I'm shocked more people aren't already better prepared for this, but it's actually the same thing we should be doing now, and continue to do if Biden actually wins:
Organize locally. Get hyperlocal. Organize your city, neighbors, block, building, workplace, and friend group. Establish mutual aid networks, take back city councils, county boards, and school boards from the stewards of landlords and big employers.
Establish protection for those who need it, and plant the crop of future national leaders who will do the long overdue work of putting government to work for the masses. Make it harder for any president or governor to exercise state violence by getting our people in prosecutors offices and judgeships.
The Democrats are not going to save us. Biden is just planning to go down with the ship. Absolutely vote for the lesser of two evils if you live somewhere where your vote matters, but recognize that the Democratic party is not an ally to the antifascist movement, because combating fascism conflicts with the interests of capital.
That can change, but until it does, don't put faith in them. Anything positive they do will be because power-players were replaced. And that starts in your own neighborhood.
Edit: Since this has been well received, I want to say a quick word on third parties: don't be afraid of them.
Without getting into a lot of details, there are a lot of myths about the risks that third parties present, but before we parrot all of that, we should just acknowledge that there is no harm in listening to their platforms. It doesn't make you a kook to hear ideas that often get suppressed by the mainstream, or to use third parties as a way to network and meet people. I think Jill Stein has a lot of useful things to say, and if a pollster asks me, I will gladly try to bump her numbers up so that she is harder to ignore. Don't be afraid to do that.
This is good, and I'm piggybacking so I can add on:
Get a passport, make friends in another country.
Vote to slow them down, yell at anyone who tries to say that it's better to not vote or that Trump would be better for Palestinians.
If you want to engage in electoral reform, you need to start years in advance.
If you live in Texas: Vote for Biden and encourage GOP voters to not vote for Trump. If you're in a place with lots of GOP weirdos, try publicly and loudly watch his rallies at 1.5x speed; I've heard it breaks the spell b/c his cadence gets disrupted. If Texas goes blue, Biden wins and all the DNC voters suddenly know they can win, making it immediately more likely.
If all else fails, remember someone might [Comment Cannot Legally Be Finished], which would solve multiple problems.
Texas was won by fewer than 633k votes. Considering Trump's popularity I'd say it's ripe for flipping but we can't lay down on the job. Also the GOP policies are pushing out liberals and people that are vulnerable (LGBTQ+ and families with LGBTQ+ kids) so the window is closing.
I believe this so strongly!!! Everywhere i go i beg people to vote. It was really only a few percentage points. We don't even have to flip people; just get the non-voters to go to the polls.
Get a passport, make friends in another country.
Think it's worth mentioning that U.S. politics sets the tone of politics in a lot of the west. When Trump won, the alt-right parties in more or less all of Europe grew significantly. Here in Sweden over the span of the almost 8 years since, our nazi party grew from a smaller party that the right wingers argued whether or not they should collaborate with in order to create a right-wing coalition and win majority, to the second largest party in Sweden.
Here in 2016 South Africa our online media spaces lit up like a fucking Christmas tree with all the white supremacists coming out of the woodwork to celebrate Trump's win. Since then, the second-largest of our (so-called) "opposition" parties - a party that can pretty much be described as the party of white liberalism - has dumped any black people they had in senior positions and began using GOP-esqe dog-whistling. All our parties - pretty much the entire formal political establishment - has been very receptive to violent, USian-style anti-immigrant narratives.
So yeah... you can flee the US - but you can't really escape US politics.
I'm not even a little bit surprised, sadly.
Last election we had here (2022) surveillance and stop and frisk were decently big talking points. Even the supposed Liberals are like "uwu so sad privacy is dying we have to be careful but big brother needs to sees you we nweed to be hawd on cwime!1!" I think the only party that's not OK with it is the leftists.
surveillance and stop and frisk
Lol! That reminds me... about three years ago I was notified of a "town meeting to discuss local problems" held at a local school here in middle-of-nowhere South Africa. It turns out it was just a shady PR attempt by the local branch of the "white liberal" party I described above (the so-called "Democratic Alliance"), and the suit there doesn't talk about our decrepit and failing water, electricity and sewage infrastructure or the fact that this mining town is being economically extinguished by privatized interests... instead, the only order of business was to brag about how they had set up surveillance in our main streets and handing off the data to the piggy for free.
