randant

College, all of a sudden, went from "something I'd like to do if I can get in" to "a lifeline in an economy where blue collar jobs are going to shit."

Hey we all remember 2020, right? When we voted out Donald Trump the first time??? That was a thing that happened a mere six years ago, and yes, America subsequently massively fucked it up and voted him back in, but we did remove him by voting once before.

Anyone also remember 2024, when Jair Bolsonaro was removed by voting in Brazil? And when he tried a coup, Brazil actually fucking punished him, disqualified him from running, and sent him to jail, instead of letting him off scot-free to do it again?

Also a spate of worldwide post-Trump elections, where the far-right wasn't in power per se but was gunning to be, and voting ensured they stayed out (2025 Moldova, 2025 Romania where massive protests annulled Russian meddling and forced a re-run where the pro-EU candidate won, 2025 Canada where the Conservatives lost after previously being up 20 points, 2025 Australia where the far right was just fuckin wiped out, 2025 Netherlands where Geert Wilders lost, AND SO FORTH).

And of course, the result referenced in the original post, 2026 Hungary where Viktor Fucking Orbán was removed by voting? Despite the massive structural hurdles facing the Hungarian voting public, far more than is the case in America even now?

(Lololol the Kremlin and Trump have immediately pivoted to "Orbán who? Never heard of him. Never knew him. Shh.")

Anti-voting has always been a deeply stupid ideology by people who want miraculous revolution to be suddenly achieved with no downsides and no widespread catastrophe, by doing nothing more than posting violent rhetoric online. Because they have no interest in actually doing the kind of hands-on, slow, systematic work that leads to positive social change in real life, and because they have no understanding of how anything actually works.

Relentless, hypocritical, purity-test politics are literally the best friend of authoritarians everywhere, because they ensure that liberal/left coalitions will never get their fucking act together long enough to put their weight behind the non-authoritarian candidate.

We've all said this before, but sometimes it bears restating.

Nobody has ever suggested that social change can be achieved solely by voting in decent or lesser-evil candidates. Voting is one tiny part of that effort. "Oh so you just want us to vote and do nothing else??" No. No, nobody has ever said that. You can and you should do a lot more than that: protest, mutual aid, fundraising, organizing, pressure campaigns, community protection groups, literally whatever. You can and should continue to hound the politicians you voted for if they're not living up to their campaign promises, as long as you actually voted for them in the first place.

The medieval peasant I went back in time to give a bag of Doritos to, concerned: what terrible and powerful sorcerers they must have in your age, to be able to veil the vault of heaven itself from view, as you say

Me, sniffling: I didn’t realize, I can’t, it’s so much, I, I… are the chips good, at least?

Basically, people are using their key fobs to set off their car alarms when they see ICE.

This is effective for several reasons:

Obviously, it alerts everyone that something is wrong. Given ICE has been terrorizing Minnesota, people are likely to immediately know it is ICE. This gives people time to flee or barricade themselves in their homes.

ICE loses the element of surprise.

We have this idolized AND sanitized version of what happened then, and so we do not recognize it when it happens now.

Resistance fighters assassinated nazis and blew up weapons and infrastructure and destroyed records and forged paperwork and raised secret funds and smuggled people in vehicles and yes, hid them in their homes.

“Well it’s sad he got sent to an ICE camp but he faked his permit :/“

Whoever helped him fake his paperwork did what fighters in ww2 did. People who cut through chain link fences do what fighters in ww2 did, people who blow whistles chasing after ice cars do what fighters in ww2 did, people who destroy arms factories and cop city cranes do what fighters in ww2 did, people unmask agents do what fighters in ww2 did.

People are doing it now! They’ve been doing it now! You keep saying “oh if this happened here__” it HAS! It IS!