My perspective is that a scale has tipped, a critical mass of people decided they want this sort of thing, and they got it. It wasn't rigged, it wasn't fraudulent, it was a democratic election. Critique democracy itself, or the criticism is incoherent. Make an argument for why a government should be disallowed from doing things that the voters want it to do.
Way more than half the country was disenfranchised in the last election. Best case scenario (and very unlikely scenario): blue sweep in the next elections and then massive electoral reform.
Over 152 million votes were cast, representing more than 64% turnout among those eligible to vote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...).
The USA has about 342 million people, and over 18% of them are age 14 or younger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...) and at least some of them are 15-17 (citation needed). So clearly, doing some arithmetic, there are fewer than 304 million adults.
Not only was "half the country" not "disenfranchised", literally a majority of adults actually voted (and this is not even considering that not all adults were statutorily allowed to vote in the first place).
But also, Trump won the popular vote this time.
If we can't agree as a people that the Constitution applies to everyone equally then it isn't a problem with democracy, it's a problem with fascism and must dealt with as such.
Others can work for immediate protest for release of the arrested.
Appeal to common values that they also have, and show how they are violating the religious values they profess.
Technically someone can make some app, that can easily help in getting the citizenship proof for an individual.
I am not from USA.
It's also hard to quantify how much the pandemic and inflation moved some voters away from Biden/Harris.
I think Dems will win big in the next election. The question is how long this lesson will last with voters.
The next chapter of America needs to be punishing anyone who was apart of these death squads and the officials who allowed it to happen. That's it. There is no statute of limitations on murder or treason. We can't make the same mistakes as we did after the civil war (leniency towards confederates and various compromises)
Republicans are now defending straight-up murder in broad daylight by federal forces. I doubt there's anything that could change their minds at this point, they're too far gone.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...
They'd have to change the fundamental nature of business. Most US companies are run like tiny little fascist dictatorships, which is a great training ground for the real thing. The relationship between capital (owners/management) and labor is usually adversarial with "at-will" employment. Contrast in Norway, where businesses operate within a 3-way Agreement (Trepartssamarbeidet) - a formal cooperation between the government, employers' associations, and trade unions.
Americans would have to change capitalism too. The most reliable way to prevent the rise of the far right is to implement robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance.
But even in this thread they don't want to do that.
They literally just murdered someone in cold blood. Textbook execution without trial. And have some of the most powerful people in the world saying how brave they are and how great of a job they did executing their duty.
Their entire recruiting process has the effect of self selecting for the exact kind of person who is significantly more likely to shoot an unarmed nonviolent protestor.
If I recall correctly they even have notably higher salary and signing bonuses compared to similar agencies, which could be (decent pessimistically) interpreted as a way to hoover up more recruits with questionable moral bases. "Oh I really don't think ICE is doing the right thing, but oh boy sign me up for that cash baby".
https://www.kuow.org/stories/how-ice-grew-to-be-the-highest-...
I believe this country will need massive investigations and criminal trials to heal. I am concerned with what happens in between, but this is reality as I see it.
Trump learned his lesson and pardoned every Jan 6 terrorist. If he leaves office, he is going to pardon every single person in his administration for anything they did from 2025-2029. There will be no investigations and no criminal trials. They all know this to be true.
The left was right too early. Whereas I, the enlightened centrist was right and just the right time.
Like this VOX article surveying experts on fascism in 2015 and then revisiting in 2020:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21521958/what-is-fas...
> But there is still no state management of the economy here (as there was to a degree in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy). Trump is content to aid business by reducing government protections of the environment and of workers … and his economic policy is mainly just to let businessmen do what they want.
Well, we can check that one off the list with 2024 hindsight.
>He’s never actually done a Putin and tried to make himself a permanent president, let alone suggest any coherent plan for overthrowing the constitutional system. And I don’t even think that’s in his mind
And another one bites the dust.
Note that all the scholars who get very technical on what they want to call Fascist all compare him to Marcos, Erdogan, Milosovic. That's still not a good review.
Them winning absolute control over the country would be a disaster for their movement though. They'd turn to internal fighting, the entropy of victory and all that. And they don't seem terribly competent with governance, it would probably turn off a lot of smart people, so the country would lose a lot of its capabilities.
EDIT: Also, there are funny things going on with the political submissions. I think there is active interference going on, they get flagged almost immediately. This got flagged and unflagged in the space of a couple minutes, so thanks to the mod team they are letting it up, I think there is important conversation to be had here.
that would be after they've finished executing the undesirables?
I am quite amazed that the 2nd amendment people seem to be the ones that are cheering on the federal gestapo
"Rights for me, not for thee"
They are very relevant to the current state of affairs in America, with respect to tech, immigration, startups, and the hacker ethos
Monarchs are in place without democratic support, so they have little incentive to be popular (though not unpopular either). Not being involved in politics often results in them having a distant concern for their subjects. They rarely instigate policy making. Doesn't sound like Trump.
