Freethoughtblogs has a podcast coming up on Saturday, at 4pm Central time. Get your injection of liberal tears then!
(Actually, we’ll try to talk about productive directions, like how to help the people who will be most hurt by this new administration.)
Warning: News outlets will not be the only ones repressed, over time, as this new administration gets firmly entrenched in the government, sites like this will become targets. It has already been called out by a second-rate religious organization (AiG). Call me negative or pessimistic if you like, but I think radical is more accurate. It is going to take more than we are realizing to turn the boat around.
In case I miss this let me point people to https://fastdemocracy.com. You can use it to track topics or bills of your concern, on state and federal levels. The free level does all I need.
I intend to keep an eye on the Iowa legislature when their next session starts in January. If I succeed I’ll earn the blog name given by my parents and an anagram generator(hardscrawler). It would be beyond me to do that for Senate and Congress.
I should add, guess I’ll make myself visible.
Might be worth setting up your own local “internet” so-to-speak using something like kiwix. A local snapshot of wikipedia weighs in at 103GB but worth it even if you aren’t a data hoarder. Seems to be updated about once a year. As of today, the kiwix library has 700+ sites for download, much of it STEM related.
I think the Blue states need to seceede. Take the majority of the military including the nukes, offer refuge and asylum to those from the red states wanting to leave and then let those who created and chose Trumpland rot in the the hell of their own making. Quite seriously. ideally an amicable split with the relatively well educated, urban democratic places have better economies and policies and -if allowed to go their own way abetter future free of the hateful, narrow-minded Trumpist garbage that really is so much of the Repug Americans.
Let the Blue states be ruled by reasonable people and science and the red by the trump kult and Gee-bus and see how they compare and go. There’s already so much hate and division from the later to the former, well, see start of paragraph.
There’s one country on the planet where something like Project 2025 has been implemented – its Taliban ruled Afghanistan and its not a nice or successful place. Okay, in fairness, I guess there’s also Saudi Arabia although they have somewhat liberalised letting women drive now and also Iran and a few others maybe.
I wonder if the
I wonder if the red states will still think there’s a magic hurricane making and driving weather control device when Trump is in charge and ever more frequent and devastating hurricanes (& droughts, heatwaves, floods, etc..) continue to pummel the USA?
(Plus the rest of the world too.)
!
@ ^ John Morales : Yes!
Right.. So, the three of four of them, based on the election map from this latest disaster? How do you plan to move all the military bases, and nukes, from every red state? While I don’t disagree with the sentiment, the current idiocy climate is such that we would end up with the “blue states” being Gaza and the “red states” becoming a new Israel, complete with their own f-ing version of Netanyahu. I am sure that would totally work out great for us…
I say we buckle down, wait for all the morons that went pro-Trump for various stupid reasons realize just how much of a disaster they created, then let them bleed to fix it as well. Because even trying to secede would first require consolidation of everyone that gave a damn to one side of the country, and throwing out any idiots that refused to see reality, and unless the literally entire military (or a huge majority of them) wanted to go against the US government, and also all move with us to one or the other coast, to consolidate power in a clear, non-isolated, region of lands, well.. maybe you haven’t been paying attention to just how divided those blue states are from each other geographically…
Kagehi @9 is right about the secession, of course; but I still think it’s a wonderfully snarky fantasy. 8-)
I’ve got a better idea that doesn’t kill anyone.
Secede in your own head.
That means disengage your attention from the Red States and the Federal government as much as possible.
Help the people around you as much as you can.
Keep track of the news if you want, but don’t care too much about it. It will be horrible so you don’t have to be surprised about it.
@9 – Kagehi
The only real action is to wait. Give the Trump puppets time to make life unbearable for as many of their followers as possible. It is assured they with cause MAGA damage. This may take 2 – 4 years. These people can’t be that blockheaded that enough pain and misery wouldn’t change their minds. The cliche give them enough rope to hang themselves fits here. In the meantime, maintain a low profile. Remember Trump said, “I am your retribution.” By stirring the pot, you will bring attention to yourself. We aren’t there yet, but making a scene could cause a Brown Boot reaction throughout America. Trump has said he will use the military against Americans. We must avoid making them any worse. Giving them ammo is not the correct action now. As much as it hurts right now, let them gloat, let them be smug. Out rights, privileges and freedoms are going to be taken away, we must accept this for now. There is one deterrent still on the table, the House of Representatives is still up for grabs. The Dems could still win it, the margin would be extremely narrow, but it may be the only stopgap we have for now.
