I'm just like some ordinary dude upset about what the government is doing. Doesn't anyone with any sort of means or influence care? Where are those guys?

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Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

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FireTower@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Do you know the name of the member of your state’s House of Representatives that represents your district? When was the last time you spoke to your federal representative? Do he/she not answer your calls because they have to many constituents? Talk to people in your neighborhood about the need for more representatives in the house.

All sovereign power comes from the people. Read: you are that guy.

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- OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  This is a great way to deflect legitimate blame from the Democratic party representatives and operatives who actually deserve it, as if it isn’t their goddamn job to listen to voters.
  
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  - FireTower@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    How can they listen to the voters if the voters never speak to them. My comment was not on the DNC or RNC but on the core of all forms of representative democracies.
    
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  - FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Yeah, that person’s comment reads like a corporation blaming the individual because they don’t recycle enough, as if the individual’s recycling habits are in any way comparable to the widespread pollution corporations create.
    
    Unless you’re a billionaire or willing to go player 2, you have no meaningful power to change any of this. What you do have the power to do is make your own little corner of the world slightly better, and everyone should.
    
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- Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  I can be polite and qont ham fist political conversations but yeah, don’t give me an opening, I’ll drive the knife in.
  
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- AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  No we are not. Our “representatives” listen to their corporate masters, the ones who line their pockets and fund their campaigns. They don’t listen to us.
  
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  - FireTower@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Re-read my comment above. They only have power which we vest in them.
    
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- shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  LOL, my rep was Matt Gaetz, don’t know the new guy.
  
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ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
This might come across as sickish, but: through what channels could they have an impact? Republicans now control literally every branch of government. The only things that I’d imagine would be effective enough:

1.) Military coup led by someone who could appeal to sense of duty and pull over a Military. chunk of the military. Very unlikely, but theoretically effective.

2.) Very criminal actions that most people of means aren’t likely to entertain as failure means losing their lives one way or another.

3.) Disruptive, mass protests akin to the Arab Spring or similar for an extended period. Which Americans have never really done and which realistically probably just equates to civil war in the current environment.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t think there’s an easy solution, even for those of means actively in government in this moment. You could be a literal judge or Congressman and it would mean jack shit right now. I think #3 is the most likely to maybe eventually happen, if any, but it’ll take a loooooot to finally get enough of us there.

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- Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  I just think there are lots of people that can speak on all of this intelligently and they feel no need to chime in. They are perfectly fine with the media circus and make no attempt to counter their idiot narratives.
  
  I guess they obviously don’t exist, though. If they had the means and care they would have already appeared. 350 million people in the US, and I’m all you got you poor souls.
  
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  - ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    When I worked in this stuff, I was personally aware of Republican members of Congress who saw what Trump was and were trying to stop it. They all either crawled in bed with him once he won, got run out of DC, or sometimes both!
    
    I worked for a law firm that handled relevant federal employee/whistleblower matters. And another organization that attempted to scream about what was happening at OMB, OPM, GSA, etc…etc…
    
    Among the challenges faced by the law firm were the fact that Trump was intentionally gutting/paralyzing the various labor boards and other aspects of the civil service. It was very targeted and intentional. It was a purge, just not the killing part (yet). But as with those screamed warnings about OPM, OMB, etc… who on earth cares and was reading them? You start talking about the evil shit happening at the Office of Management and Budget and eyes instantly glaze over. Even in DC. Even in reporters.
    
    So it runs in some shitty trade publication read by a few hundred people and they all have the same response. “So what do we do!?” But the systems that were supposed to be there either aren’t there anymore, were already gutted while nobody was paying attention to the real, wonky, day to day business of running a government, or just don’t work in an otherwise corroded system. Hell, I personally made efforts and lost friends, family, and a career over this shit starting in like 2014. This has been coming for awhile. We’re officially in it until we’re not.
    
    Sorry for being so hopeless and negative, but I feel pretty hopeless and negative right now.
    
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- jagged_circle@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  General strike
  
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  - shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    
    They only make money because of us.
    
    Lemmy told me the other day that isn’t true. Apparently they’re so rich that their money keeps coming in without us because… Know what, the argument was so dumb I can’t articulate it.
    
    We’ll never strike. Best these people can do is quiet quitting and mumbling about capitalism.
    
    But yeah, a general strike is the most powerful tool I know of.
    
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  - Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    I cant tell you how much I support and love you. You have my complete admiration, I’m not joking. Anything you need and I’m there.
    
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TachyonTele@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
There are people fighting. There are judges across the nation blocking the bullshit that they can. There are lawyers suing to stall and block what they can as well. That’s feet on the ground legal action. There are also federal employees refusing to leave their jobs.

Politicians are in a tough spot. Republicans control every branch of the government. But we both know if the Dems had this much control they wouldn’t be able to get anything passed, so i don’t really know.

Dems should be screaming bloody murder and pitchforking DC nonstop. Other than a very few of them i haven’t the foggiest what they’re spending their days doing.

