If you started paying attention to the US in 1960, this sure feels like the darkest timeline. But unfortunately, purges against Black & brown people are normal US behavior.

You know what's NOT normal US behavior?

This is the first time there's been a mass movement to STOP a purge in real time.

Sure you're making history.

Don't expect anyone to respect it.

Do we wish Americans Happy independence day'?

From who exactly?

From the thousands dying now abandoned by USAID, or those in Ukraine who suffer by the reduction in military aid? Or maybe from Palestinians shot by so called 'American aid contractors'? Or maybe the 132,000 trans people who will now be denied medical care?

Yeah. Happy 'Independence Day', assholes.

#happy4thofjuly #july4th

I know you want to reassure people that "It's been bad like this before", but—

Never before has a president been RE-elected—AFTER 2 impeachments.
AND an attempted coup.

Don't normalize unrest and oppression. Your good intentions are a complex form of denial—search yourself for this flaw before you double down.

And the "How DARE you question my intention!' defense has already been discredited.

No one should be reassured until this crisis has been ACTUALLY defeated.

This is happytalk by deniers.

Just because the bad guys are bad, doesn't the opportunists aren't thirsty.

'Americans on Mastodon' are best served by ignoring opportunists, and their happytalking co-opters . . .

This is a great, informed take. Not rose colored glasses but forward thinking and historically grounded. I couldn't agree more about the whole 'this being the worst timeline' being really problematic. That's a cop out; that's throwing your hands up; that's giving yourself an excuse to give up and not try. It's showing a lack of imagination, if you truly cant think of worse things. There were times during the Cold War people lived in constant fear of nuclear annihilation. It's also showing a lack of historical knowledge, especially knowing that the underlying issues of what is happening (racism, sexism) are foundational particularly to Western culture, and human culture in general. We've never actually had a reckoning with our past (or present). To think that these issues were just going to go away quietly is naive, or that somehow with education we had suddenly become not-racist. It's also not surprising that we are having a hard time forming a coherent resistance party given how much technology has changed politics in the last 20 years, and given the diversity and complexity of global problems we are facing. Let's give this issue, the rise of violent ultra-nationalism in the 21st century, its due as the complex historical problem that it is and not get frustrated when we can't solve it or defeat it in six months. But like you say, there are signs that American society as a whole, not just those directly persecuted, are resisting in ways that are novel. We are far from powerless here and I'm really tired of takes that paint us as such.

#USpol #CanadaPolitics #EUpol #resist #NoKings #Protest