The man is a career politician who became a millionaire.
He didn't fight at all when the Democratic Primary was wrenched from him, twice.
He's got his luxury car and his multiple homes out of his compliance.
Every man has a price against his principles, and Bernie's price is out in the open.
Didn't the European Union also come out against the American Social Media giants recently, stating they're looking for a regional alternative?
Wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing a global restriction on international Social Media sites in favor of state-supported alternatives tailored to individual countries, regions, or nations.
They'll still be used as a tool to monitor the subjects, promote certain trends, and control speech, but with the guiding hand of internal corpofascism, rather than the Americentric brand espoused by Silicon Valley.
I'm no puritan, but with such ready access to porn on so many other platforms, it's fine one doesn't allow it.
There is no reason to cause harm to people who are anti-lockdown, because in their own ideology, those people are headed to a punishment of the ravages of rona anyways. Why would you cause harm to someone destined to be on death's door? That just seems needlessly cruel.
Because it's not enough in the eyes of the Karen class that the detractors are putting themselves in harm's way. It's that they dare to question, dare to challenge the edicts of their "betters".
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows."
- 1984
Y'know, it's not favorable in the long term, but I'm weary enough of this bullshit that I'd actually welcome a real military coup at this point. Just because it would throw the left into a tailspin they wouldn't recover from.
But, the national emergency alert rumor passing around is simply a LARP until proven otherwise.
She was threatening the lives of our elected representatives, so yeah.
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She wasn't, but perception trumps reality 100% of the time in politics
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It's only OK when the left offers any challenge to elected representatives. The right does it, and they're terrorists.
Counter-point: were the people saying these things active duty, or were they high level former generals who are all politics now?
Some cops, former military (the bias is already there, though). Some prior service enlisted to mid-range officers. Some team guys. Just mixed posts from all walks of Military life.
I'm sure the brass are in full force with this rhetoric, but I expect nothing less, because once you're high enough it's all politics to get that rank, not ability.
Less than 40% of people in New Zealand turned in their banned firearms after the Christchurch shootings.
But, I will argue over and over again, that the spirit of the fight just isn't in the people right now. It should be -- stopping tyranny before it can sprout is obviously the best option -- but revolutions are always reactionary, if they're organic.
And that's why you'll never see a mass gun confiscation; the manpower isn't there, and it will cause a bloody reaction.
What will happen is they'll institute bans on modern arms, they'll cripple the entire gun industry with regulation (killing a multi-billion dollar industry and putting even more thousands of people out of work), they'll regulate magazine capacity, and they'll institute mandatory buy-back programs to be rewarded with a rapidly-inflating currency that won't even cover the cost of many of the arms that would potentially be turned in.
A few choice targets will be made examples of, and they'll have myriad charges dropped on them to scare the rest of the populace into compliance.
We can only hope -- as miserable a solution as that is -- that the increased demand for arms among even people who are traditionally anti-gun will provide too much push back for the Dems to comfortably introduce gun control measures.
When I was a child, I had no appreciation for the food I ate, or the clothes I wore, or my toys and games, or the fact that my parents had to pay bills to keep us warm, and to keep a roof over our heads.
I pay for those things now out of my own pocket, and I sure as hell appreciate them all, because no one else is keeping me afloat, or will step in if I lose everything.
My point is, it's hard to appreciate something that you never lacked, or had to fight for. And our society champions infantilization to the point where people are handed things, and as a result, they lack respect for those things. Speech included.
However, they'll learn; too late, but they'll learn.
People are predictable, civilizations become weak and corrupt, and history always rhymes.
The dream is over, friend.
It lasted for about a century, and now we're being forcibly dragged back to the oppressive normal that is human existence.
Free thinkers and freedom lovers need not apply in most societies.
Alcohol is fine, but I'll throw in coffee, tea, sugar, TP, and powdered milk.
These items are of debatable necessity, but they serve as excellent bartering goods, and a tin of coffee can get you a lot when everything goes to shit.
Also, stockpile on medicine - even just OTC cold and flu meds, bandages, medical alcohol, etc. etc. etc.
Water utilities in this country are some of the softest targets. They are virtually undefendable.
That, and the power grid. Texas is the only state with an independent grid, and it's not like that can't be knocked out either.
If people are deadset, and I mean deadset, on causing as much havoc as possible, the ways to cause the most damage are ironically some of the easiest to strike.
It wouldn't surprise me if some of these morons actually continue to think they'll enjoy constituent support simply because of the R next to their name.
Sadly, they're not completely incorrect, because institutional R voters have always been party to Trump's ascension, just not the reason he won.
Guns aren't power; they're a force multiplier, a tool. And like any other tool, guns don't mean shit if you have no will to use them. And will comes from a hungry belly. The comfortable don't revolt, even if they're told to shut up and take it. And even now, it's still comfortable. Look forward a couple of years, when the Dempression puts people in bread lines and has them living in mass shelters.
Additionally, people don't need guns to overthrow tyranny. It makes it easier, but if it ever gets to the point where millions are dead-set on resisting, boomsticks will be forceably acquired from the tyrants, regardless. And until then they'll use bricks, rocks, sticks, hammers, pitchforks, molotovs and other IEDs, etc., etc., etc.
Banning guns could be one of the best things they could do to accelerate a response, because they're just going to criminalize even more people, make even more radicals out of the peasants they so deeply detest.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Robespierre did meet the guillotine in the end.
It's going to happen again; the Jacobins will be put to the blade; I'm just not sure when, and more importantly, how long the Populist Right is going to be made to suffer before then.