I feel like strangling that particular suit every damn time I lay eyes on him.
I still don't quite get how these people make sense of the world. We recently had a big reveal that our nazi party is using "anonymous social media accounts" to try and influence popular opinion. They claim that they don't, and that the accounts aren't affiliated with the party, but there was a whole report on the thing and it's landed them in some hot water. The people voting for them are pretty much unfazed but the right-block alliance overall has taken quite a hit to their public support.
One of the things these people who supposedly really love Sweden discussed, was how they could perhaps create some sort of campaign website to try and incide violence among migrants, and possibly incite terror attacks. Like, how do you reconcile your "patriotism and love for your country" with wanting people to perform terror attacks?
Were I to play devil's advocate I'd say that it's possible that they were just shooting the shit, but even then? Isn't it a bit over the top? As a gay guy I'm not joking about conversion therapy or forcible sterilisations.
was how they could perhaps create some sort of campaign website to try and incide violence among migrants,
We had that exact thing here in South Africa in the late 80s and early 90s - the only difference was that it was actually enabled by the Apartheid-state through their terrorist proxies (ie, mainly the South African Police). When the anti-Apartheid groups didn't act "terroristic" enough for their taste, they just did it themselves and used the media to create a narrative of "black-on-black violence" to try and destabilize the country.
Like, how do you reconcile your “patriotism and love for your country” with wanting people to perform terror attacks?
They "love" their countries in the same way that a rapist "loves" his victims - the feel themselves entitled to it and deserving of holding the power of life and death over it. They do not actually care about the real people living in Sweden in any way whatsoever. That's pretty much standard fare when it comes to far right-wing ideology no matter what part of the world you find them in.
The reason they want to "incite" (so-called) "terror attacks" among migrants they see as not "white," "Swedish" or "Nordic" enough is two-fold.
Firstly, they want the Swedish people to see these migrants the way they see them - as a (supposedly) bloodthirsty and rapacious "other." Not much different from the way the Nazis portrayed the "Jewish-Bolshevik hordes" before and during WW2. A (supposed) "terror attack" that can be blamed on the "other" will essentially result in the media performing this function for them.
Secondly, they want an atmosphere of panic - such as existed right after 9/11 in the US. They know that such a state of things will allow their ideology to suddenly seem "relevant" in the same way that militarism suddenly became standard fare in the US afterwards.
This is for everyone that is taking the "oh well" stance... or the I'm going to wait it out stance... If you are unfamiliar with what the Republicans plan to do, I encourage you to look at the Project 2025 plan.
Some highlights
slash funding for the DOJ
dismantle the FBI
decimate environmental and climate change regulations in favor of fossil fuels
eliminate the department of commerce
ending the independence of multiple federal agencies
abolish the department of education
scientific funding would be limited to pro-conservative principles
end abortion nationwide
infuse government with Christianity
criminalize pornography
removing protections against discrimination for sexual or gender identity
terminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs and affirmative action
the military would be used for domestic law enforcement
the arrest and detention of undocumented immigrants
speedy capital punishment
Project director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, explained that Project 2025 is "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state."
So, for fucks sake, can we stop saying that we can wait out Trump for another term. There won't be an America left if there is another term.
Good luck with criminalizing porn
Anyway it's sickening and shocking, apparently you don't need a coup and president assassination for the Gilead to emerge
They already blocked porn sites in a couple states
Nothing a VPN can't solve
the problem is, when it's illegal, and you get caught, you'll face the consequences.
Or if you did something else wrong. VPN installed to look at porn? Well, now you did two things wrong, you must be a super special bad person. More prison time for you.
The people behind it don't care in the slightest that you watch porn. They care to have something in hand against you in case you're falling out of line
With the current law, I thought the onus was on the websites to verify user's ages. Not technically banning porn, but effectively making the big names drop support. Are there any US states where porn viewing itself is criminalized?
This sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan from the perspective of a conservative. Criminalize porn so people have to take the urges out elsewhere, criminalize abortions so rape victims have to give birth, and slash social services and education funding to create the next generation of uninformed, emotionally-driven voters.
You’ll be surprised
The non-voters don’t care. The ones that actually subscribe to the ignorant narrative of single issue protesting are too stubborn to admit they’re wrong. And the rest of them are right-wing/Russian propagandists.
Basically, what you shared is what either of the aforementioned will use as a platform to bolster their effort to sell everyone on their bullshit ideology.
