The Resistance Begins

If they have positive outcomes & are truly unconstitutional, the problem might be the constitution, or its interpretation, or a changing context.

Which is why the founders included a lawful way to change the constitution. Until now both parties have abided by it or been called into account as for example Richard Nixon was. The rule of law is at stake. Without that the United States is no better than the monarchy it revolted against in 1776.

Full list of boycotted businesses today

  • Target
  • Walmart
  • Best Buy
  • McDonald’s

Now people may be waking up and using humor as a means to brake the enthusiastic yet irrational hope of Trump being able to pre(pre)form a veritable miracle in making America great again.(whatever such ‘greatness may imply)

There was an article, which I hope will be retrievable, that points to the loosest comparison between analogy and metaphor I’ve come across lately, which highlights the significance of humor being the tour de force behind Trump’s second term.

To wit;

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After Elon Musk ordered 2 million federal workers to send a bullet-pointed list of five things they accomplished the previous week, social media filled with mock replies.

“Dear manager, this week: (1) I’m never gonna give you up (2) Never gonna let you down (3) Never gonna run around and desert you (4) Never gonna make you cry (5) Never gonna say goodbye…” went one response, alongside a GIF of singer Rick Astley.

To be clear, I did not laugh — but I appreciated the joke. “Rickrolling” has been around since George W. Bush was president, but somehow it seemed like the most appropriate response to an absurd demand from the putative head of the DOGE effort to cut the federal workforce. Musk, after all, made the demand on a Saturday, threatened to fire anyone who didn’t respond by Monday, and then backtracked as agency heads instructed staff not to do it. Absurdity, meet absurdity.

In fact, resistance to the second Trump administration appears to be leaning more heavily on humor than it did in his first term. For now, at least, humor may be their most effective tactic.

While the “resistance” to the first Trump administration was centered on massive rallies, knitted hats, and threads about “game theory,” the current one is more about biting wheatpaste posters and goofy internet humor.

Critics started using the absurd phrase “Trump take egg” to highlight empty shelves.

With grocery prices rising despite Trump’s campaign pledge, critics started using the absurd phrase “Trump take egg” to highlight empty shelves. Others borrowed from a tacticused on gas pumps during the Biden administration to post stickers of Trump saying “I did that” next to high prices in grocery stores. Still others created a poster of Musk doing his stiff-armed salute from a Tesla alongside the words “Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds” and updated World War II posters saying, “When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler” to reference Musk.

The most vicious mockery appeared Monday on internal monitors at the Housing and Urban Development Department headquarters: an AI-generated video of Trump kissing Musk’s bare feet with the words “Long live the real king.”

You don’t have to find these laugh-out-loud funny to appreciate how humor is being used to make serious points about Trump’s economic policies and Musk’s troubling political influence. And because they have a light touch, they are more likely to break through to uncommitted voters than another self-serious speech by a Democratic member of Congress seen only on C-SPAN.

Humor has long been a part of modern American protest movements, from political cartoons targeting Hitler to Dick Gregoryalternating between comedy sets and civil rights protests, to the countercultural protesters trying to levitate the Pentagon during the Vietnam War and AIDS activists putting a giant condom on Sen. Jesse Helms’ house.

Protesters who are shut out of the normal channels of politics often find that humor is their only way to get attention.

As in the rest of life, this humor is often born from desperation. Like a lonely kid who starts cracking jokes to make friends, protesters who are shut out of the normal channels of politics often find that humor is their only way to get attention. That’s especially true right now, as the daily barrage of news from the White House overwhelms the ability to make sense of it. A pointed joke can briefly commandeer the spotlight.

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Yes briefly turns the focus.outward, disseminates the irony inherent in the current tragic view of the position we are in, more or less, and the particular writer shows how such regress into such devises transported to the present, offer little relief to the comedy at hand, all things considered. Having this baseline to bold further caricatures on , is the way the second term is characterized in comparison to the first.

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Among things that Trump has done is to destroy PEPFAR, a program to prevent the spread of HIV. It was created under George W. Bush and has enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

It has saved 25 million lives, and has cut global deaths from AIDS/HIV in half over 20 years. In the countries in which it operates, HIV primarily affects women and children, and the program has prevented 5.5 million babies from contracting HIV at birth from their mothers. As of the time this is posted, it’s estimated that 15,250 adults and 1,622 children have already died as a result of the pause in funding to PEPFAR.

