Skiluros

I find it fascinating that there are still regular references to Watergate in American political reporting/commentary. It just doesn’t seem relevant.

From my contacts with Americans, it seems that anti-trump Americans are in a state of shock (understandable), but still clinging to the hope that their institutions will save them (debatable considering global examples with the rise of authoritarian/corporate regimes in democratic environments; generally a “second term” tends to be a make or break period).

The pro-trump group seems to be doubling down on trump and even low key trying to justify statements like the Gaza annexation proposal by claiming “that’s just Trump, he says things.” Some of the stuff I’ve heard honestly made me a bit uncomfortable (these are people I know well for 15+ years) and I don’t discuss internal US matters with the pro-trump camp.

Good to hear!

Yes, I do think (hope?) that will be another migration wave. Hopefully one that can kickstart organic double digit YoY MAU growth as well as getting total MAUs over 100K.

I agree. That’s why I’ve largely moved off reddit and deleted my twitter accounts.

I would even go as far as saying that the architecture of the fediverse with multiple instances, multiple platforms (Lemmy vs. Piefed vs. Mbin) and multiple frontends has the potential to offer more innovation, a better user experience and better content/communities.

But that being said user growth (via a competitive federated model) is necessary.

It would enable expanded coverage of niche topics of interests and other languages. Potentially more funding for development and administration.

But the most important point is that it would allow the global community to take back digital social interaction from the criminal oligarchs, the marketers and shills and undermine nation state digital propaganda and subversion efforts.

I am talking in abstract, aspirational terms, but still, from my perspective this is all part of getting quality content/discussions.

The sad thing is that even with all these scandals, MAU/DAU growth in the threadiverse is flat.

I will speculate that for many American companies such activities would be a positive element on a resume.

It may make more sense to have public website listing their names, personal details and their role around working Musk/Trump. This is something they are unlikely to be happy about (even if major American tech companies block the website).

Boycotts don’t really work. Is there a good example from the last ~40 years of a successful boycott?

That’s a very good point.

I think that’s a bit too reductionist and negative. Historically there have been rebellions under far worse odds (some successful, some not).

At any rate, it’s probably way too early to make any predictions or conclusions.

That’s the million dollar question.

At any rate I wish you guys luck. A fascist US is not a good thing for global liberal democracy.

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?

Is Tuberville lying?

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).

Or am I overthinking this?

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.

Twitter seems to be in (early phases) of a terminal decline. Advertisers (in the US?) might try to suck up to Musk for political reasons but at the end of the day they want a return on marketing spend.

Getting government services and public institutions off Twitter is a good initiative. Albeit in many countries, Twitter never really had the same impact as in the US. Where I live, Telegram is the source for notifications, updates and news.

Some of Musk’s products already have a stigma attached to them. Considering Musk’s degeneracy seems to be accelerating, I will speculate this will only get worse.

The people who are not comfortable with Musk and his plutocracy have left or will eventually leave his companies. The rest don’t care and arguably their attitude is part of the problem as well.

It will likely take a rather significant change in social attitudes (in the US, but not only) towards oligarchs and corruption to make Musk and other oligarchs take responsibility for their actions and to send them to jail.

The above-mentioned point will take time and if anything it looks like it’s only going to get worse (global rise of right wing movements supporting corruption and oligarchs). The silver lining is that eventually such systems start to implode due to their internal contradictions. Our current institutions (political, regulatory, economic, social) are simply not suited to the complexity and global nature of modern business, the externalities inherent to the information age and the challenges of our time. “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.” I don’t intend to defeatist, on the contrary, I am pointing out that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It just might take a lot of time (and suffering) to get there.