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AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I’d lay out of the blame on Congress. So many of the destructive I pulses they are carrying out are usurping Congressional authority. They have standing, they may still have the power, they are the only ones that can really stop it. Yet they are majority Republican cult members chosen for loyalty over anything else.

I guess it’s a good example of lower level elections being critical. We lost our checks and balances because too many people also voted for evil or sycophant state “leadership”

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- PassTheChicken@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Jesus fuck man, I’d lay most of the blame on the US voters! Where are the influential guys? Well you all were when you had the chance to vote. Fuck you
  
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  - AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    That’s certainly a huge root cause, but it’s still in Congress’s power. The thing is even if all three branches are single party with slavish loyalty, they are letting the president usurp their authority. Even when they generally agree, where is the self-interest to protect the power they fought so hard to get? They will wake up one day with nothing
    
    Congress also is letting the face eating leopard roam free in their territory. They believe only peons will get their faces eaten, but when that leopard is tired of peasant meat, it will find Congress faces mighty tasty.
    
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peregrin5@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
The younger generation has a problem with externalizing their issues to others without feeling responsible for these issues themselves.

There is always some other party with influence and power who should take care of them like a parent and when they don’t, everything is the fault of that “parent”.

For example, it’s the “DNCs fault” we’re in the state we’re in apparently even though a lot of people didn’t vote and encouraged others not to vote. The democrat party is not some nebulous nefarious entity that exists to cater to your whims. It’s made up of people. People like you who got together with other people to try to enact their views and vision for the country.

If you don’t like that vision, you need to get with other people who share your vision, start from the ground up, win local elections and start changing the party bit by bit. But this is hard work and much more difficult than screaming that the octogenarian politicians are ruining your life when nobody your age is actually doing anything to replace them because no younger people want to become career politicians.

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- shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  The younger generation has a problem with making or receiving phone calls. I wouldn’t look to them to organize a D&D game.
  
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- AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Except when Democrats look at things their people want like universal healthcare or people they support like Bernie and just refuse to do them.
  
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  - peregrin5@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Sounds like the point went completely over your head.
    
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- Krudler@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  My friend, you deserve (I don’t know) some money or maybe a cupcake with like really nice frosting for this comment.
  
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count_dongulus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Technically speaking, you’re looking at what most voters thought they wanted. Seems like the people with the most means and influence are in favor of what’s happening too.

Are most voters easily conned? Sure. The NSDAP won its early seats freely until the other parties were outlawed.

You can at least take solace in that with the deconstruction of federal institutions, your state government and state institutions wield comparatively more power. Don’t live in a poor and/or conservative state I guess?

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- jagged_circle@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Not what most people* wanted. Thats why the US isnt a democracy
  
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  - count_dongulus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    In this case, it is. The Republican candidate actually won the overall popular vote. Was this because of voter apathy? Probably. But we’re talking about “what the people who cared enough to vote” wanted.
    
    …wikipedia.org/…/2024_United_States_presidential_…
    
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jagged_circle@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
You have more power than you realize, but not alone. Organize.

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DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
They’re busy failing to uphold their oaths as we lose our democracy because they live in comfort without fear.

We should change that.

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sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
The people with the means to inact change have spent so long benefitting from the status quo that they had no desire to do so. Now that the fascist have taken power while they sat idly by they are incapable of preventing it. Now the people with power intend on changing things to benefit them more instead of just enjoying their comfortable position. You cannot vote fascism out of power and public officials aren’t going to help us fight them, the ones who might will be purged. We cannot look to traditional authority for guidence here, we need mass actions specifically on class lines. This means joining or organizing a union and participating in mutual aid. This means developing connections in your community so resources can be managed when they get tight and learning skills that are materially useful. Later it may also mean sheltering and assisting those who are persecuted. Personally I am partial to PSL and would recommend them but work with whatever is available to you.

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snek_boi@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Assuming you are American and are referring to the American government, here’s what I think:

What I will say may be polemical. Brace yourself. I understand if you accuse me of being naive, a puppet of the Illuminati, or blind. Here’s what I believe: the future is democratic.

How can I possibly say that when Trump is in power, destroying democratic institutions like a bull in a cybertruck store? Image

(you know cybertruck, the car that breaks easily and cooks its passengers)

It is evident that Trump is an authoritarian populist. <details> <summary> Here’s what I mean by that. </summary> Authoritarian because he disregards democratic processes. His supporters don’t care that he may shackle them and put his hand on their mouths to never speak again. They are fine with that, as long as he builds The Swamp of America, a land where people are obsessed with their own bellybuttons, where everyone works like robots that never question the dogma shoved into their throats, and where corporations can bulldoze and burn the planet and still receive a pat in the back from The Orange Swamp Man because ape see number go up.

