I’m an American who has been living abroad for 20 years. I’m shocked, as I watch my home country being dismantled by oligarchs who sold US democracy. And I talk to other Americans and they’re just like “Oh, well, both sides, you know?”
Do y’all not realize what you’ve done? The US literally has no allies now, no rule of law, and no democracy. You’re living in an authoritarian dictatorship now, run by clowns.
How are so many Americans just going on with their lives like normal?
I’m not a Australian and have never been to America.
It seems like I’ve experienced this feeling with America, and with Australia, more and more over the last decade.
I suspect that the answer to your question is yes, voters do not understand nor particularly care what is happening.
The vast majority of voters base their position on vibe-based reasoning. Low information voters, if you will.
There are many individuals who have upped their meds such that they do not have daily panic attacks. It’s not that people don’t know, it’s that they feel powerless. Some have gone to stand in streets with signs, only to go home to face the same problems unfixed by their actions and then have a panic attack.
Non controlled substance example, a buspar increase, additional hydroxyzine increase, and added blood pressure med. That’s not advice, that’s simply 1 example you’re not seeing happening. And it’s a common combo such that it’s pretty non-identifying, like metoprolol with baby aspirin.
The usual methods of protest are not working. And as much as people like to scream on Lemmy that old methods will work, let’s be realistic. They’re ignoring courts, laws, the us constitution, why would they listen to some “nobody” on a street in a city they don’t visit. I wish to god it were that simple but this is a new order, you’ll need new methods.
In the meantime, who do you call? There’s no customer service line where someone takes your governance complaint and offers a resolution.
Do you know anyone with any governance power at all? Most don’t.
Common reported feelings include: elephant sitting on my chest (overlapping symptom between heart attack and panic attack), feeling ready to “climb the walls”, despair, controlled fear, suffocation, among others.
The feelings are there, but to what effective actions?
This is such an apt description. There is absolutely a metaphorical elephant sitting on top of all of us.
I bumped in to a guy at work the other day, he was in the building as a vendor, so not an employee of my company.
He’d stopped what he was doing to rant and rave about politics to some poor soul he’d happened upon here in the building who was clearly just humoring him.
This guy was parroting everything Trump had said to the letter. As every word from that guy’s mouth was some golden truth.
That’s a third of the country. People like that. Completely lost to ideology, incapable of independent thought. Proud that Trump is winning so hard all the time, and he is, of course, because he says he is.
Oh yeah, Australia is an authoritarian state due to… COVID laws right? Is that what you’re referring to?
COVID death camps?.. Or something?
We have an election in the next few months and our conservative party will likely win. They’re running a Trump-lite campaign around cutting government agencies.
Moreover we have always been very culturally, socially, militarily and politically aligned with the US.
For example, right now we tacitly support Ukraine but would have been very cautious in expressing that support since November last year. With our current progressive government it would be… challenging it Trump asked us to toe the line and declare Ukraine the aggressor. In a few months however I wouldn’t be surprised if our newly elected conservative government was much more willing to sing that song.
In my city last year there was a vocal group of conservatives trying to ban books at the library, and prevent the city supporting a LGBTIQ+ festival, and stoke foment over transgender people using public toilets. We import a lot of US conservative politics.
We may not seem like a particularly authoritarian country but we have ever been poised to become such. We’ve always scored very poorly on privacy, and media bias.
I’m Australian but don’t live there. It worries me how far right it’s getting. Australia being a very sporty place means transgender people in sport is a huge wedge that the Nazis can use. I’ve had to “disown” a bunch of family - including my mother, who I thought I learned my values from!
Yeah, I think it’s happening everywhere, less so in Australia than some other places.
Having a young son I often wonder about far right recruitment tactics.