I think they do care, they've just been taught that their vote doesn't matter. This seems to be especially true of non-white people i talk to. How can we encourage people to engage? A meme or a list of concerns is not going to change their mindset when they've been manipulated into generations of apathetic resistance.
No, they’re upset over a single issue every election year. They’re easily manipulated. That’s it.
This happens every four years. Like clock work. They find some hot button social issue and use it to hold our election ransom.
And also, If they thought their votes don’t matter, they wouldn’t threaten to not vote at all or vote third party if they don’t get their way. Because if their votes didn’t matter- it would be empty threats.
The people I've spoken with who don't vote are mostly black or brown and aren't withholding votes because of some issue. They've never voted. I invited a friend to go primary vote with me and she said, "no thanks, but you have fun with that."
I don’t think we’re taking about the same thing.
The degree to which one person’s vote matters is a simple matter that is easily seen. There’s no room for “believing” anything.
In the USA for instance, a Presidential vote is extremely unlikely to change the election outcome. Therefore, that vote doesn’t matter very much.
The idea that voting makes a difference, for the individual, is an illusion we use to get people to vote. In the most basic, real, concrete way, which way I vote in an election does not make a difference.
That's like saying $1 doesn't mean anything.
Swede here, we just joined NATO and this shit terrifies me, and what is worse is that this is what people are saying publicly, how far will they go in practice?
Nah, I doubt they'll manage what they say. Some maybe, and shit'll suck no doubt, but there's a lot of inertia in the bureaucracy. My real worry is what the CCP & Russia will do once they have a green light that the US won't intervene in their expansionist ideals.
Usually they go less far in practice than their promises, because our government was designed to be gridlocked.
What am I supposed to do then. I tried voting progressive and Democrat, I tried organizing, I tried donating and fund raising, I tried at the local level.
And every step of the way the Democrats have gone out of their way to help move the goal posts to the point that my choices for a school board member we're someone openly racist or someone who is openly sexist.
For president I get genocide or fascism... Gee really motivating me there folks.
No, for president you get a lot of genocide and fascism vs some genocide with sprinkles of humanitarian aid.
Exactly, they're the same picture, right? /s
Not even close but that still does not mean I have a valid choice.
you get one choice that has shown he can be pressured with reason and public opinion
and one that wants to commit domestic crimes with impunity, that openly wants to have his political enemies killed, and that has shown he can be pressured by Russia. You know, the country that swore to defeat the US from within.
but yeah, both sides.
I will never suggest any form of equivalency because there simply is not one. The republican party is clearly a bad actor and comparing the democrats and suggesting they are in some way an equal evil is a ludicrous fallacy.
But that does not mean that voting democrat is an imperative, nor that they become a valid choice because the "others" are invalid.
The bulk of my voting power comes from republican primaries where I can have an outsized impact on which evil will get the chance to run, but beyond that my votes count for nothing.
My point is simply that if the democrats actually cared about making a difference, they would not prop up dead candidates, they would not bend over backwards to help move the goal posts for the republicans. What they could really do is change the laws around how we vote, create automatic registration, make election days mandatory holidays with mandatory time off to vote, pass laws around campaign fiance and transparency. But they wont, because the same tools help them "win" and have power.
Just look at Trudeau, who ran on a platform of voting reform in Canada, the second he had control he dropped that promise like it was radioactive. Why voluntarily break the system that put him and his party into power.... It clearly worked for them before. Same logic applies to the dem's in the US. They wont change the system, even while its being broken, because they still think it gives them a shot at power. We dont need power, we need actual population based representation and robust protection from corporate ownership of our government.
Though you might have thought of Darth Tyranus. Which is fine.
You and I both know I was thinking of Tyrannosaurus Rex, but okay.
He had the right idea.
He came and he went.
If I end up on try that jury, not guilty.
Jury nullification goes brrrrrrrrrrrrr
Tree of liberty is gettin' mighty thirsty.
Oh man. I'm pretty non-violent, but Nov 2016, when my adult kids called me in tears, i had ideas swirling.
Keep doing what I have been doing - dragging MAGA fence sitters back from the brink one by one. The ones who have adopted Trumpism as their religion are too far gone. But there are a lot who just need to be taken by the hand and shown a better path.
When you see MAGA BS, challenge it with well-reasoned arguments. The object really isn't to change the mind of the poster. It's to prevent them from changing the minds of others.
