That is right-wing bullshit. How about just making things better and better and better. Make things fairer and fairer and fairer. Try to be kinder and kinder and kinder. Forget the imaginary destination that never was, and get your ass on the road that is.
You ignored my other two question:
How do I fight and?
What are you going to fight?
Also, I thought I made it pretty clear that I see America as the problem and that its collapse does make the world a better place.
And what the fuck do you think is going to take its place?
Please answer my questions:
How should I fight? And
What are you doing to fight?
I think America is worth fighting for. I shudder at the thought of what might happen should our country and society collapse.
I write letters and emails to my elected officials in Washington, letting them know I’m displeased with their stances and support for the current administration.
I call their offices and talk to their staffers or leave voicemails expressing my opinions.
I join the local weekend protests when I’m able to do so.
When the opportunity arises, I engage in civil discussions with right-wing friends and acquaintances.
I also engage in discussions on social media, such as Facebook.
Maybe, just maybe, if 51% of the population of this country would do the same, we could win the fight.
I don’t understand why people are shaming anyone for leaving the US. People leave the US for what they perceive as a better life elsewhere all the time, every day. (And people come to the US for what they perceive as a better life here all the time.) What the fuck is wrong with that?
I am an American who has emigrated from the US.
I didn’t leave because I was seeking a better life for myself. I left because my wife is foreign born — from the Mideast, no less — and I perceived (correctly, as it turns out) that social trends were making the US increasingly unsafe for my wife and our children. I left to protect them, and I offer absolutely no apologies and will accept no criticism for my choice.
And for what it’s worth, I do feel guilty about those who did not have the energy, resources, or opportunity to make the same change. I did not dance away laughing, and I do not laugh now at those who remain trapped in the decaying corpse of a dead empire. On the contrary, I remain in contact with people back in the States, sharing the details of my experience and providing as much guidance and assistance as I can for those who wish to follow me. My wife and I have even offered our guest room as a safe landing space for certain of our friends who may find themselves as persecuted refugees due to their status.
I understand that some people are angry at the departure of people like me. Please understand, we did not make this choice lightly. It was difficult to pull off, requiring significant expense and months of concerted effort, but the safety of my wife and children made it necessary. To anyone who judges me and thinks I should have stayed and fought, I do not believe that screaming at the outside of a detention facility counts as fighting. My family comes first, and so we left, and if I had it all to do over, I would make exactly the same choice, exactly the same way.
And if, despite knowing all this, there are any among you who still want to spit venom at me and call me a coward, then you are cordially invited to go fuck yourself.
I think that this is part of the problem. I have cut all fascists out of my life, I think not doing so is normalizing fascism. I refuse to be complicit in their hate.
I vote, protest and contact officials too, but I realize it does nothing but make me feel better.
As for convincing 51%, that just gets us back to the culture that created Trump. Germany didn’t learn its lessons until it utterly collapsed and was occupied. I just don’t see Americans learning their lesson until they’ve experience similar collapse. The entire system is rotten to its core and needs to be torn down.
Not to speak for others but I don’t think it was so much the leaving the US that bugged people it was the leaving the US and then hoping the whole thing and everyone left behind collapsed in chaos and misery after they closed the door on the way out. Since you didn’t do that you’re off the hook.
ISTM @madmonk28 and @Der_Trihs have wound themselves into the same one-trick pony corner. To wit:
- The USA is simply an evil empire, no better than the Soviets in their heyday. And all Americans are complicit in that. You’ve all earned your special place in Hell and I hope it gets nice and toasty for all of you on Earth first.
The problem with that position is there’s nothing much you can do with it other than repeat it over and over. And there’s nothing much anyone can say in response except a) I disagree, or b) you’re wrong.
Either way, it’s not adding anything to any discussion where it’s trotted out.
I’m wondering if certain folks would think about a person of Jewish ancestry deciding that late 30s Germany wasn’t the bestest place to live anymore.
I would argue that people here have convinced themselves that what’s happening isn’t happening and anyone who points that it is in fact happening, is crazy. I’ve said before that Americans are brainwashed, they’ve convinced themselves that America is good and therefore good things will happen. It’s a childish world view at odds with reality.
Trump could disappear tomorrow, and we’d still be fucked. Every American institution is in crisis, the courts, the legislature, the press, health care, policing. We just had troops occupy the capital and we got a bunch of inane sandwich puns here. Again and again, we have avoided addressing the difficult issues in society; climate change, guns, education, etc. and again and again it’s bitten us in the ass.
People here think a strongly worded letter is going to stop fascism. That viewpoint is every bit as empty as you say my point it, but it gives you an out. It’s not your fault because you wrote an email to a congressional staffer.
According to Roper, the only age group Reagan lost in his 1980 blowout was 18-21, and that was by a point; but do go on.
Not white boomers.