Biden himself is weak, and the momentum for action is going to be coming from the people and structures around him. Without their own version of Trump to rally around, the left is going to be scattered and aimless. They'll cut at us, yes, but without a serious target to sink their teeth into? It won't take long for them to start tearing at each other.
With everything going on right now -- the doom and gloom, the blackpills being swallowed by the truckload, the Left gloating and sharpening their metaphorical knives for the metaphorical (for now) slaughter of their ideological opponents -- no one is bringing up the Left's own internal schism.
The one where the establishment and moderate Dems are at odds with the new hard-Left socialist bloc of the party. The one that further emboldened the populist right, and cost the Dems House seats when they planned for gains.
And now that they don't have Trump to focus their animosity on, and they're unpersoning every other potential scapegoat they can from the mainstream, that wound is just going to open further up and cause a lot of internal hell for the Dems.
I'm basically just rehashing your own post, but I'm personally kinda eager to see an angry, betrayed mob of Marxists start clobbering Dem cities again, but this time without institutional support.
It's Deus Ex, minus the future tech.
JC Denton, don't fail us now!
It's a damn shame that the anomaly of a populace largely free from the overt oppression of a vindictive ruler class lasted for less than a century.
The standard for most of recorded history was a boot stomping on a human face; we're just returning to normal.
They're not going to get nearly anywhere close to all the guns and ammo stashed in this country under any circumstance. And I guarantee they know that. What they're going to do is pick off a few soft targets in a grand display of force, make a few examples out of people to scare the masses into forgetting about their numerical superiority.
Some, maybe most of the loyal smurfs that bought weapons due to the instability brought on by covid and the riots will comply with a buyback, but there's a reason that the boat accident meme is so widespread within the gun community. Sure, it's a feckless response to regulation, but people won't turn in their arms en masse.
If you think I'm crazy, IIRC 40% or less of gun owners in New Zealand complied with the mandatory buy back program after the Christchurch mosque shootings, and although they have a pretty good gun culture there, it's nothing compared to the culture here in the States.
Also, with the massive amount of parts and components available, plus access to 3D printers and hardware stores, unregistered and untraceable home-made firearms from the simple-yet-effective pipe shotgun to a functional Glock clone can be freely constructed in one's home.
Yeah... I'm pretty much done with TDW.
People there are understandably doomed the fuck out, but what else can they do?
The Populist Right will continue to exist without Trump, but they're also going to suffer from extreme retaliation from the Deep State and their puppets and enforcers.
In another post, I stated that the demoralized and leaderless populist crowd would be dragged into camps without resistance, but now I expect as the economic situation becomes more dire, there will be pockets of violence. Just nothing change inducing until the Populist Caesar makes themselves known.
I'll wager a guess, and it's not good:
Considering the ease of entry and the presence of some possible Antifa-playing-Trumpers, the capitol occupation was possibly a false-flag designed to function as a Reichstag Fire.
Regardless, it's likely the Democrats will capitalize on today's events to issue heavy crackdowns on the populace and a sweeping range of restrictions on personal rights, basically wiping their ass with the Constitution. With the Judiciary cucked beyond all belief, a freshly-stolen Senate, and an agreeable puppet in the White House, nothing will stop them.
Meanwhile, the Populists -- many reeling from the defeat of their leader -- will grumble and grouse, but ultimately do nothing. And they'll comply with whatever they're asked to do. Because that's all they do. "All we needed was a leader, and we could have turned this all around!" they'll cry, as they're hauled off to the Covid camps.
America solidifies itself as a Chinese satellite state: our resources flow into their country uncontested, our politicians continue to bend over backwards for them, and the feeble remnants of the "patriot" class become quickly supplanted by compliant immigrants with outstretched hands.
And they never even had to fire a shot.
The party of "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon!" is now sympathetic to those dastardly, racist, sexist jackbooted thugs, all because the Populists have the hard-on for them as well.
Also, realize that the Left has zero issues with the police - they need the police to enforce their edicts, and soon their ultra-authoritarian lock down orders and weapons confiscations. They just want a national police force that's only accountable to them; no state-level cops, and certainly no elected sheriffs departments.
Razorfist thinks Trump will walk, and the Dems will suddenly change their tune about him like with every other Republican president -- look at how they venerate Dubbya these days -- and beg him for money, just like they used to. Back to normal, as it were.
Personally, I'm not so sure that will be the case. Although there has been calls from establishment rats not to go after Trump, probably because they realize he was our weapon, not the other way around, and if they deal with him it will further lionize him, martyr him even, and give us more reason to rage.
Even if they do leave Trump alone, though, I don't trust him to play kingmaker any longer. He did a lot of good his four years, but he got blindsided by the swamp when it counted, and his last hurrah was a pretty weak showing.
I've long held the belief that civilization is at best a double-edged sword for humanity.
Sure, progress... but look who gets to cling on: the weak, the vapid, the foul.
Look at the third world and all its trappings: the disease, the poverty, the violence, the traditional family dynamics, women popping out 7 kids with half of them dying.... that's the US in 10-20 years.
Social Justice is a problem for filled bellies to riff about - it goes away when people get hungry.
I understand where you're coming from - it's the same reason I honestly thought they wouldn't be stupid enough to steal the election: grandiose displays of overt corruption emboldens their detractors and opposition.
But these people don't operate on the principals of moderation, morality, and logic. And sadly it's worked well enough for them so far that they have little reason to stop.