Well, to be fair, 7 million showed up in the streets on Saturday. Up from 5 million before and up from 3 million before that. The last election was decided by 2.3 million votes.
Edit1: That's not to say don't worry about it. That's to say everyone can show their displeasure with peaceful protest and involvement/activism that will make it clear the people of the US disagree with this corruption. No matter how much any internet groups scream "stolen".
Edit2: people vastly underestimate, in their media bubbles, how many showed up from "red" states.
From the 7 millions that did show up, very close to zero of them will be deciding the next election due to the way the election system works in the US.
>From the 7 millions that did show up, very close to zero of them will be deciding the next election due to the way the election system works in the US.
That's not really true. Check the margins of victory in so-called "swing" states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina) for Trump and compare that with each state's turnout at last weekend's protests.
So no. Many more than "close to zero" of those folks will be deciding the next presidential election.
I think you underestimate how many showed up in and from red states. And how many don't get their news from Fox/NewsMax/Trump/Social. At least that's one good thing about all the AI polluting social media with obnoxious slop.
Ok, so the ones that showed up in red states basically don't count. That's the very definition of a red state. The ones that showed up on blue states as well. The ones in swing states may make some difference, the problem is that they almost certainly already voted blue in the last election. That's why i'm pretty confident that, unfortunately, these numbers won't make much difference.
I also believe you are making a category error expecting the next election to be like the last. His shift in approval has already been ~20% for the worse. And people aren't going to forget the demolition of the Whitehouse for a golden ballroom while Republicans twiddle their thumbs.
I mean, we shut down the government and so now we're just waiting (a year) for the midterms. What else do you expect people to do?
Among other things, people are constantly challenging Trump in court and have reversed many of his policies. For example, my passport needed to be renewed this year and he signed an executive order saying I couldn't get an accurate one. The ACLU sued him and now I have an accurate passport. Living your best life in spite of his attempts to ruin it is a valid form of resistance. He wants to erase trans people. I'm out there not being erased. That's something.
It's about a question of if you get to decide the "sex" or "gender" field on your own documents or does the government get to decide and give you no input and no recourse.
The government clearly isn't shut down. I'm still paying taxes through the eftps web site. Only the parts that the executive wants shut down are actually shut down. Perhaps "degraded" is a better word.
>In many parts of Europe a couple of strikes would have taken place. Usans are numb or has no social conscience and muscle.
Americans are not numb. And we have both of those things, or at least most of us do. What we don't have are strong unions. Less than 10% of American workers are union members.
What's more, for as long as there have been unionization efforts in the US (150+ years), the forces of corporations, aided by the government -- to this day -- have suppressed those efforts -- for a long time, brutally and fatally -- and such suppression (although generally not with clubs and guns these days) continues, often with government support.
As such, even a "general strike" would have minimal effect, as many union members are forbidden by law to strike (in various jurisdictions, police, fire departments and others).
The vast majority of US workers are "at will" workers whose employment can be terminated at any time, for any (or no) reason. Workers can do so just the same as employers, so it's definitely fair!
More than half of Americans can't afford an unexpected $USD600 expense. As such, how many do you expect to essentially quit their jobs (possibly multiple jobs) to join a "general strike"?
Labor and unions don't work in the US the same way they do in say, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and other countries with high levels of unionization[0]
As much as I'd love to see repeated "general strikes" in the US, protesting the anti-democratic (small 'd') assaults on the rule of law, freedom of expression and due process, given the state of organized labor in the US, that's just not going to happen.
As such, we organize where we can and mobilize widely. As the pain comes, more and more of folks will begin to see the problem. I hope it won't come too late.
Well, to be fair, 7 million showed up in the streets on Saturday. Up from 5 million before and up from 3 million before that. The last election was decided by 2.3 million votes.
Edit1: That's not to say don't worry about it. That's to say everyone can show their displeasure with peaceful protest and involvement/activism that will make it clear the people of the US disagree with this corruption. No matter how much any internet groups scream "stolen".
Edit2: people vastly underestimate, in their media bubbles, how many showed up from "red" states.
From the 7 millions that did show up, very close to zero of them will be deciding the next election due to the way the election system works in the US.
>From the 7 millions that did show up, very close to zero of them will be deciding the next election due to the way the election system works in the US.
That's not really true. Check the margins of victory in so-called "swing" states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina) for Trump and compare that with each state's turnout at last weekend's protests.
So no. Many more than "close to zero" of those folks will be deciding the next presidential election.
Edit: Corrected prose.
I think you underestimate how many showed up in and from red states. And how many don't get their news from Fox/NewsMax/Trump/Social. At least that's one good thing about all the AI polluting social media with obnoxious slop.
Ok, so the ones that showed up in red states basically don't count. That's the very definition of a red state. The ones that showed up on blue states as well. The ones in swing states may make some difference, the problem is that they almost certainly already voted blue in the last election. That's why i'm pretty confident that, unfortunately, these numbers won't make much difference.
I also believe you are making a category error expecting the next election to be like the last. His shift in approval has already been ~20% for the worse. And people aren't going to forget the demolition of the Whitehouse for a golden ballroom while Republicans twiddle their thumbs.
I mean, we shut down the government and so now we're just waiting (a year) for the midterms. What else do you expect people to do?
Among other things, people are constantly challenging Trump in court and have reversed many of his policies. For example, my passport needed to be renewed this year and he signed an executive order saying I couldn't get an accurate one. The ACLU sued him and now I have an accurate passport. Living your best life in spite of his attempts to ruin it is a valid form of resistance. He wants to erase trans people. I'm out there not being erased. That's something.
I'm from the UK and don't understand what you mean by accurate passport? Would you mind explaining?
https://www.aclu.org/cases/orr-v-trump
Thank you
It's about a question of if you get to decide the "sex" or "gender" field on your own documents or does the government get to decide and give you no input and no recourse.
Thank you
> we shut down the government
The government clearly isn't shut down. I'm still paying taxes through the eftps web site. Only the parts that the executive wants shut down are actually shut down. Perhaps "degraded" is a better word.
In many parts of Europe a couple of strikes would have taken place. Usans are numb or has no social conscience and muscle.
There was a No Kings protest just a few days ago, millions of people across nearly every state demonstrated against the administration.
>In many parts of Europe a couple of strikes would have taken place. Usans are numb or has no social conscience and muscle.
Americans are not numb. And we have both of those things, or at least most of us do. What we don't have are strong unions. Less than 10% of American workers are union members.
What's more, for as long as there have been unionization efforts in the US (150+ years), the forces of corporations, aided by the government -- to this day -- have suppressed those efforts -- for a long time, brutally and fatally -- and such suppression (although generally not with clubs and guns these days) continues, often with government support.
As such, even a "general strike" would have minimal effect, as many union members are forbidden by law to strike (in various jurisdictions, police, fire departments and others).
The vast majority of US workers are "at will" workers whose employment can be terminated at any time, for any (or no) reason. Workers can do so just the same as employers, so it's definitely fair!
More than half of Americans can't afford an unexpected $USD600 expense. As such, how many do you expect to essentially quit their jobs (possibly multiple jobs) to join a "general strike"?
Labor and unions don't work in the US the same way they do in say, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and other countries with high levels of unionization[0]
As much as I'd love to see repeated "general strikes" in the US, protesting the anti-democratic (small 'd') assaults on the rule of law, freedom of expression and due process, given the state of organized labor in the US, that's just not going to happen.
As such, we organize where we can and mobilize widely. As the pain comes, more and more of folks will begin to see the problem. I hope it won't come too late.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_comparisons_of_t...
We inspired the French revolution and had a 7-million-person protest this past weekend.