That instance is infested with scumbag tankies who white wash genocide, oppose self-determination for independent countries and support imperialism and authoritarianism.
I do wonder if there will be any bottom up resistance to the Trump regime. Things like regional refusals to implement at least some of the orders, occupation of federal buildings, detainment of regime thugs, blockade of key infrastructure nodes (airports, major highway nodes, ports etc.), detainment of senior oligarchs and collaborators.
I recognize that in the US context even talking about such things is both controversial and would be seen as a sort of a fever dream, but in the global context this is not unprecedented.
From living in the US, I don't think there will be any bottom up resistance (at least initially). US is simply too well off (on a relative basis) for most people to care, there is a strong belief in US institutions (for better or worse) and many people are brainwashed by oligarch propaganda.
That being said, these sort of things are by definition unpredictable.
The White House said on Friday that the new tariffs on Canada and Mexico will take effect on Feb. 1, denying a Reuters report that they would be delayed until March 1.
So did the tariffs take effect or not? Or are they supposed to be announced closer to the end of the day US time?
It depends how you use these platforms. On reddit, I go to a few somewhat niche subs (via a direct bookmark link) so I don't see any content outside of those specific niches.
On lemmy, I use this account for news/global politics, but I also have an alt where I only access content from subscribed communities and there is minimal politics.
It's been a long time since I lived in the US, but I do remember not being convinced by the sincerity of many senior politicians around things such as abortion, free markets and so on. It felt like a ruse to gain/maintain power and promote the interests of whatever oligarchs they were working for.
One notable example would be local senator Rand Paul promoting the use of ivermectin for COVID a few years ago.
I had several acquaintances who studied to become doctors. From my interactions with them, I got the impression that the US medical education system was rather demanding and did not allow for random degeneracy.
I believe Paul finished a highly competitive US medical school, so it is reasonable to assume that the tantrums around using ivermectin for COVID were driven by political considerations. It seems that Paul knew that it was not a legitimate medicine in context of COVID and he knowingly promoted misinformation (and put people at risk) for political gain.
Is this a similar sort of scheme? i.e. Tuberville's granddaughter is actually vaccinated and her parents and Tuberville actually support vaccination in private but Tuberville is acting out publicly for political reasons? I am assuming it is not possible to find out whether his granddaughter did or did not get vaccinated (medical privacy).
It seems like the only semi-viable alternative to oligarch run social networks.
I am not American, but the behaviour exhibited by oligarchs such as Zuckerberg/Musk (and these are just the ones that get in the news) is not at all surprising.
US authorities didn't even bother prosecuting specific individuals from HSBC's US branch involved in money laundering for cartels, HSBC's US branch only had to pay a fine.
I overall sympathize with the message of this article. Defeatism is of course never an option and historically oligarch/plutocratic regimes tend to succumb under the weight of their own contradictions (I am talking in the long term).
However, the last paragraph doesn't sit well with me:
The Trumpist movement that ascended to power on Monday is relying on a tired, defeated America, one too diminished to do anything but submit to their demands and schemes. But the American spirit is indefatigable: it loves freedom and equality, abhors tyranny, values minding your own business and hates, above all, to be told what to do. When Trump was last in office, Americans found, at the end, that they did not like it. They will not like it now, either, and that dislike, however tardy, will have political consequences.
People in other countries do enjoy being told what to do? In many, many countries people have fought (and continue to fight) against such overwhelming odds that are inconceivable to the average American. And is it wrong to say that perhaps at least some Americans do like being told what to do? As long as the correct marketing/polemical approach is used (e.g. oligarchs promoting their interests/corruption via PR strategies that leverage copytext with an emphasis on polemics around "freedom" and "individuality"). This is of course not unique to the US.
Either way, we are all in for some interesting times.
This is like a weird personal thing that I can't even explain. For whatever reason, the Y axis becomes labelled as X in my mind in random situations. And I use charts (and other data visualizations a lot).
The funny thing is when I am thinking of X, I don't have this urge to call it Y. If I am looking at horizontal, X is the first thing that comes to mind. But not with Y.
Boycotts don't really work. Is there a good example from the last ~40 years of a successful boycott?