Yeah, there's a huge difference in tactics depending on whether you're trying to comvince the person you're arguing with, or the audience.
The latter is soo much easier - often it's enough to back them into a corner where they out themselves as wrong whatever they say, and they'll quickly descend into a ball of rage.
Making someone descend into a ball of rage is now how you get them off the fence.
Thats what my brother does, but he is a cis het man who works in construction as an electrician. He is very left leaning so he does try to challenge things where he can.
But I can't do that. I am a trans woman and confrontation legitimately would put me in danger and it wouldn't work anyways. People claim I am biased because I am in a group who is being targeted, its bullshit beyond belief but thats how people are.
Can you please give an example of a well reasoned argument that's relevant here?
I'm not sure of the relationship of reason to people that aggressively disregard objective fact and fluidly move the goalpost of their burden of proof.
I like to ask who will replace the main stream media, and how that won’t make them the new mainstream media.
IME this just leads to "yeah, but ours will be different/better!" type responses like...
"Politicians suck, but ours are good"
"Stop giving out all these services with our tax dollars but don't touch our Medicare"
"Gay marriage shouldn't be legal, but my gay daughter is fine."
"Immigrants are evil, except for the waiter at my favorite Mexican restaurant, he is one of the good ones"
I/Me/Mine is ALWAYS the exception to every rule for them.
So the NEW mainstream, MY mainstream, will be different and tell the REAL truth.
Look up how to debate. Success is not measured by how bad you make the opponent look. That may work on one person, but you have to repeat it for every person who advances the same argument. Instead, take apart their argument, reveal underlying motives, expose untruths with irrefutable documentation, uncover false logic and bad assumptions, and respond without attacking the messenger.
For instance, "The economy is terrible! Everything is so expensive." Well, stuff -is- expensive. But is the economy really the reason behind it? The US stock indexes are at record highs. Most companies have been beating the expected earnings per share. Isn't it more likely that things are expensive because companies are taking more profit to give to their shareholders? Which candidate do you believe is more inclined to change that?
The object is not to defeat the opponent. It's to prevent others from being convinced by their arguments.
I’m torn on this. I’m “white”-ish enough, no kids, can’t get pregnant (or anyone pregnant) and I’m in the top 10%… so would anything for me fundamentally change? No…. I could stick my head in the sand and ignore it, but that’s really not me and it freaking breaks my heart to see all the people it impacts.
So I see one of three things:
Try to ignore it and keep voting blue and on policies to help those where i can
go one step further and put my money where my mouth is and help run an Underground Railroad for those who need to get to blue states while they still have the rights
flee to another country
I don’t really want to think about it, but it’s been at the back of my head.
Stick around and keep trying to improve the country despite everyone else's best efforts to fuck it all up
This is my plan. I have to finish medical school anyways, and once I've done that, I'll be in a better position to help other people.
Same thing I did last time he was president. Ignore the news and spend as much time as possible in the woods on a bicycle.
Whine about my taxes going up again. Cry laugh at John Stewart. Go defend my school board
And if he gets what he wants you’ll just never return from the woods?
The dude that reasons that presidents can kill opposition- literally
That's my intention and I've been doing it for decades. It's kind of president-independent action.
Al-Awlaki. The president can order the death of American citizens. The fact that we're pretending they already haven't is insane.
They shouldn't be able to at all, of course, but it's what you do with a standing army.
Try to avoid being murdered by my neighbors.
Living in a cop neighborhood is fun, no ?
Living in a neighborhood with open Trump supporters feels like sitting on a ticking time bomb.
The same thing I did the last time he was president. Absolutely nothing.
Correct answer. People thinking murder will magically be legal are insane.
However, thinking that murder will magically be legal for a sitting President as part of his executive duties, is slightly more based in reality.
No, just no. The turnip if he whens will not magically make murder legal.
It will make murder legal for him, depending on how the Supreme Court rules on the presidential immunity case. Which they're conspicuously refusing to do before the election.
If they ruled presidents had immunity it would literally make murder legal: Biden could legally murder Trump and only face impeachment. No criminal proceedings could be brought against him.
They're obviously not ruling on it now. Cynically one could argue that they're going to change the ruling depending on who wins. If Biden wins reelection then they'll rule that presidents have legal limits. If he loses then they expand the power of the dictatorship.