@11 raven
Agree, must purge the current state in your mind, need to reset and realize we need to fight in a different direction. Continue to be civil, it will set an example. We cannot let go of civility. And yes, there will be much consternation, but if you know it’s coming it can be tolerated.
Just going by past GOP failures, it will take a long time for the Trump regime to wreck the USA.
.1. It took Reagan 8 years.
He tripled the national debt with his tax cuts pay for themselves myth. His policies set the stage for a recession during his succeeding George HW Bush term, which helped Bill Clinton get elected as repair person.
.2. It took George W. Bush 8 years to wreck the USA. The wrong country invaded, Iraq and the Great Recession at the end of his term.
.3. The first Trump term was a disaster with notable incompetence. It still took 4 years.
The USA is very large with 333 million people and the largest economy in the world.
There is a lot of momentum here.
It is just hard to send the USA to the bottom of the metaphorical ocean. It will take a lot of GOP time and effort. I wouldn’t expect it to be obvious for at least a few years.
Don’t stay up late and do keep up with your hobbies.
I’ve already seen a hint of what the next 4 years will be like.
Some MAGA guy was downtown trying to start a fight or fights with someone and anyone.
This poorly dressed, creepy looking guy with a prominent MAGA red ball cap with an American Flag on it was hanging around doing nothing on the sidewalk in front of the local sidewalk cafe. He tried to talk to a few people, all of which just got up and left.
The USA might be Red but my local west coast town is definitely deep Blue.
For anyone still terrified, I suggest you go over and read GAS’s post, How to Not Fear Conservatives. We need to stay calm here.
So far the post-mortem prescriptions for the defeated Dems is “Throw the minorities under the bus–especially the trans–and pander to the white, racist, working class rubes.”
@ 12
“These people can’t be that blockheaded that enough pain and misery wouldn’t change their minds.”
They will never blame Trump.
They’ll blame divine wrath because they haven’t yet killed all the gays and atheists
They’ll blame the “chi-coms” and, of course, the Jews.
They’ll blame the few lingering liberals who haven’t been executed.
Except when it doesn’t.
Philosopher Michael Ruse dies
I live in a red state, so I deal with conservatives all the time. Most of them are good people, but lack critical thinking skills. My aunt who lives in Illinois voted Trump all three times he ran. If I were to ask her why she hates me (disabled, and unmarried and childless by choice), she’d be gobsmacked. Of course, I know she doesn’t hate me, but she lacks the thinking skills to understand why it might appear that way. Part of it is that she was diagnosed with epilepsy when she was young and took phenobarbitol for many, many years because there were no other drugs available at the time, part of it is that she is desperate to belong somewhere because she feels like the black sheep of the family (her brother is a conservationist and editor, one sister a microbiologist, the other sister a science teacher, and I think that since she majored in music she feels like she gets looked down on a lot), and part of it is that she is part of the Catholic church and seems to feel that she can’t do anything that would make appear to be less of a Catholic. It’s not that she doesn’t have a good life–she does, and she’s very happy, and a great person to hang with when she’s not talking politics. Some people just feel like they have to be pushed into a certain niche because of who they are. For example, I had a friend a few years back who kept saying that he couldn’t do something because “that’s not how it works in the gay world.” I told him he should focus on how things worked in his world rather than trying to fit himself into some preconceived notion of who gay people were supposed to be.
Akira MacKenzie #16
Anyone who wasn’t already saying that years ago? Why should we care?
This is your two-minute warning…
so… possible time mixup, some of us are ready to go and some are not… not sure how much of a delay this will be.
Raven @9
This is the way. Grey rock any maga asshole in ur life. They want a reaction and they hate being ignored. Don’t respond and build up a community around you of decent people. People who voted for Trump after the first 4 years have shown you who they are. Fuck ‘em