Get organized. Nobody ever won their rights by voting, they won by getting together with their neighbors and coworkers and standing up to capital. Unions used to be a major political player in the US, but capital has almost completely destroyed them, with the help of the dems and the repubs. The working class has been hypnotized by trinkets into ceding all political power. We need to claw it back.
Arm yourself. If they get violent, I’m returning the favor.
Do not fear, for fear is your enemy. But there are quite a lot of great suggestions here. Only one note. If you’ll protest, wear a mask and have something for self-defence.
But as a European I really fear for the possibility of might makes right world. We can only hope for continuation of bilateral support.
If you’re in a marginalized group. I guess a self-defence weapon is in order. People can and sometimes are just animals.
Come in Europe 🙂
Just so you know, you probably want to say “Come to Europe”.
“Come in Europe” means “Ejaculate into Europe” or “Orgasm in Europe” in many dialects of English.
Which is fine! But probably not what you meant! Lol
You going to help us get visas?
Wow that’s very forward of you.
We need you in the fight. Buy a gun. Learn how to use it.
They are going to spend those 4 years doing everything they can to fix the next election as well. Gerrymandering, voter intimidation, you name it. By all means hide in bed to get over the shock but, if you stay there, you’ll need to stay there more than 4 years.
Is now a good time to think about a third party? Actual left one. Not 1995 Republicans left.
Absolutely. It always has been, to be clear, but it is always a good time to start. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there’s an org you like more near you and join it, the point is that organizing is the best thing any leftist can do.
To be clear, electoralism cannot and will not save us, Revolution is necessary. Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution and Lenin’s The State and Revolution have remained correct to this day, and are only further proven correct with the passage of time and the accumulation of confirming evidence.
A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds.
I meant even just a bit left of center, just something sane not totally sold to corporate.
Why? The Greens haven’t seen widespread success, to me it seems like we need to look more critically at the failures of electoralism.
Disclosure, an not American. I don’t know much about the greens , I got distributed to get a few weeks ago just for mentioning that whether Stein was legit or not, some of her supporters made good points. USA seems to be locked into a mindset that everything is black or white. If you can’t win the presidency is not worth it. Have Sanders quit the Democrats tomorrow, and recruit a few star player to go with. That would be a real kick in the ass for the Establishment to care about peopl. Think Tea party for the left.
That’s a bit of a misanalysis of the electoral situation. The Greens are that party, and failed to get a dent. PSL is a revolutionary party, but they are still picking up steam. Electoralism will not destabilize the Democrat/Republican duopoly.
It will be strikingly similar to the last 4 years but the partisan narratives will simply flip in various ways, as will those of allied media. The bad things that the Trump admin did in his first term that became suddenly tolerable, ir even “good” under Biden? They will be back to being good again. Dem politicians will be back to calling themselves “the resistance” despite losing another layup because they could not do more than campaign on “at least we aren’t them” while presiding over a genocide and economic decline for the average person, both with intentional policies. Remember that they are all PR and cynicism and are lying to you about what they will do, as they are not beholden to a disorganized public in any way.
To be clear, bad things will be happening. It is only reasonable to feel some despair for them, but if you can allow that to motivate you to substantive action you can escape merely being a witness to suffering and can begin to work materially against it. Much of that suffering was going to happen anyways or a different form of suffering may have happened under a Harris regime. It’s not like Democrats did much with their power, they tend to pretend they have no party discipline or power even when thry have the presidency and Congress, so they allowed the major shifts at state levels to occur largely unheeded and served a right wing agenda at the national level. So it is important yo ask the question of what action you can take that does not depend on expecting Democrats to save you. They won’t. What we need are other organizations, ones that organize independently of ans often in opposition to the Democrats, Dems who otherwise suck up all political energy demanding improvements to people’s lives and turn it into more cops and wars.
So, the two ingredients to effective organizations are political education and organization building. The former is just an organized form of reading and teaching, and it is essential because we have all internalized false ideas of how politics functions. They are taught to us by the ruling interests that keep us disempowered *because * this keep them in power. The latter is about growing and improving an organization so that it can have greater and greater leverage and develop strategies for gaining and wielding power (and power is not things like letter writing campaigns to already-elected ghouls, it is making demands that must be met or else).
You can enjoin this kind of project in many ways. You don’t need to jump deeply into a hardcore organization straightaway; it can be useful to join one that is only oushing yourself moderately at first. Maybe a mutual aid organization or a single issue or single community group. The important thing is that it is of the left and therefore not of thr Democratic party. You can also engage in your own political education independently if you’d like, which can keep the pressure down when you are first starting out with irl left work.
And of course please do rely on whatever community you already may have, including here. I am happy to chat here or via DMs if you’d like and can answer basically any question you might have. I’m also happy to recommend readings that you may find useful or helpful.
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Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to the Workers to protect themselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there’s an org you like more near you and join it, the point is that organizing is the best thing any leftist can do.
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Read theory. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. It will help contextualize what fascism is, what causes it, and how to stop it. I can offer more advanced reading lists regarding Marxism if you’d like, but this is a good starting point.
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Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground.
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Be more industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well. Theory guides practice, which sharpens theory to be reapplied to better practice.
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Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. The Democrats will not save us, we must do so.
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Be persistent. If you feel like a single water driplet against a mountain, think of the Grand Canyon. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
Spontaneous revolution/organisation for revolution has been promised for a long time, and is no closer to happening.
