I feel like I am watching my country descend into the madness of Fascism

[Johnny2X2X]

And there's nothing I can do about it.

If Dems don't win next week, this will be the last free election we have in the US for quite some time.

The Democratic Party is still way underestimating its opponents. The Republican Party has given up using Democracy, they are past that, they no longer are bound by the rules and norms of the American Democracy. The last week’s events make it obvious that the Republican Party will use the government to establish a new version of truth to support their agenda. This is the darkest it has ever been in America. A literal coup is happening right now and there will be no voting our way back to sanity once it’s complete.

These people are fascists, they are White Supremacists and Neo Nazis, they do not care about the ideals of American institutions and laws, they care about power and control, they care about punishing their enemies, and they do not care about the will of the people. The will of the people is not something to bend to for them, it is something that they feel the need to bend to their will. This didn’t start with Trump, this has been being planned for decades. Our Democracy is on its last breath if we can’t wake up enough of our countrymen. Please vote, make sure everyone you know votes, there is no way back from what happens after next Tuesday if enough people don’t vote.

[AJT]

1. And now 45 is sending 5000 troops to the border.

[Johnny2X2X]

2. 500 troops deployed because he wants to do better in an election

This is a warning. Trump still thinks this caravan is a winning issue.

[AJT]

3. According to the Wallstreet Journal it's up to 5000.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/military-to-deploy-5-000-troops-to-southern-border-u-s-officials-say-1540820650

[Johnny2X2X]

4. Typo

5000 troops staring at nothing at a cost of $millions, because he wants to gain an election advantage.

Do not underestimate Trump's depravity. Nothing is out of bounds, he will do anything to stay in power.

[Grasswire2]

5. if you have not already done so...

...pick up the slim book "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century" by Yale holocaust historian Timothy Snyder. It's a really good guide to what we are seeing and what we should be doing. Just $7.95

[Johnny2X2X]

6. Thank you

Part of my despair is talking with good people who are in the hate bubble. All of this last week’s events have a totally different meaning to them.

I am very close to the point where it’s time to flee the US. It’s going to become very dangerous for liberals here.

[Grasswire2]

7. I hear what you are saying.

We will know better in a few weeks how things are going to go.

Remember that his base is a minority. Only about twenty percent of eligible voters put him in power, and he had to have help from the Russians even then.

We are currently under the tyranny of a minority. It won't last forever. He may be an autocrat, but he is not strong. He's exceptionally weak and flawed. And old and demented.

Keep the faith. You're needed.

[lancelyons]

8. You are

[CrispyQ]

9. You are not alone!

We gain control of at least the House or the country as we know it is toast. The damage already done is staggering & he's not even half way through his term. I don't know if the dems as a party realize the true face of the GOP or if they just don't want to broadcast it, for fear of media blowback, although why the fuck not? What we're currently doing hasn't worked or we wouldn't be in this mess. Sometimes I worry that because they work so closely with their counterparts across the aisle, the dems in Congress just see them as people with different views, not the fascist ratfuckers they really are.

Vote like everything you know depends on it, cuz it does.

And my favorite, from DU, no less: Freedom isn't free. You have to pay attention.


on edit: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211338241#post22
There's a link to an article here that everyone should read.

[zipplewrath]

10. You are

This has been building for some time. But currently we are not ruled by a majority. The GOP took actions over 10 years ago to build a governing basis based upon a minority. They have used various tools to accomplish this including voter suppression, gerrymandering, and winning control of key states to give them an electoral college and senate majority inconsistent with their representation. Right now the senate is controlled by a GOP that represents about 30% or less of the population. We have a Supreme court with a majority representation of conservatives despite conservatism representing less than 35% of the population (and much of that would consider themselves fiscally conservative, not socially).

Fundamental to fascism is the idea that there is a population that has the "right to rule". Just having a minority governing a population doesn't automatically make it fascist. However, when a minority begins to believe that they have a right to rule, they tend to defend that, and it tends to narrow, not widen. That tendency then generally leads to the rise of fascism. We are seeing a white population that is attempting to defend its right to rule through a narrowing of participation and solidifying their power. That population is also narrowing, even to the point of rejecting their own members. The GOP has been shrinking, aging, and whitening for decades, with no real end in sight. Even if the democrats manage to win the House, not much will change. The GOP will still control the Senate, the courts, and the White House.

Our only hope is to end the gerrymandering in the House. But that will only address that one house, and some state houses. It won't do much about voter suppression. And the Senate will always be a problem because of the changing demographics of our country where much of the population is drifting towards the coasts and urban areas and away from whole regions. Yet those regions lose no representation in the Senate. And since there is a "floor" to the amount of House representation they receive, it always puts the Electoral College in a slanted position as well. And to a great degree there is nothing we can do about that short of a (dangerous) constitutional convention.

The GOP will literally fight to maintain power, they already are.

[Johnny2X2X]

13. They are white supremacists

They believe white straight Christian males have the divinely ordained right to rule this country.

Gerrymandering being on the state ballots in several states is huge. Here in Michigan we have ballot proposal that will easily pass that will effectively end Gerrymandering.

[roamer65]

11. Don't give up yet.

One week to go...

[WhiteTara]

12. You feel like it is? How about

it is descending rapidly into madness. Work on the GOTV effort, it helps everything.

[TwistOneUp]

14. Please don't make that mistake.

I moved to Switzerland on jan 1 2003 bc I am anti-war. I moved back to the USA not four months later, and I am very glad I did.

There is no country on earth like the USHey. Leaving is, imHo, a mistake. Please stay and help us in the good fight. You don't have to put yourself at risk. Just keep doing this - posting under a private username. A voice is a voice, and yours is worth JUST AS MUCH as anyone else's (sorry to shout).

Democracy means dissent. Dissent should not be a crime nor anything punishable by physical violence. We just need a tune-up, thst's all, and we have the mid-terms for that.

[Johnny2X2X]

15. Appreciate that

Here's the country I feel I live in now though. I feel that we are not long before Trump is calling our Message Board posters critical of him and publishing their personal information. When DU was hacked on election day and shut down, it was a warning.

If you think that Trump won't do this, you are wrong, he would love to publish the names and addresses of his online critics, and there's little doubt the Federal Government he commands could get that information.

[TwistOneUp]

17. I understand your anxiety

I've been hacked; it's no fun.

Get a VPN from a non-US company. I use f-secure's Freedome package (shameless plug) . It's cheap, iirc under $5/mo. Your odds of getting a different IP address each time you use it are quite high, and thousands of others use it, so the IP address you get is not only totally unrelated to you, it shows up in tons of places, and no one will ever know the source IP (i.e., yours).

Then using your VPN apply for a gmail username that has nothing to do with you. No one really cares about usernames unless they're hateful, so if your name is John and you're a mechanic try a username of SurgeonGeorge47, for example.

Between the very popular VPN endpoint moving around and the unrelated username, DU hacks won't matter to your privacy.

[sinkingfeeling]

16. We are.