That is exactly what I meant. Thanks!
Spend a solid week posting screenshots of my comments on this platform about how the DNC is digging their own grave after they inevitably blame the voters for their loss just like in 2016.
you blame people who a) voted for trump or b) didn't vote for Biden. simple as that.
you want to blame the DNC because you voted for Trump/didn't vote for Biden? yeah, nah.
I guess "get fucked", realistically speaking. I can't afford to leave on my own, my social life is empty of anyone else I can depend on, and I will almost certainly have a target on my back as a gay guy -- after they're done with trans people, we'll probably be next.
Get a lesbian beard now would be a decent plan to consider. Just someone you can stand enough to have as a roommate.
my social life is empty of anyone else I can depend on
This is a problem that needs fixing regardless of who’s elected.
Why don’t you have a support network?
Why don’t you have a support network?
Where does one buy one of those, and how much do they cost? Asking for me. 😂
Mine cost me about $4k from an at-the-time reputable fursuit maker
Ah that’s my problem. I’m spending too much on silicone dicks and not enough on the suit.
Nah, I don't think you spent too much. We all need to take Chances once in a while.
It does cost a lot though, gotta be careful not to Nix your wallet and Crash your economy.
And this is why I love Lemmy. :D
Aww, and Lemmy loves you! 💖
Also, just to toot my own horn, I felt pretty proud of that last one. I initially was like "how the heck do you casually drop Fenrir or David in a sentence" but... It's not nearly as elegant as Chance.
We are friends now, if you need support just let me know :3
Aww, that's so sweet! I suppose this means that the way to make adult friends is to tongue-in-cheek talk about adult toys.
I did actually make a in-person friend doing exactly that once.
Depending on your sexual culture and relationship status, tongue-in-cheek can be a great way to make friends
The only family I have supporting me right now doesn't want to leave the country and can't provide meaningful support from afar, meaning I have to stay here. And staying during a second Trump term could be dangerous very quickly indeed if I'm to believe even half of the insane shit coming out of Project 2025.
other than my family, I just don't have much luck making connections with other people, I get along better with dogs. Unfortunately, dogs don't help pay rent. worse, if Trump wins another term, I would actually consider it dangerous to be openly gay. Not that I was getting dates anyways, but it means I probably won't try anymore if it's going to put me or my family at risk of harassment.
I'm just trying to enjoy every day I have with my family and try not to panic too hard, now, mostly through distracting myself with weed and videogames. I don't know how soon things will get bad, but I don't think we have the resources necessary to protect us from what's coming if he wins again. We're struggling as is -- I've lost my job recently, I had to go through cancer this past year, I'm depressed -- I don't also need to be shit-scared of how the election plays out. Even if he loses, so much is still so fucked with our country right now.
What games do you play?
helldivers 2, mostly, as of late
I smoke weed and play video games too. Let me know if you want to game sometime
Well apparently there are no negative consequences for staging a coop.
Coup. COUP! It's not a fucking chicken house!
He meant a co-op. A cooperative arrangement to leave the country
I don't know, it doesn't seem far off.
Well, as a real estate agent I staged a coop once but I still couldn't sell it. It was a low quality flip though.
I mean do you like being woken up at 5 am every day? Because we had chickens growing up and it sucked. But with the price of eggs these days, maybe it's a good tradeoff.
If I had a plan to respond to someone horrible getting elected president, I would've used it long before now.
man fuck this i ain't have "flee the country" money
I really don't want to be here if it happens. Full stop.
Curl up in a ball and weep a salty creek.
There's not much to do except try to stay in my house and not engage with the outside world any more than I have to for four years.
It's also not like the Democrats are going to reign Trump in in any significant way. (Don't get me wrong. I'm voting for Biden, I just don't expect much.)
You are making a lot of assumptions. If everything goes absolutely perfectly we might have an end in four years. I doubt it though. This man has already started dismantling our government with his federalist society stooges on the court. He plans to gut the executive branch so there is no Opposition within government. He has shown he will use violence to keep power.
You don’t oppose fascism by being quiet. You oppose it by being loud and making it impossible for them to do their evil shit.
I mean, you can do it quietly too. Spying and sabotage are also really useful.
Yeah, on the podcast “Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff” by Margaret Killjoy she talked about a group of art students who slipped piece of paper with fake spy shit on them in Nazis coats and car and what not to frame them as part of a conspiracy. It ended up sparking a rebellion in the army and helped destroy its cohesiveness.