Please answer my three questions:
- what am I supposed to be fighting for?
- How am I supposed to fight?
- and what are you doing to fight?
Not all White Boomers! It was my first election and I voted for Mondale.
Oy!
I said “for the many that realize now that they made a mistake”. I’m not talking about total MAGA swill.
To keep it on subject, there is a remnant of about 35-40 percent that are willing to vote for the face eating party. (and that is what the ones that voted, there were also a very significant number that did not vote and also realize now how dumb it was to have Cheetolini as a ruler again).
My efforts will not be for them.
Man, you guys are easily triggered. I don’t suggest you read any foreign press, you’ll collapse on your fainting couch. Everything’s fine. The mid-terms will fix everything.
My mother was born in Germany in 1930 to a family of assimilated, mostly non-observant, German Jews. My grandfather was a decorated WWI veteran of the German army.
In 1939 my grandparents fled with my mother and her sister to Luxembourg, where they lived for two years. In July 1941 they traveled to Barcelona and boarded the Villa de Madrid, one of the very few ships carrying Jewish refugees that was allowed to land in the U.S. during WWII. I have no idea how they knew about that ship.
My mother’s grandmother and aunt could not leave Germany. They were deported to the Warsaw ghetto and died in 1942, probably of typhoid.
All this obviously colors my view of what is happening in this country now, and what my family and I should do about it.
If you’ve ever wondered what you would have done if you had lived in Germany during the rise of Hitler, you’re doing it now.
This expression has been guiding my wife and me since before the 2024 election. What she did was form a local chapter of the Indivisible organization when she learned that there wasn’t already one in our area. It has grown from 12 people at the end of 2024 to more than 550 today. We have organized and attended rallies (our No Kings Day rally drew more than 1,000 people on a rainy day), and send out a weekly newsletter to our members with info about actions they can take to fight back against the Trump administration’s horrors.
My wife retired from her job two years early so she could focus full time on her Indivisible chapter.
That said, we have been considering when and how we might have to leave the U.S. and where we could possibly go. Because of my family history, I can apply for German citizenship. (I am fully aware of the irony of American Jews fleeing America for Germany.) I started looking into this and filling out the forms in the first Trump administration, and I wish to Og that I had completed the process back then. I hope to do so soon.
As Jews, we could apply for citizenship in Israel. Obviously, fleeing Trump’s America for Netanyahu’s Israel is not much of an improvement.
The major challenge is that my wife has three grown children, two married, and six grandchildren. She would be extremely reluctant to go anywhere they couldn’t follow. To say nothing of her brother and his family and my (unmarried) sister. The logistics of arranging a mass emigration of between twelve and twenty people is extremely daunting.
Nevertheless, I have had an introductory consultation with an emigration specialist, and we have had preliminary conversations with the kids about doing this. Much, much more will have to be done, and it will be complicated and expensive. But we can’t rule it out.
I don’t agree with much of of what @madmonk28 has said: the U.S. is not a terrible country filled with terrible people. I (and my wife) also don’t believe that nothing can be done. We continue to fight to save our democracy.
If you try, you may not succeed, but if you don’t even try, you are guaranteed to fail.
It’s easy to feel pessimistic, even hopeless. It’s normal to think that nothing you can do can change things.
THAT’S EXACTLY HOW TRUMP WANTS YOU TO FEEL!
They want you to feel alone and hopeless and depressed. That’s how they win. Millions of people are out there fighting now, in the streets, in the courts, in legislatures, in the media.
One of the most important things that fighting back does is to put you in touch with others who feel the same way, to reassure you that you are not alone, and to give you a sense of purpose and hope. And it may lead to success.
But if it does not, and if we feel that our lives are in danger, or that staying here is untenable for any other reason, we will do our best to get ourselves and our family to someplace better. Our strong preference is to stay and save American democracy, but if and when that no longer seems possible, and if we have the means to go, we will.
No one should criticize another for doing what seems right for them and their family. But saying that America deserves to fail, that two-thirds of the country deserves to suffer because Fox News and several billionaires persuaded the other third that Trump is a genius, is beyond the pale.
But my main takeaway is this: Get out there and fight! It may seem pointless, it may be hard, it may not work. But if everyone gives up in advance, we are all doomed.
- American democracy. Yes, the damage Trump has already done is enormous and will take years or decades to fix. But better a hard fight than the descent into chaos. It’s only too late if we give up.
- Do what my wife and I did: look for a local activist group whose values match yours, join them and take whatever actions they recommend that you are able to do. I recommend Indivisible, but there are many, many more.
- I think the rest of this post makes that clear.
Robert Reich’s advice:
@commasense replied to that, much better than I could.
I only have to add that ignoring history and not organizing and not fighting is what will get us to lose the mid terms.
That video that commasence linked from Robert Reich’s is well recommended.