I agree to a certain extent, but at the same time - what level of responsibility do we really have?

I’d say it’s virtuous to keep yourself educated, but it’s also virtuous to realize your limits and to recognize when you should trust others on things beyond you. No one can know everything, and being able to weigh conflicting accounts accurately is a rare skill

Humans naturally drift to a certain distance from their perceived community consensus. Like the Overton window, or the whole concept of “normalizing” things. Our beliefs are relative to our society

Propoganda hacks this. If you hear something uncontested frequently, you start to internalize it. It happens without actually processing the information. If people around you generally seem to hold an opinion, your opinion is relative to this - except with social media, algorithms purposefully distort what you are exposed to

It just doesn’t seem fair to blame people for not rising above their own nature

Let’s say you have this test. If a few people fail, you can blame them. If half of them fail, you have to blame the teacher or the curriculum

If when you do something to a population, then get consistent results statistically, it’s not fair to blame people for not being outliers

Also, a lot of people are in a bubble when they go online. Maybe they go to their favorite news site, maybe it originates from Facebook, Instagram, tik Tok, even reddit at this point.

Their Internet bubble isn’t the same as yours, and a handful of people are purposely manipulating what people see. They edit Trump’s speech and package it by explaining what he actually meant, and so when they hear “Trump said he’s not sure if he has to uphold the Constitution” they’ve already got it ready to go in their heads “oh, that was out of context, he meant his lawyers are interpreting the constitution”

So… Have you given up on all bloodless paths? In that case, why worry about the Democratic party at all?

We’re too late to avoid mass suffering. We’re to late to go back to normal. We’re not too late to ride the wave to somewhere better.

There’s no giving up. That’s just letting the fascists win. Things look bad, things are going to get worse… But it’s far from over

We have to pursue all paths, all the time. We have to look for the cracks. The midterms are way too late to save us… But the pressure of the upcoming midterms are felt today, they can force resistance today

It kinda can… This brand of incompetent fascism at least

Who are key holders of power right now? Trump and his backers haven’t solidified their control, the military leadership is balking at the incompetence, the judiciary is realizing if they cave to Trump they’ll give up all power, and the oligarchs running the media and economy are getting cold feet

They still need Congress. And with Musk proving himself incapable of primarying anyone, the. Cracks are forming in the solid front they had initially… The tea party turned maga was able to take over the party for exactly that reason, and now Trump’s endorsement is becoming a liability. Hell, even MTG is making moves to break with Trump

We don’t have to wait for elections to make a difference. The fighting oligarchy tour is making everyone pay very careful attention to election projections - in special elections we’ve already shown the game has changed

We don’t have time, because this is our chance. Both parties are in turmoil, and the people are louder than ever. And most of what Trump has done hasn’t actually hit people yet… This summer is going to be rough

This is the greatest chance the left has had in a century. If we can lock into what we do next and unite, Trump could be stopped and the midterms could be a true tuning point. We could get the momentum to fix things

Or, we can let the democrats come back in and grandstand about civility and reaching across the isle to the monsters.

The Democratic party is going to win in a landslide the next two elections, whether in their current form or under new management

And what is the other option? Start up a third party? We don’t have time for that.

If the stars aligned, best case, it would take a bare minimum of 2 election cycles to get a party established. One to get enough seats to form a voting block and gain legitimacy to the average voter, then another to gain enough seats to be more than a side note

And meanwhile, Democrats will still exist, and since they hate the left more than fascism they’ll still fight tooth and nail.

We don’t have time or other options.

Oh, I’m certain they’ll fight, but I’m not talking about changing the party. I’m talking about taking their base to take their seats

I’m talking about a hostile takeover, we make a big enough faction and we can take the party, along with the infrastructure and less involved voters

Why do you think they’re trying to kick out Higgs? It’s not because they think he’s more dangerous as an independent

How does that help anyone? That would just be performative

The Democratic party is right there, and it stands for nothing. It has all the infrastructure set up already. So let’s take it.

Let’s tea party the Democratic party and force them left, kicking and screaming. Let’s build a large enough faction of actual progressives and leftists that Democrats are forced to come to the table. We flip red seats and take vacant ones. Then we primary incumbent Democrats who don’t get with the game plan

That’s what the whole fighting oligarchy tour is about