If anyone needs help moving to the EU (and in particular Finland) let me know. I moved to Finland after 2016 (I saw the writing on the wall for awhile, before Trump - it's just that's when I finally had the best opportunity and Trump accelerated the need to move).
It takes less money to move than you might think to move. If you have a specialty (especially in STEM) it's really easy, and most jobs will even provide language classes for free.
If you don't, it's still possible, but it'll be much harder work I'll admit. You may end up as a janitor or laborer, but know this - you'll still be able to live comfortably. Wages can be much fairer here, public transportation is excellent to the point where you don't need a car at all, and you won't be bankrupted by healthcare. Even a low skilled SINGLE job will afford you financial security - something I remember was not the case in the USA.
And on the bright side, if you want to go to higher education here, university is a lot cheaper or, if you live long enough in a place to become a permanent resident or citizen, free.
If you get yourself at least 8k and 3 months of intensive Duolingo and maybe Mondly, you have a chance to move.
Finland is one of three countries that banned my wife and stepdaughter's race by using a procedural "gotcha." Despite being a part of the Apostille convention in Geneva, Finland, Germany and Greece refuse to accept any documentation from Philippines. Therefore, they are banned from your country entirely.
Thanks for the offer though.
Reminder to all here: USA is not the only country on the planet with racism.
Could you go into more details? I have friends from the Philippines (like, directly from there, never were US citizens) and they still even visit family every year.
I'm not denying there's racism here - there is, especially against Muslims (possibly more their religion and culture than the race itself, since it's viewed very misogynistic and against Finnish values) and Somalians (this one is just racism based off ignorance). Recently against Russians too for, well, obvious reasons.
But none of my Philippine friends have experienced racism, especially the ones with Hispanic names (there's Hispanic favoritism here).
Of course, racism isn't why I recommend moving out of the USA to anywhere in the EU - it's the civil unrest, unjust work practices, broken healthcare, rolling back of women's and LGBTQ rights, corruption in government, etc.
Are you sure it wasn't missing paperwork or errors? I'm assuming your wife doesn't have a US passport for example since you said all paperwork was from the Philippines, and my high school friend's grandmother mentioned Philippine record keeping, much like Salvadorian one, leaves much to be desired. Especially after Duterte's reign making things worse and not complying with other global governments, if this was 2016-2022.
I don’t have direct knowledge on whether or not Duterte made all of this worse, but I suspect you’re correct. Philippines is worlds behind on records, which is why I understand the purpose of the Apostille certification agreement.
According to USA friends he fucked with records of ex-pats and it was a nightmare for a bit when their family members were getting citizenship. That's why I also brought him up.
Oof. Considering his ex-presidential behavior in addition to his behavior while in office, this seems like something he would do.
Is that race related? Sounds like an issue with paperwork from the Phillipines. Would they have been considered had they been a different ethnicity?
It didn’t seem that way, but the behavior of the Grecian consulate officer said otherwise.
We had been planning a trip to Italy and Greece for two years. We’ve been paying on the trip monthly. My wife and stepdaughter are Filipino citizens, here in the USA as permanent residents. They have applied for citizenship. Since they still have Filipino passports, they must apply for Schengen visas.
We we through the process of applying. We live in north Alabama. We were initially told we would have to fly to Tampa, FL to apply in person for the visa. I contacted the consulate and asked if we could instead apply in Atlanta since it was closer and I was having to check our daughter out of school to attend the visa appointment. They said that was fine.
We made plans and checked out of work and school to drive to Atlanta. We arrived on time and had most (if not all) of the paperwork that we were aware that needed to be completed. I could tell right away from the sneer of the attendant that there was going to be a problem. When she saw my wife and stepdaughter her attitude changed almost immediately. She took our paperwork, then made us sit in the waiting room about 45 minutes. Finally, she came back out with a guy dressed in suit. He asked me to come back to speak with him. I’m not the one applying for the visa.
I came back to the office and he explained that in 2019 there was a convention in Geneva that most countries signed onto - it was called the Apostille convention. It was intended to resolve the issue of countries certifying documents like birth and marriage certificates for use abroad. I understood the issue, since other countries do not really know who the certifying authorities are. I told him I would gather the information. They also wanted a certified letter stating that I would sponsor and support my wife and stepdaughter abroad during the trip. I’m like… uhh, ok dude, this is my wife and yes we share finances but ok.
