation
• Removal of all laws related to carbon output

Yes, some of these are fearmongering but he's made all sorts of promises and debts are due! The sky is the limit!

Women: he told you he's taking your rights away and is already letting you die in hospital waiting rooms

Tradesman: he told you overtime and unions are gone

Veterans: he told you he hates you, pissed all over the sanctity of Arlington and is gutting the VA

Hispanics: he told you you and yours are getting deported and doesn't care if you're legal or not

Those on social security, Medicare, Medicaid or ACA: he told you he's cutting/gutting these

Anyone with ties to Palestine: he told you he's going to help Israel finish the job

Pour one out for America and Ukraine, and the Middle East in general. And Taiwan.

Europe and Asia, you guys better get your shit together, we might be out of this one permanently. Or we might have a very long recovery time spanning decades. Such fucking bullshit.

It doesn't matter.

Europeans know the history of fascism much, much better than Americans do and they're electing right-wing leaders too.

Well, I for one will question it, because I don't understand what I'm seeing. How the flying fuck is this happening?

Jesus Christ, I just realized Jimmy Carted lived to see his country die.

First they came for the illegal immigrants and I did not speak out because I was a legal citizen.

Then they came for the LGBTQ members and I did not speak out because I am straight.

Then they came for the non-whites and I did not speak out because I am white.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

Baffling. We already rejected this guy once when he had less baggage. His first term was objectively terrible.

So, I guess America has kings now, because Trump will never see another day in court for his crimes, and he's not going to prison.

I just don't have the strength anymore. I'm teetering on the brink of agreeing with the accelerationists and just letting it happen. The faster Trump ruins the country, the sooner we can rebuild it while we still have time to enjoy it.

Listen to any random Trump speech, replace "migrants" with "jews" and you have a Hitler speech.

I don't understand why you people only kill your good presidents.

I guess I underestimated just how many americans have a problem with a PoC + Woman candidate, perhaps it was an error from the dems to not run a white guy at this moment.

You can blame religion for trump. A rapist con man who never goes to church is their new jesus. What a fucking cult.

I never questioned.

I just hoped.

In vain.

Don't think it won't happen to you. When the incoming wave of Ukrainian refugees hits Europe, the populists that have already been growing in popularity will make their move. With the U.S. fallen, a lot of money and attention has been freed up to destabilize other countries.

It's happening in Italy. It's happening in the Netherlands. It's happening in France. If you think you are ready for it, remember that we thought the same.

My one takeaway from this is that primaries are important. Republicans held a primary, nominated an incomprehensibly stupid candidate, and managed to win. ~~Dems held no primary~~, Biden strong armed his way into the de-facto nomination for a second term, and was replaced by his VP when he imploded on the campaign trail. At no point did Dem voters ever get to have a say in their candidate this year. Not that Kamala or Joe are bad candidates, but clearly, they're lacking something if Trump was able to win again after changing nothing from 2020.

So, the DNC fucked us again and we got Trump a second time in exactly the same way.

I mean it's quite different. Hitler wasn't elected (at least not prior to seizing power and effectively banning all opposition). Instead the Nazis got a plurality of just 33% in the Reichstag election, which led to failure to form a government. Then Hitler somehow convinced the center right President to grant him powers which he promptly started abusing and the rest is history.

In other words, 1930s Germany can kind of defend itself in ways the US can't.

1. Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to the Workers to protect themselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there's an org you like more near you and join it, the point is that organizing is the best thing any leftist can do.

2. Read theory. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. It will help contextualize what fascism is, what causes it, and how to stop it. I can offer a good introductory reading list for Marxism if you'd like, but this is a good starting point.

3. Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground.

4. Be more industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well. Theory guides practice, which sharpens theory to be reapplied to better practice.

5. Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. The Democrats will not save us, we must save each other.

6. Be persistent. If you feel like a single water driplet against a mountain, think of the Grand Canyon. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.

As an American, our bell was tolling long ago and so few of us cared to listen. (This is a quote from Carl Sagan's book from nearly 20 years ago).

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

America is likely now doomed. We'll balkanize into minor states that join either the axis or allies of WWIII until we mostly dissolve altogether and the next wave of history and death and rolls through. Though seeing the rise of fascism on the world scale, I think we're generally just doomed, all of us. Perhaps we're just an avenue for AGI to wipe us out and go fight other AGIs on some intergalactic scale not much different from our own inability to get along and work together. Perhaps I've been drinking myself to stupor now that I see what has happened.

We have always known why Hitler rose to power, and we know why Trump was reelected. When people are economically depressed and a man comes to you and tells you “This isn’t your fault, I will persecute those who are responsible and personally make things better for you.” It’s human nature, out of fear, frustration, or desperation to grasp that hand. We as a people are not ready to trust the guy who says “This is our fault, and it will be hard, but we have to fix this together”. Take everything you know about Hitler and Trump and OUR world out of it, take out your reasoning and tap into your monkey brain for a second and simply ruminate on those two propositions. Which one would you rather be true? You can’t honestly tell me the latter. You may know the latter is true, but it would be so much easier on you if the first was true.

Like it or not, we aren’t as evolved as we like to think, and those of us who consider ourselves enlightened are vulnerable to our lizard brains at one point or another.

Yeah, but it was never between Hitler and a woman! Yanks hate nothing more than women, so what did you expect?

Why. We lived through 4 years of that shit already. Why did we do this to ourselves again.

Don't worry guys. We'll run another centrist in 2028 too. But this time it'll work.

Proof that sometimes people don't learn the lesson the first time...

How do I request asylum in a country that doesn't want to erase trans people?

He's already dehumanising foreigners (claiming they're all criminals and eating peoples pets) and trying to claim LGBTI are criminals

So, it's not actually a joke. He has already started following the Nazi playbook

Irrelevant. The people who tried to stop it already know how Hitler came to power, and the ones who should ask how it happened — the ones you should address your post to — either don’t care or actively want another Hitler.

But hey, at least you slammed the people who tried their hardest, rather than actually address conservatives themselves, which would have required you actually confronting them. Glad you feel better, though.

The dem message of "we won't do better but the other guy will do worse" failed. It was a bad message and it lost them the election against a terrible candidate. Voters need to be motivated to vote and that message isn't motivating enough

I'm watching it happen in real time and STILL questioning how it happened. Humans are some stupid motherfuckers. America burned its hand on Trump, and now a disturbing number of Americans are reaching for him again with the same hand, still blistered from the first time.