DocWatts

Diddlin' Don is clearly winning bigly with the American people

Update: more than 7 million people showed up for No Kings on Oct 2. That's just over 2% of the entire population of the United States. (Also: as far as I know, there were ZERO acts of violence or property damage from the thousands of protests that were taking place, by the way. This matters because of how laughable the wanna-be dictator's attempts at fear mongering turned out to be).

To be clear you made two claims. Stating that he got 78 million votes: true statement. Going on to claim that a majority of the country supports him: not even remotely true. The best propaganda is based on a kernel of truth that's been contorted to serve a deceitful narrative. The Big Lie here is that Trump's authoritarian power grab is somehow justified because a majority of the country supports his actions - this is, and always has been, utter horseshit.

Greetings from Detroit!

That's not even remotely true. Less than a third of American adults voted for the wanna-be dictator. More Americans stayed home than voted for Trump. If 'didn't vote' was a candidate, it would have won the election handily. It would be more true to say that apathy won the election. Even among people who did bother to vote, Trump won a plurality rather than a majority. 9 months into his presidency, less than 40% of the country approves of the job he's doing - this is historically low when you consider the first year is typically the honeymoon period where presidents enjoy the highest approval ratings of their entire term. A larger percentage of Americans support having him impeached (52%) than approve of Trump 2.0 (< %40). He's underwater on every single issue, including the economy and immigration. An overwhelming majority of the country, including a majority of MAGA Republicans, want the Epstein files released. Stop spreading propaganda.

What got the country where it today is anticipatory obedience - institutions and individuals obeying in advance out of cowardice and political expediency. Or to quote Timothy Snyder: "Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do." I suspect that folks pooh-poohing what's likely to be the largest single day of protest in American history have spent very little time researching how authoritarian governments are actually toppled. Speaking from my experience as an actual activist - one who's involvement in the pro-democracy movement is far more extensive than attending a single protest - I can say with confidence that we don't need everyone to be doing everything, we just need a majority of people doing something. Civil resistance movements succeed when they're able to separate an authoritarian regime from its pillars of political, economic, military, and cultural support. In practice, this is achieved by building a demographically and ideologically diverse pro-democracy coalition while simultaneously fracturing the autocrats coalition. Demonstration like No Kings are important because they draw people into more active forms of resistance, push back against the atmosphere of fear and inevitability that the autocrat is trying to instill in the public, and make it abundantly clear that the regime is weak and unpopular.

We're starting to see seeing this already, in the frankly embarrassing ways that Trump and his enablers are trying (and failing) to discredit and intimidate the No Kings protests - from calling ordinary Americans terrorists to smearing No Kings as a 'hate America rally' to shooting missiles over freeways in California.

"I consider myself an animals right advocate, but we keep focusing on nonsense issues like factory farming." ----> This is you. I'm open to having a good faith discussion about the limitations of progressivism, but I can't take you seriously when you simultaneously claim that racism isn't a serious problem - especially in a context where here in the States we're fighting for our lives against a racist, authoritarian government. Learn to read the room, my man.

And this is how you do nuanced observation on the limits and potential drawbacks of progressivism (I agree with all of these points, btw). This is something which shouldn't be that hard on what's supposed to be a Conscious Politics Forum, but I've come to accept that the 'Conscious' part is more of an aspiration than a description, judging by some of the posts I see here.

Wow, gaslight much? "Minorites don't know how good they have it and the people pointing out racist behavior are the actual racists" - you managed to sockpuppet white nationalist propaganda verbatim. So congrats, I guess. Not sure if you live in the States, but maybe having a loved one disappeared to a detention camp by the secret police for the crime of not being white in Trump's America would cure you of some of these delusions.

Ill give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this isn't a deliberately bad faith take, but if so this is completely delusional.

Thanks! I'll be wrapping up the last section of the book over the next few months, and am looking to release it in the latter half of 2026.

%1000 agree with this.

(And yes, this is actually me in this video ) https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPrW1XLjUQ7/?igsh=bTQzbXphdWp4dXZp

Find your event here: https://www.nokings.org/ Over 2,200 No Kings protests are going to be taking place on Sat Oct 18th, for what's poised to be the largest single day of protest in American history.5-6 million people turned out for the last No Kings, and this one is going to be even bigger. The protests are part of a broad-based pro-democracy movement that's emerged in the United States, which is pushing back against the flagrant authoritarianism and criminality of Trump's regime. Considering that this is a Conscious Politics Forum, if you happen to live in the States I'd challenge you to attend one of these protests - and seriously consider becoming an active member of the pro-democracy movement. Unless you truly live in bumblefuck nowhere, odds are very high that there's a No Kings protest taking place within 30 mins of you. People sometimes ask me what the 'point' of large protests like No Kings are. One aspect is to pull people into more active forms of resistance. But an equally important part is to push back against the atmosphere of fear which leads individuals and institutions to obey in advance. The regime wants you to believe that it's all powerful and that its rule is inevitable, but in actuality Trump is a failing autocrat who's weak and historically unpopular. Millions of people turning out in the streets pierces the myth that the American people are on his side. Fear is contagious, but so is courage.