So he asked me to return to the waiting area while they looked into other things and I gathered the income information they wanted (this information was above and beyond what was stated on the website, so I had to pull my W-2 records to satisfy their requirements).
After some time, the suit came back out and asked me to come back to the office again. This time, my wife and daughter also got up. He let me into the office, then put his hand up in my wife’s face and said, “Not you” and shut the door in her face.
Now I know something’s really wrong.
The man holds up my marriage certificate (we got married in Philippines) and my stepdaughter’s birth certificate and said, “These are garbage. They shouldn’t have even let them in the USA.”
I asked him very calmly to explain and he again brought up the Apostille convention. He said that we must supply the required Apostille certification for the documents and “they shouldn’t have let them in the country without it.” I said ok, well, while I was waiting I researched this and found that I can get an electronic Apostille certification from Philippines and get this resolved.
The man rolled his eyes and gathered the paperwork up and slammed the folder shut. The lady said, “we’ll take your money and keep their passports and run the application after you get the required information emailed back to us. Have a nice day.” They took our $180 and kept the passports and ushered us out.
I got home that night and then went to the Philippines website to process the Apostille certification for our documents and started the process. That’s where I noticed on the Philippines website that despite all of these countries being privy to the Apostille convention, Finland, Germany and Greece have “elected” to not accept any documentation from Philippines even if it’s certified electronically. The only way to have them certify an Apostille document is to fly all the way to Manila, have an appointment with their consulates in Manila, and ask them nicely to certify the documents and Apostille seal.
Since that wasn’t happening, we had to cancel our trip.
Instead, I’m writing this comment from a first class seat to Hawaii. Our flight credits were enough to pay for a first class round trip to Honolulu for our family of 5.
Normally I would say it was just a paperwork snafu, but the treatment of my wife and daughter at the Greek consulate suggests otherwise.
Fuck Greece (and Finland and Germany too). Respectfully.
Wait, I'm confused. You went to a Greek consulate that wasn't assigned to your location, and never interacted with Finnish or German ones but lumped them in? And why didn't you apply for the Schengen visa using your wife's US paperwork? She's a permanent resident of the USA after all, and should have a social security number no?
But also, none of that has to do with the approval process of moving to a EU country
You cannot apply based on US permanent residence. You must use the process based on citizenship at the time of desired entry.
Finland and Germany are lumped into this because they also refuse to accept Filipino paperwork, according to the Apostille site. This is despite their agreement to the convention, of which Philippines is a part.
Schengen visa rules dictate that you must apply at either the country you enter first or the country you are planning to spend the most time in. In our case, Greece was the answer to both of those questions. Had we applied to Italy, they would have refused to process the Schengen visa and told us to apply at Greece, who refuses to accept the papers.
We asked the Tampa consulate if it was possible to apply in Atlanta instead, and they agreed to this request. We did not show up to the Atlanta consulate blind or without their permission.
The reason I brought this into the discussion is because an EU country is very difficult for us to move into until my wife and daughter become US citizens. I expounded on the experience because I was asked.
From my understanding what you said and texting my friends, sounds like a paperwork issue. They never had trouble, but yeah, they lived in the Philippines. The issue in your case is that she doesn't live in the Philippines, so yes, she has to go there for the process because that's the only country she's a citizen of currently, although it would probably be possible to also do through a Phillipine embassy.
So they do accept Phillipine paperwork, but only official documents from the country itself.
Did you not have any official paperwork from there first notorized by the US? That's what's usually done in cases like yours, like my Highschool's friend's grandmother had to do when she got her US citizenship as well (so it's something you might want to look into anyway just in case).
That's probably your confusion on them "refusing" to accept the paperwork (although of course it also sounds like you had to deal with a racist cunt).
That said, it's weird for you to judge entire countries as super racist when you live in Alabama based off a few racists. I mean, even my black friends from when I lived in Texas didn't like stopping in Alabama. Just, something to consider for the future. I know racism can be extremely infuriating having experienced it both myself and seeing it done to my family, but you always have to remember that the asshole doesn't make the nation. Otherwise you end up also becoming what you hate.
We had original marriage certificates from Philippines with the PSA seal. We also had original birth certificates from PSA for my daughter. The USA accepted them without question for our visa and green card processing.