Pretty sure most of that is just him advocating for mutual aid/defense networks at the local level should the rule of law (lol) break down
I am not advocating “spontaneous” organization or random revolution. I am arguing for joining orgs and building Dual Power. As for revolution, the US is a pot of an unknown liquid constantly heating up as Capitalism decays. The boiling point is unknown, but the fact that conditions are worsening and contradictions are sharpening at increased rates means it still is likely to come.
I just like, don’t believe it. Capitalism is hundreds of years old, and it’s only gotten stronger.
Feudalism was status quo in most of the world since the dawn of civilization and it was replaced in many parts of the world.
Lack of hope is a benefit, but not for you. People thought that a revolution was impossible even before the 20th century, and still, 1917 happened.
Why do you believe it is stronger? The fact that Capitalism’s decentralized markets result in centralized monopolist syndicates is exactly why Marx predicted Socialism to be the next stage in Mode of Production. Marx said it best in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Lenin further analyzed these monopolist syndicates and described why we are seeing dying, decaying Capitalism in his work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Once competition begins to die out, the Rate of Profit sinks and these Monopolist Syndicates strangle each other. The only way to fight this rate of falling, other than further automation which further lowers the rate of profit, is joining each other in ever larger syndicates, which is not infinitely replicatable. Capitalism is in its death throes.
A good, quick read if you don’t want to dive into books is the article Why Public Property?
This is the real answer. When we are stressed, depressed, anxious, and feeling hopeless, we can either turn inwards and retreat from society, or we can lean into our friends, family, and community.
If you have no community, now is the time to build it. A lot of liberals will be desperate, and that means it’s a great time to shake off the lies of individualism (we are all individuals part of a community) and develop the truth of community. Otherwise this cycle will continue the way it always has.
Also, a reminder that community can start with just one other person, you don’t need to personally create a large organization overnight.
I agree 100%. This is a painful day for liberals, and an important opportunity to analyze what went wrong and how to fix it going forward. Voting blue and going to brunch is not enough.
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Your fear is understandable and valid, this is a dark timeline and a really bad outcome.
But being afraid and panicking cannot possibly help anybody, least of all yourself.
Take a few days if you can to reset mentally as much as possible.
Then, get to work building resistance, it’s more critical now than ever. Find a leftist org near you and get involved. DSA, a local anarchist group, a worker co-op that needs volunteers, a democratic socialist org, anything leftist that is doing real work locally.
If you can’t donate your time, donate your money. If you can’t donate either of those, then help them spread the word on your social media. Post all their links and use your social media to advertise their events and meetups, help make people aware.
On the personal side, protect your health. The conservatives largely want to demolish healthcare, especially for underprivileged folks. Your health is so critical, especially now.
Quit your vices or at least, reduce them:
- Quit smoking/vaping.
- Stop drinking, at least heavily if you do.
- Stop eating junk food/candy.
- Get in shape, hike, calisthenics, walk, bike, etc.
It will not only help protect you from an administration that wants you to have less coverage if you’re sick/injured, it will help your mental health and save you money, sometimes tons of money.
Final advice for money, save it as much as you can. Practice frugality, get together with friends to cook and share meals. Get involved socially with people, learn about your community, build solidarity.
We will get through this, I believe in you, and I believe in the human drive for true freedom, equality, and community. Don’t let that flame burn out, we’re in this together, and only together can we come out victorious. ✊
Republicans also control senate and might control the house in addition to majority conservative judges in supreme court. I so hope its going to be “just 4 years”
Yeah, the election results were a horrible thing to wake up to. I had really hoped for a better outcome, but this is the direction America decided to go.
The biggest thing to remember right now is that the progressive cause will always have work to do, and challenges to face. Even if we had won, either partially or by a landslide in the House, Senate, and Executive branch, that would still hold true. The American Right may very well unleash new horrors that make life intolerable for absolutely everyone, and may take up policies that get people killed. Now, more than ever, it is on us to build bridges and networks of support. All we have to do is outlive these bastards, and oppose their worst tendencies at every turn. Vote early, vote often, and vote locally.
In the coming days and weeks, pundits will likely try to highlight all the possible reasons that the Harris campaign failed, because they love sounding like informed geniuses who take a result, work backwards, and highlight what should have been done. Try not to lean into the tendency to blame people on the left, and try to avoid infighting. It’s going to happen.
Some possibilities that might cheer you up:
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Trump is obviously in declining physical and mental health that might force him to step down. Of course, this just gives us shitbird #2, but at least he might be smart enough to not tank the economy.
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Maybe the Republicans will do something about him. We’ve seen some Republicans publicly come out against him, and there are probably a lot more who oppose him privately. Republicans are cowardly bastards, but they’re also greedy bastards, so they might invoke the 25th before Trump crashes the economy with tariffs.
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Maybe Judge Juan Merchan will sentence him. I’m not sure how this works legally, and this is so unprecedented that I don’t think anybody really does, but maybe, just maybe, Merchan will say “fuck it” and give the Republicans a little constitutional crisis to go along with their election victory.
That’s truly naive. The problem isn’t the man but that all the judiciary systems are in hand of people who clearly want to dismantle the democratic system
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in the short term: do something that helps you cope with our reality.
in the long term: reach out the people who both love and respect you and tell them how you feel. mutual aid is how we survived every time there’s been a hostile government and it’ll work again. we’ve been here before, we’ve survived, and we will do it again.
