politics

Peak centrist dad having his quarterly awakening moment. Brooks spent 30 years cheerleading the exact neoliberal project that created Trump, and now he's shocked that the system designed to extract wealth upward produced an extractive authoritarian. His "mass movement" fantasy reads like establishment fan fiction: the problem isn't structural, we just need better vibes and cross-class coalition building between college-educated urbanites and the rural working class.

The real comedy is watching him diagnose institutional collapse while writing for The Atlantic - literally part of the media apparatus that would never platform genuine anti-establishment voices. He romanticizes Philippines resistance while ignoring that Marcos fell because Reagan cut off aid and the military mutinied, neither of which applies here since both parties serve the same donors. His solution to oligarchy? Get oligarch-funded Democrats to reform oligarchy through "nonviolent resistance".

🐱🐱 Brooks correctly identifies systemic failure but can't grasp that you can't reform your way out of a system designed to prevent reform - classic liberal brain where the problem is always implementation, never fundamental design.

1. It's Too Late.
2. It's Been Too Late For Years: this was inevitable, given the balkanization of "education" in the US of A, where only some sub-populations were taught considered-reasoning, scientific-method, etc, where the wealthy could conserve quality-education to themselves, etc.
3. it isn't that the US will sink into autocracy/autarchy for decades, it is that there won't be any functional country left, by 1 decade in the future: US Civil War Part2 is BAD.
4. "status quo" is delusion: it doens't protect anyone.

Seriously, people, read the /news /politics /nottheonion communities 1st set to Controversial, then set to New, then ask yourself what happens when the hugest military-industrial-complex in the world sets its sights on exterminating civil-rights, citizen's-rights, non-white rights, etc, as systematically as the current regime's Heritage Foundation blueprinted regime-change is doing..

It's too late.

Orient not to "preventing" autarchy, which no longer is possible, orient to surviving it.

Different attitude, & more-likely to save your life.

_ /\ _

Evil has won and has pulled up the ladder behind it.

Power is too entrenched at this point, with technology being an enormous force multiplier. I think the only real thing people can do at this point is flip the fucking table and stop putting more meat into the meatgrinder.

This is why you hear so much whining and crying about falling fertility rates, so much propaganda and push to increase population. It’s the one actual challenge to their power.

sink into

Where do you think we are Dr. Cox?

Gosh, The Atlantic, maybe you shouldn’t have spent the last 20 years shitting on progressive politics and politicians, then.

#NOKINGS This Saturday, find your local protest: https://www.nokings.org/#map

I think we are past the point of protests and need to start a general strike. I don't care if we have to plan it around a certain date like the protests, it needs to be done. Hit them where it hurts, their wallets. And I know some of y'all are gonna say shit like "we're so docile that we have to plan it and we're not just out in the streets all day everyday so it'll never work," and you are absolutely right and it's by design. Unfortunately we are still human and would rather keep ourselves and our families fed and housed and that's exactly what they are taking advantage of here. But instead of complaining online that everyone else isn't doing enough, we need to just work with what we have. And if we need to pick a date so people can get shit together, so be it.

Bitching about how things are and who's at fault is never going to work when we need everyone. I don't care if you are a regretful republican, non voter, or a democrat and I don't care if it's technically your fault, we need everyone. We are all fucked right now. And laughing at your fellow passengers on this sinking ship isn't going to save you, we are all going down.

"Someone else should solve this problem! Think of the children!"

"May sink?" ... bad news, we have sunk. We sunk in it the minute Trump got elected.

I ageee. But at the same time. This is where democracy plays in. Even though I believe trump stole the 2024 election (3 million + purged votes). He won the PV and EC. The American people elected him to lead, as did they with electing republicans to a majority in congress.

THEY CHOSE THIS! Overthrowing the president goes against the will of the people. However, that’s where Congress is supposed to uplhold the constitution, which they aren’t by allowing this pedo to do whatever he wants.

Also, overthrowing the government of the Philippines is a lot easier than the US. Unless we all agree to just tank the economy by not working.

One thing our author forgets about the Philippines and Ferdinand Marcos is that his authoritarianism was going on for years before the uprising. And that his son is the current president of the Philippines.

So I'm not sure it's the great example of democracy over authoritarian cult of personality.