The general vibe I’m getting from America is that 1/3 are Trumpists, 1/3 are too busy staying alive to do anything else, and 1/3 are waiting for the courts or Congress or the midterms to save them.
Am I missing something?
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Bannonites trying to purge the West Wing:
Skip to 5:30 for the most important bit.
Thinking on peaceful protest and how to make it work.
You don’t achieve political change with witty street theatre. That doesn’t work, and never has. Meaningful protest in a spot like this isn’t about PR; it’s about preventing the continuation of business as usual until the issue is resolved.
That doesn’t require violence. Violence is unnecessary and counterproductive. But non-violent doesn’t mean polite. If you’ve got traffic marshals and a permit from the government, you’re missing the point.
If the protest isn’t disruptive, it’s irrelevant. But again, disruptive does not mean destructive. It isn’t about smashing up a Starbucks, it’s about blocking the streets and making noise. No violence or destruction required, but you are required to get in people’s way and fuck up their day.
Non-violence from the protesters does not magically create non-violence from the police. At some point, the batons and tear gas are going to come out.
Non-violence does not require martyrdom. If they start breaking heads, run. Ain’t nothing wrong with a tactical retreat. But don’t run forever. Get clear of the police violence, stop, turn around, and do it again.
The whole point is to shut down the street; a street full of tear gas and riot cops is shut down just as thoroughly as one full of protesters. Every time that the cops attack is a win for the protesters; they’re expanding the area of disruption. If you can get them to chase you across the city, you shut the entire city down.
The key is persistence.
The US situation is complicated by the demographics. The Trumpeters are in the suburbs, the cities are populated by the left. But the flashy bits of the cities are owned by the 0.01%, including Trump and his cronies. So it’d be good to keep the focus on those, and try to avoid the cheap end of town.
What else? A need to protest is never a good situation, but what can be done to make it work and minimise the suck?
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BLM has used this tactic a lot, unfortunately to very little apparent effect.
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Turkey Time!
Goebbels, goebbels, goebbels…
Wake up and smell the fascism.
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It requires scale. There just aren’t enough Americans of colour to do it solo; the authorities are perfectly willing to besiege (and, if necessary, level. Remember MOVE in Philadelphia?) a few majority-black cities.
This is why it needs to be focussed where the money is. Not the cheap bits of Ferguson, the rich bits of New York City. And anywhere else that there is a building with Trump on the facade.
The idea is to make it impossible for rich people to get richer until the situation is resolved.
Speaking of which: what can ordinary people do to fuck with the stock prices of Trump-connected companies?
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Alt-history.
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There is a slight chance that the GOP legislature are attempting to use Lee to gain leverage on Trump.
There is a much greater chance that they’re using Lee as an opening to expand the war making powers of the executive even further.
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Trumpist purge of the GOP is stepping up a gear, with Russian assistance:
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Lockdown of the GOP-controlled states proceeding smoothly:
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McMaster was installed in a hurry, as an attempt to quiet the PR damage from Flynn’s dismissal. It’s likely that he wasn’t fully vetted for Trumpist loyalty.
It looks like he may have been insufficiently enthusiastic behind the scenes about the Bannonite agenda. Hence, the Breitbart and Russian push to get him ditched.
McMaster has no real authority, anyway; if his advice is ignored, he’s powerless.
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If that is the case, then there is no effective resistance to Trump. And, based on current events and American history, there is going to be war. Korea, Iran, wherever; they’re going to attack somewhere. American Presidents always do.
At the very least, thousands will die. Quite likely, millions. And, again, based upon American history, support for the government and military will sharply increase as soon as they start dropping bombs.
Is there anything that could motivate the non-fascist half of white America to act before it is too late?
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Not really, no. Their kids are the hope, but there is a huge mess of problems with all aspects of politics in the US since our media is filtered through profiteers. The response of the true American left has been more critical of the opposition to Trump, the lay-American (especially the older than 50 crowd) are most sensitive to the military being criticized in any way and media for them is literally full of “it’s no you, the children are wrong” articles even though the children are now in their 30s, and the American far right doesn’t even understand they are extremely right-wing and don’t understand that they are getting more extreme every year. Then again, most Americans have not realized that after cutting tax rates by half the country slid off a cliff for the middle class - so more tax cuts are the solution, after all my chosen pundit told me so. /end rant
At this point I fully expect I will be an expat in the next few years.
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So where in the world do you think is safe from America?
Eventually, the Trumpists are either going to be taken down or conquer/devastate the world. They aren’t isolationists.
The worst case scenario is the global Trumpeter Reich. The best case scenario is Americans deal with their fascists themselves.
In between those extremes is the third option: the Trumpeters are taken down by an outside alliance, led by China.
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Key sentence:
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