The program is efficient, with each life saved costing between $1,500 and $10,000 per life, making it one of the most cost-effective programs in the world in terms of cost per life saved (compare to GiveWell’s top charities. Because of its work to reduce the cost of HIV medication, it gets more cost effective each year. Audits have shown that it has low rates of abuse, finding 0-2% unaccounted spending (compare 5-10% for Medicare).

HIV/AIDS is a global phenomenon; the US federal government spends $29 billion per year treating HIV/AIDS infections in the US, and much more is spent privately (PEPFAR costs $6 billion per year). Reducing its spread reduces amount of infections in the US.

It is a popular program that improves opinions about the US and advances our interests. It weakens autocratic states that compete for favor in the nations where it operates, and reduces terrorism.

As the pause extends, the supply chains and providers who implemented are destroyed, making it difficult and expensive to restart (or impossible, if trust in the US is so eroded that partners do not feel they can rely on the US government anymore).

This is irresponsible, immoral, wasteful. It hurts the US, achieves trivial savings, and could have been easily avoided by the smallest amount for forethought and care.

More here: https://pepfarreport.org/

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The Biden era…

:nauseated_face:

:sob:

Right, because there weren’t any pedophiles in the Trump years, Biden invented them…

What the hell kind of approach to understanding the world is that? Are you actually forming any sort of broad understanding of the world based on tabloid gossip like this? What percent of gay parents do anything like this? What percent of straight parents? It’s sure as shit not zero.

Seriously Mags, what evidentiary value does this story have?

Thisv :point_down:t3:

You c’ya read?

So, are you alleging that these people are immigrants?

Can you just say what you mean explicitly? I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. I’m sure the fault is mine, but it really looks like you’re just shouting “Gay! Biden! Pedophilia!”, and I know you would recognize that that’s shite philosophy.

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Do you really not know what immigrants are doing in Europe?
Have you missed the stories of mass unpunished rapes of children in the UK by Pakistani immigrants? what do you mean ‘alleging’? No one is denying that these things happen, they’re just condoning, citing cultural differences.

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Vance says its your “enemy within.” You can’t make this stuff up.

He says what most Europeans feel, but they’re not allowed to speak. Russia has never been a threat to Western Europe, Islam openly makes claims to it. Britain arrests people who post Facebook posts and lets the islamic child rapists go free. Germany has ‘freedom of speech’ except if it might possibly cause anyone anxiety. The EU is a fascist apparatus serving to paralyze democracy. You know very little if you think Vance was wrong, he was being mild. No one here wants war with Russia - we had referenda where we voted overwhelmingly against any association with deeply corrupt Ukraine - but Nato engineered it anyway like they engineered so many wars against the people. It would be a blessing if Trump withdraws from Nato.

You are in a safe cocoon (so far) in the US, taking your first amendment, which Hillary stated she wanted to curb and moderate, for granted.

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“Vance says its your “enemy within.” You can’t make this stuff up.”
Says someone who has never been terrorized by a religious community. But you’re lying and you know it I think, Vance was speaking of the governments that throw people in jail for speaking their minds, even for silently praying, and who cancel elections when the results dont suit them.

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If you have actual evidence of child rape, and the government is turning a blind eye, that is where street justice comes in.

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It is all well known and out in the open. The UK jails anyone who goes against it, like the parents of raped girls who tried to stop it. There have been some advocates of street justice, such as Tommy Robinson (I think his name is) but they’re in jail now.

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well, that’s not very street is it

Has there ever been a street uprising that was successful in beating the establishment? Yeah Im sure there has, but its difficult in the west with its docile population. This Robinson gave it all he had, but what you got in the end is violence against random islamic stores rather than targeted killings of rapists. For one thing, the streets dont have efficient intelligence.

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If they don’t have efficient intelligence, they shouldn’t be making groundless claims.

Are you trying to deny the rapes? The rapists aren’t even denying it. They know they get away with it. Is it too much for you?
As much as Europeans know about the US, so little do you know about Europe. The early phase of it is even on wikipedia

In some cases, the neighbors called the police because of the screaming, the police showed up, and arrested the girl for being intoxicated and let the rapists untouched. This is not disputed. The rapists belong to a protected class, to arrest them would cause anxiety.

To islamic morals, raping indigenous Europeans is allowed because they are whores by definition.

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Yeah, it is too much. It makes me feel very murderous. Not only against the perpetrators, but against those who turned a blind eye.

If it isn’t taken care of here and now, it will be.

And you know, with the advent, or revelation, of the abilities of artificial intelligence, I doubt it will be long now.

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