And populist because Trump is an Olympic athlete in the highly-unpopular sport of Never Picking Up A Book. Sorry if you already know the rules, but I personally didn’t know them until gramps revealed them to me when he was practicing his TedX Talk, How to Burn Books Without Picking Them Up. The sport itself (Never Picking Up A Book) involves playing golf, watching Fox News, and doom-scrolling on Facebook. Those are the traditional rules, but the lack of viewership lead the international committee to update the rules in the mid 2010s. Under the new rules, extra points are awarded to athletes who insult anyone who knows what they’re talking about. As you can see, populism here means systematically disregarding and discrediting expert opinions. </details>

And it is evident that America is currently experiencing a democratic backlash. There was too much freedom for people, too much freedom to choose who to be and what to do with their lives. People were questioning why things are the way they are. People were questioning why they have to slave away their lives paying college debt, medical debt, and mortgages. People were questioning why drunk Bezos, Musk, and Epstein tightly held the rail of their yacht while vomiting gold-infused vodka into The Swamp of America. The people who most extracted wealth from American people did not want to pay back or invest in its people.

Americans were ripped off by a swindler who sold them a beautiful knife. The knife itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the instructions were hard to follow. Americans have found it difficult to hold the smile on their face while stabbing themselves and twisting.

It’s important to note that not everyone bought the knife and stabbed themselves. Trump won by a slim margin and Trump is highly unpopular. Those of you who are still alive and well can do something about it. In fact, I’m willing to bet you will, because undemocratic governments do not survive democratic electorates.

How so? Imagine this scenario: Give a man a book and he may never pick it up. Teach a man to read and he’ll silently look around, noticing a lack of development and freedom. Teach men, women, children—everyone to read and you’ll have a bustling conversation. “Really? Is that fair?” “Why does the richest man on Earth not want to invest in the roads that his products use? Why does he not want to invest in the people that made him rich?” “My wife and I had bad accidents and we can’t work. Is our society so selfish that it doesn’t care about us?” This may seem cartoonish, but this is how people realize there’s a mismatch between the elite’s way of extracting and hoarding privileges and how everyday people see the situation.

Each critical thought, each enlightening conversation makes the pressure grow, like a balloon getting pregnant with air, ready to burst at any moment.

All of this language may seem allegorical, metaphorical, out of touch, and absurd. But it is based on decades of research on how democracies are formed and sustained. Check out this article and its cited literature if you’re interested: journalofdemocracy.org/…/why-the-future-is-democr…

As to what you can do, I’d recommend learning how to frame discussions. I am learning how to do it. It enables me to have conversations with people in such a way that they understand me, truly understand me, even if they were previously unable to because of Trump brainwashing. And it works compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…/spc3.12501 researchgate.net/…/337861541_Moral_reframing_A_te… (sorry for the paywal; you can usually email academics and they’ll send you the text, or you can find alternative texts or sources).

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neuroneiro@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Be the person you want to help you.

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MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
The people with means think they will avoid being victims of the surveillance state

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letsgo@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
You haven’t said which government so I’ll assume you mean the American one.

There are plenty of people with both means and influence. The problem is that they just got voted out, and there aren’t enough Republicans that are moderate enough to start voting against Trump.

Yet.

And that’s the key thing. As Trump gets more and more trumpy, the more moderate Republicans will start getting hacked off with it all and will start voting against their party, or at the very least abstaining. IIRC the Rep majority is 3, so there need to be 4 Rep abstentions to get a united Dem opposition over the line.

The problem is that doing so is likely to end their political career. So there needs to be some really good mileage in them voting with the Democrats.

As the Republicans hold a majority and all of them are currently with Trump, whatever Trump says goes. Even if all Dems say no, that isn’t a majority no until they start getting some objections from the Reps.

So ultimately the power lies with the voters. If the Reps won’t vote in the country’s interests then the country needs to start voting in the country’s interests. Trump said what he was going to do, and the whole point of Trump is that he isn’t the usual lying politician that says whatever it takes to get into power then does whatever they want anyway. So “I didn’t think he meant it” isn’t going to fly when Trump does what Trump said he would. (Although obviously he didn’t end putin’s war on day 1, so the list of Trump’s broken promises is already not empty.)

There were plenty of non-voting voters who could have made the Reps a tiny minority. But for some reason they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Harris, so they opted out. Personally I’m surprised she couldn’t win simply on “I’m not Trump”.

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squid_slime@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Capitalism is rigged to promote a certain kind of individual. People who are willing to step on others. So while there are outliers most of the people to have climbed the ranks are quite happy with the status quo and will act within theyre class interest and push workers to act against theirs.

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FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
No one with any real power to make meaningful change cares, because they’re benefiting personally.

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timewarp@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
People didn’t care when Biden was funding genocide, this is just the inevitable next step. Your Democrat reps will send strongly-worded letters to let Republicans know how upset they are.

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- SolidShake@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Do people care that trump will fund a genocide?
  
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  - timewarp@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    They would have it Democrats said they would stop unconditionally supporting Israel.
    
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adespoton@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
They’re the ones silently benefiting?

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- Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Yeah, those guys.
  
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Heyting@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Anyone with any sort of means of influence has a way to profit off of the situation. Resistance needs to happen from the bottom up.

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LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
You’re just coming to grips with history. People with means and influence make it happen and the rest of us watch and hang on.

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A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
You’re just not reading any news at all, huh?

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Ildar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Вот сейчас вы нас поймёте

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