The brain drain was massive, both before the war, and even more so after. That didn't stop the peasant minded from supporting the Nazi regime though. They got to punish the people who they were told made them poor.
I live in FL, so I get to interact daily with people who are cheering for this crackdown, and have said the equivalent of "those rioters (protestors) should be put down in the street". I don't have much hope for where our country is headed.
The flags on any type of post like this are absolutely ridiculous. Glad the mods are at least for now letting this one stand.
Of course these all turned out to be grave miscalculations. I imagine that pattern will eventually play out this time too...
The centrists ultimately lost when the Nazis banned other political parties. If they were not murdered first. And the Nazis took control of the German workforce, imposed harsh taxation on businesses, central planning, nationalization etc.
I'm sure the uneasy alliance worked well for a a little while though!
Flagging this: that’s fascism.
However, this past year has been extreme. Seeing how everything related to Musk and DOGE was removed, for example, was extraordinary.
Anyone who thinks this forum lives up to its rhetoric is simply flat wrong. This place is now a testament to the effectiveness of clever censorship.
But we're talking about HN censoring topics, in general - not just politics. I'll give you an example with a tech story I commented on just 3 hours ago [0].
Sourced from the BBC, with a correct headline, not a dupe, generating discussion, upvoted, relevant, important, and in every possible way squarely within HN's remit: But it mentioned Musk in a bad light.
Not only was it flagged, but it was some new kind of uber-flagged. It no longer shows up in new. It doesn't show up in the OP's submissions list. It doesn't show up in my favorites list. You can't comment on it. The link and even the title were completely removed.
That's sheer insanity. Absolutely extraordinary and wholly, completely unjustifiable.
And if you or I were to make a post about this wild level of censorship of a legitimate and important tech story, it would be rapidly removed also. Most likely, you'd be banned if you kept trying (for something completely different, no doubt).
So can we please not pretend that stories about Musk and fascism are being removed for being 'political'. The YC people have picked their dog in this fight, and are very much trying to tip the scales in their favour by censoring the users of this platform.
Like, I can still comment on other flagged stories even now, but on that one I couldn't. It's since been unflagged, so I guess I can't prove it, but I've never seen this site act like that... Real memory hole stuff.
And during that time it was removed from the submitter's page, the new page, and my favorites (it's back now).
Would have to have been a pretty weird and consistent glitch for a site that hasn't changed much in like 20 years.
Half tempted to email HN and ask what was going on there, only I wouldn't expect honesty.
>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
In the last 24 hours there have been three Musk stories and seven Trump.
I can see both sides but Americans in particular tend to turn any forum for statups and intellectual curiosity into Trump Musk Trump Musk Dems Repubs Trump etc. There are other forums where you can of course do that.
Protests are what Trump wants. He would like nothing better than marshal law and cancelling the mid terms. He has said so many times.
ICE has arrested and deported far more people from Texas than Minnesota (e.g. https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-immigration-crac... https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-states-ice-arrest-immigra... https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/im... many other sources can easily be found).
You don't hear about it so much (unless you go looking) because Texas isn't a sanctuary state. Texas law enforcement supports and assists ICE, and Texas government officials don't encourage protests (and would tell protesters, if asked, not to obstruct and not to resist arrest). So there is no major conflict, minimal protest, and essentially no news coverage.
Minnesota government officials, on the other hand, seem to be interpreting 10A well beyond any precedent I ever heard of, and don't seem particularly interested in the consequences of the Supremacy Clause. In fact they have repeatedly falsely claimed that ICE are "not real law enforcement".
Let's not forgot and/or (3) going after Minnesota voter roles (per this letter from Pam Bondi):
* https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/...
* https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bondi-minnesota-voter-rolls-wel...
This is obviously violence directed at Minnesota, who is led by a political opponent. It’s capital F Fascism and everyone on the right has grandfathers that are ashamed of them.
They did; see my other reply.
There's plenty of German heritage in the US. There was a decent number of grandparents who thought the US was on the wrong side of WW2.
It's called being pro-rule of law.
You're not allowed to just shoot people in the back that are very obviously not a threat, even if their idiotic lack of proper training makes them feel like they're in danger. It's literally South Parkian "they're coming right for us!!!" -- BANG -- as justification for lethal force of an unarmed person in custody.
The mainstream media is not covering the many daily protests I see in my area, and hear and see from friends and family elsewhere. However, I do think the majority of Americans do not have the luxury (or fear of losing their job, and thus their healthcare, etc) to just walk out on their jobs or responsibilities, and the social safety nets here are limited (and being further cut by this administration).
I do think a general strike is the last chance at a non-violent resistance, but the oligarchs and powerful can weather that storm much more easily than the average American.