Okay, y’all saw that grim WaPo article describing how the Repubs could steal 2024, right? Or at least y’all saw @ThelmaLou’s post about it?
Suppose it really happens. Suppose they really do shut down democracy in America.
How will YOU react when democracy is no more in the United (or maybe not-so-United) States of America? How will YOU be affected? Should you (and should WE) start planning NOW how we will respond?
Will you take to the streets? Will you merely grumble? Will you just keep your head down and go about your life and not make waves? How do you think you personally will be affected?
Will the free-ish press be shut down? Will SDMB be shut down? Will they really throw political opponents in jail? Will the True MAGA Patriots drag the blacks, gays, transgenders, Asians, Jews, Latinos, etc., from their houses and beat them to death in the streets? Will the people in ALL these groups have to retreat back into their closets?
No, Discobot, this topic is not similar to “If aliens landed, how would Republican and Democratic leaders react?”
Oh wait a minute. Maybe it’s more similar than we thought.
If I thought the average Ameritard would be in the trenches fighting the good fight with me, I’d stay and fight. But the realist in me says, fuck it and go live in Chile and learn not to give a fuck.
As much as I would like to emigrate, the two major obstacles are that most of my family are still in America, and I’m not proficient enough in any languages other than English. Also, if it really does get that bad in this country, I assume millions of other people will have the same idea, and the immigration channels will be completely backed up in every desirable nation. If the trend is not looking good over time, I’ll reassess that option.
I live in California, so my hope is that it won’t become as bad as it would in, say, Texas or Kansas. Maybe there will be a movement for California to secede, but then the Feds will probably send in the tanks like the USSR did to Hungary in 1956.
I doubt I will take to the streets, I’ve never been a very vocal person and I don’t believe this hypothetical dictatorship will care one iota about demonstrations. Maybe I’ll just stockpile weapons and ammo over the objections of my wife. But if this escalates into a full-blown civil war, I’ll give serious consideration to enlisting.
I can envision the first three scenarios happening nationwide, but I think the last two will only occur in localized pockets - the truly hardcore MAGAts are just too outnumbered by those they aim to oppress.
I’m not old (31), but I feel I’ve spent most of my life pointing out the problems of just following culture and not thinking things over yourself. I never felt listened to when I lived in the states. Thus, after I got my PhD, just before Trump took office, I got a nice job in the Netherlands. (which isn’t perfect, but at least reasonable discussion is part of the culture here).
Unfortunately, I am very specialized and most of the jobs in my field are in the states. So there is a chance I’ll have to return to your country. But even if I do have to return I feel like I’ll just look out for myself and those close to me; I don’t care enough about the “american way of life” to fight. I’d rather fight for a culture that deserves me (and actually wants me in the first place, which the USA majority culture definitely does NOT).
No. It would be far more horrible because it wouldn’t seem like anything important had really changed, much. It’d be like a Twilight Zone episode.
We’d be as frogs in slowly boiling water. Clueless. Most of us would be grateful for the hot, relaxing bath after a long day toiling in the Fox-Koch Mines.
Grew up in north Idaho, got PhD from U. of Florida, and now have lived in Netherlands for last few years.
Due to my upbringing I started off as a more-or-less typical republican christian, and by end of PhD I was a flaming liberal atheist. The biggest changes came about because I took the whole christian "“love your neighbors” semi-seriously, started actually talking to my “neighbors” in college, and discovered that christian “loving” was anything but. The final death-nell was in my final years of my PhD, when I realized that there is nothing in the christian philosophy that was making me a better person than otherwise.
The first thing to realize is that it won’t happen everywhere all at once. The people of Alabama, say, will put up with more, sooner, than the people of Ohio.
Which means that the national response to those first incidents will be key. Will Biden mobilize federal forces to run elections, in a state that tries to impose a paper-bag test? Or will it just be court cases and official reprimands that the states pulling these stunts will just ignore?
I’m another American who recognized the long-term drift of the U.S. and moved his family to Europe.
I genuinely think functional democracy in the U.S. is essentially done. It’s not completely dead, but it’s sliding rapidly toward the cliff edge and it would take a herculean effort to arrest the collapse, let alone reverse it and rebuild. The U.S. will be a fully illiberal sham democracy within my childrens’ lifetimes.
So, in answer to the title of the thread, I already did it.
Well it’s been happening for quite awhile and there are three groups: the fascists who are hostile to inclusive democracy; the pro-democracy people who are ineffective in putting forward a resistance; and the comfortable complacents who tell you this is nothing, why back when they were young in the sixties four white people were killed at Kent State and Vietnam, blah, blah, blah.
I don’t think it will happen while Biden is still President. It will happen after Donnie gets re-elected and installed for life in 2024.
I have no family at all, so I can only hope I’ll be dead by the time the shit really hits the fan such that people are noticing it. This is one of the times I’m glad I don’t have children/grandchildren. I’m an only child (so was my late husband) so I don’t even have nieces and nephews. I don’t envy y’all who have to wonder what this country will be like in 20-30 years…
Yeah, it is happening now. The conservative Supreme Court invalidates key parts of the Voting Right Act, protecting the rights of black voters in the south and the southern states immediately start suppressing black voters allowing for more conservative judges to end more protections.
Very apt observation. Between those who think the left is exaggerating what’s happening and those who think it’s a good thing, the door is wide open to the demise of democracy. It reminds me of the scene in Titanic when the crowd starts to panic and violence is breaking out, and one crew member warns, “it’s starting to fall apart!”. Republicans seem not only oblivious to the fact that they faced a violent insurrection in the nation’s Capitol inspired by a lying Hitler Lite demagogue, but they are systematically downplaying it. Meanwhile other Republicans are actively passing legislation to curtail voting rights for non-Republican demographics, and the Supreme Court itself is engaged in ideological bickering never seen in the modern era.
As a side note, over in QZ someone posted a link to the series of press conferences on COVID that were held by the Prime Minister of New Zealand and her Minister of Health. The calm, reasoned, and open dialogue was such a stark contrast to just about anything seen these days in American politics. One was reminded that these were intelligent adults talking, whereas American politics is more like a particularly unruly kindergarten having a food fight, and it’s almost entirely today’s insane republicans who are responsible for that.
As for how I personally will react when it all falls apart, I still hold out hope that America can come to its collective senses. But otherwise, well, I’m in Canada so I dunno – maybe reinforce the border? Build a wall and get the US to pay for it?
The doom is justified. Saying that “The US” will survive is an unuseful reification of America in the same way that environmental skeptics like to say that “the world” doesn’t care what mankind does to it. To put it another way, if democracy dies then it doesn’t matter if America survives.
Which isn’t to say it would be bad for everyone everywhere. But if things become like a combination of Putin’s Russia and modern-day China, that’s no great shakes either.
This is what I was talking about when used the term the “comfortable complacents.” The plurality of Americans who just don’t care about what happens to other Americans because it hasn’t impacted their own lives. Yet.
That’s like saying in 1859 that it didn’t matter if the US survives. Just because current conditions are bad doesn’t mean there’s nothing worth saving.
I think you are misunderstanding my post. The country is not doomed. But things are bad now and might become worse. And that means it will be a hard road for those of us who care.