Flag flown upside down as sign of distress outside of US State Department building today

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I have a similar, albeit slightly less doomer, view currently. Focus on the safety and good of your community and loved ones, and remember that nothing is guaranteed to us. Do the necessary good steps like voting and protesting, but don't be naïve enough to think that's the whole of necessary action or a magic bullet to solve the problems. Do the good, but focus on the real workable action in your direct sphere of influence. Cheers.

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100%. Even after he leaves office, is anyone confident that the country will collectively go "well that was embarrassing, anyway, back to normality now!"

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It means he doesn't have the popular mandate they keep claiming they do.

But yes. Half of adults are functionally illiterate. 5th-6th grade reading levels. They can physically read the words, but will only grasp the most basic surface level meaning. Republicans' started attacking education decades ago. This is what they wrought.

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You did choose this through decades of inaction, apathy, laziness, fecklessness. The world kept telling you that something was wrong in your "democracy" and the canned response was, "Haha, not in America - land of the free, home of the brave!" Then one day, with your rights stripped away you all finally say, "Not my fault!" It was, it is, and it will be solely Americans fault. And the longer it takes you to own it and fix-your-shit the more costly it's going to be. As always. Imagine how much easier it would have been had you just mass protested after Citizen's United, for example.

No one is coming to save you. The people who have been standing up to fix it couldn't motivate the rest of you to get off the couch. My suggestion is to stop parroting excuses like, "We are too exhausted to do it", and do it. Look to history for examples on how, and for what real exhaustion looks like. The first steps are usually meeting with organizations already doing something and ask what you need to do.

"But I'll lose my job!" If 50% of the country loses there job then there will be a lot of job opportunities. "But my family!" Ok, then sit there and let your fear keep you from action. Keep waiting for someone to save you. Watch how bad it gets as Americas military falls under the control of a facist regime. Watch as your educational system becomes even more of an indoctrination engine. I wonder which, if any, heinous act by your government finally motivates you enough. The kids-in-cages wasn't enough, I wonder what could be? Possibly nothing.

"Home of the brave". Fucking ha ha ha. "Land of the free". Sure. I have no sympathy for people just waking up now. Where the fuck have you been?

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If I lose my job how am I supposed to heat my house, feed myself and my wife, or treat my chronic illness? Employers don't look kindly on job abandonment, especially to go protest the thing businesses stand for...

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Surely there will be waves of protestors being kicked out on the streets with their families, left to starve in ditches with nothing they can do.

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There are already millions caught in the crosshairs. Its not a choice between doing nothing and saving lives, and doing something and losing them. We are losing them both ways but by doing nothing people evade social responsibility.

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I used to say "You know Monopoly is an old game, because it has rich people in prison". The moment we stopped to hold them accountable, everything went really bad.

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The decades of inaction should be largely heaped at the feet of Baby Boomers, who have sucked up and hollowed out the vast majority of American prosperity.

Everyone else has been carried along in the wake of their outsized cohort's rampage.

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Inaction is an action. The majority are ok with this, otherwise they would have voted.

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That looks like a PieFed bug - the leading # should normally not be parsed into a headline in Markdown unless it is followed by a space. I'll give @[email protected] a heads up!

That said, there's every reason to scream at this point. I wish all Americans seeking to flee the country the best of luck.

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This take is lazy and offensive to everyone who truly didn’t have a choice. I’ve been in school this entire time because growing up everyone told me I could be whatever I wanted if I worked hard. Now that I’ve done that and I’m almost graduated, I’m looking around at a world that is completely unrecognizable from before and hope for everyone my age is at an all-time low. Please enlighten me, as someone who has only been a member of the civic process for less than half a decade, how the fuck is this my fault?

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Here's something we could fix:

We have no recall option! WTF! We should have such a mechanism. We should ask Congress to enact a law where we the people can recall the president via votes if we can collect enough signatures just like we are able to do for other things.

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The flag isn’t symmetrical, which is where the orginial flying the flag upside down comes from. It’s subtle enough pirates wont notice but an experienced British naval officer will and come rescue you.

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This is spot on.

Just as we saw with Boomers in the UK, who happily threw their country off an economic cliff with Brexit, America's Boomers are equally feckless and unrelenting.

People over the age of 70 should lose the right to vote and just focus on being old and retired. It's absurd that to have people constantly voting to chop down the tree whose shade they will never live to enjoy.

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sorry trashboat, apparently you were the king fascist all along

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I apologize to American readers that I was not able to summarize my response into a witty, 30-second sound clip. I see these assumptions made in your response:

a) the only thing you can do is protest.
b) you will have to protest during your work schedule.
c) all employers will fire you for job abandonment if you protest.
d) no employers are equally concerned with the downward spiral that is your country.
e) even with the mass job loses due to job-abandoning protesters you will not be able to easily find another job.
f) no one is doing anything already you can help with.
g)your job/health coverage will be fine as things escalate if you do do anything.
h) no one in your position has found a way to contribute.
i) no need to look at the situation or ask questions because you no you can do nothing.
i) history shows that the safest bet for you and your country is to sit there and do nothing.

The reason Americans don't have the ability to see through flimsy talking points is b/c your educational system is shit, tbh. We told you this too, every year. They are ranked. ie. we put them in numbered order from best (#1) to worst. Maybe you would have heard about it if you stopped yelling about how America is number #1 all the time. Spoilers: They aren't number #1 in education. Clearly.

I don't have the energy or patience to dismantle each possible excuse every American can come up to justify their inaction. They are #1 at that. So the simpler approach is from my initial response: find the people already doing something in your area and ask what you need to do. Do this instead of coming up with reasons not to do it. Do it as an act of faith in your country that you can do something. Do it as an act of freedom and bravery. Dare to do the impossible, like skipping your internet browsing time, to get in touch with people who are doing something. Read books about the sacrifices previous generations made for you to have the chance to sit and post on a non-censored platform like Lemmy. If internet posts can stopped facist governments the you can rely on us non-Americans to get the job done. Unlike us foreigners, you still have the best chance to turn this around.

Also, if you manage to waddle to meet up with some like minded individuals do post briefly here telling other Americans that it's actually not impossible. They are an obstinate people living on the southern border of my country. And although I enjoy ridiculing their weaknesses I would prefer to celebrate their successes, as has been our tradition until very recently.

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a) "Not my fault" should be tattooed on the forehead of every American at birth. In this they're current president represents them perfectly.
b) Lazy, true. I didn't put in foot notes or provide links. However, a clearer example of laziness would be responding to an internet post to complain about how offended I feel instead of starting up a browser and find out what who locally is already doing something, and what still needs doing.
c) If my little post offended you then you are not going to believe what the leader of your country has been saying about my country! He is threatening our soverignty even! So you will excuse me if my response to your offense is this: ..|..

Sorry.

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a) "Not my fault" should be tattooed on the forehead of every American at birth. In this they're current president represents them perfectly.

b) Lazy, true. I didn't put in foot notes or provide links. However, a clearer example of laziness would be responding to an internet post to complain about how offended I feel instead of starting up a browser and find out what who locally is already doing something, and what still needs doing.

c) If my little post offended you then you are not going to believe what the leader of your country has been saying about my country! He is threatening our soverignty even! So you will excuse me if my response to your offense is this: ..|..

Sorry.

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Given that he campaigned claiming he wouldn't be enacting Project 2025 (even though it was obvious he would be), I don't think you can claim people not voting are automatically okay with him breaking that very explicit promise.

No. Americans do not want this. Americans especially didn't want it done by some nutjob private citizen who has zero authority to do what he's doing, and no oversight.

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Flag flown upside down as sign of distress outside of US State Department building today