These are the documents that the consular officer held up to my face and said “these are garbage.”
We were not aware of the Apostille certification process and the USA, despite being a member of the convention, did not require this extra certification for our documents.
Greece would only accept them after they have been presented in person at their Manila consulate with the Apostille certification.
I did not feel it was a racism issue until the consular officers’ behavior made it feel evident there was more to it than a paperwork snafu.
I agree that I portrayed Finland and Germany as racist in an unfair fashion, that was unintended. The racism was evident only at this Greek consulate.
Upon opening this page I see that now Austria is now also not accepting these documents.
Yeah, I'm pretty certain that racist asshole used bureaucracy to be an asshole.
But you should get them notarized in the USA when you can in the future just in case. Harder for smaller countries to not accept diverging when a country line the USA already legally okays it.
We decided not to stress, finish the citizenship later this year, and enjoy some time in Hawaii.
Hawaii is nicer than Greece. My brother lives in Waikiki. If they exterminate the mosquitoes then it truly would be pretty close to a mythical tropical paradise.
It takes less money to move than you might think to move. If you have a specialty (especially in STEM) it’s really easy, and most jobs will even provide language classes for free.
Unfortunately I picked the wrong specialty (architecture). Still trying to get licensed by the end of the year, that's the only chance I have at another country maybe recognizing my degree. Regardless, it's not very in-demand.
It is in the Nordics and some western Europe countries if you get some kind of green certification, as eco friendly and energy efficient architecture is in high demand to meet climate goals but there's a lack of architects specializing in that. Though from the news here it seems there's a lack of architects in general as it was seen by many as not the most profitable field for so many years, so ironically you kinda lucked out lol
Continue living in California, and probably not go to any red state. At least not with my wife. Continue to vote Democrat and spread progressive values.
California is clearly the best state. It's like if you bought the EU off wish.com, but at least there's hope 😂
West Coast is best coast.
Canada. Maybe northern Europe. But I live in a blue state and I don't want to see how long it takes him to say "states' rights only apply to those that voted for me"
The same thing I’m doing now. The same thing I did during trumps first term and Bidens too.
Build stronger ties and more resiliency within my community, organize and agitate to improve it for everyone.
Find new loopholes to exploit. Adapt and overcome. Possibly buy some some snacks.
Let's talk about these snacks
Fruit by the Meter?
Nice try non-american
First I'll do whatever I can to be sure my communications and whereabouts aren't trackable, tell my friends how to contact me, and recommend they use the same channels anyway.
Then I'll find protests to go to and local campaigns to support however I see fit, and I'll do that right up to the point where I feel unsafe, at which point I don't know how I procede.
This would essentially require you to not communicate outside of Signal.
So be it, I guess. If that turns out to be unrealistic I would just have to be careful about the content of the messages I send. Discord and WhatsApp have to go, obviously, but I think I could convince most of my friends and family to download Signal if push came to shove. Maybe I could look into hosting a small Matrix instance if I felt comfortable with whatever risks would come with that.
I don't think a second Trump administration is going to force me into complete anonymity, at least not overnight. I do want to commit to keeping my finger on the pulse so to speak, and staying a step ahead of whatever threats to my rights may be introduced. I have friends that would be much more threatened by Trump 2 than myself so if I can familiarize myself with these tools then I think I can help them feel safer.
Jump ship. Honestly, I’ll execute plan “leave the U.S. while it’s still possible.”
Hope it don't turn out that's before the election. he's signalled every intent to clamp down hard
You must realize he's pandering to the far right extremists. He had every opportunity to actually close the borders and realistically build a wall. This guy is so full of shit his eyes are brown.
Check out project 2025 to see how Trump's cronies are planning on purging the govt of anyone not loyal to Trump and MAGA and replacing them with loyalists.
It’s not him I’m afraid of, it’s his followers.
Just try to live my life like I did during all the bad presidents I've had over my life. I grew up protesting against George Bush Jr and my friends still died in Iraq. now I just try to live my best life, and love and help protect others. I've always been lower class and on the outside of middle class suburban America, so I'm used to just going about my life, no matter what's taboo, or illegal at the time. Hell, DnD was the devil when I was growing up and I still played it. I still smoked weed when it was illegal, and I'll still love a man even if they say I can't.
This is the way. Some things you have control over and some things you don’t. Don’t waste your limited life sitting in your house being mad about who the president is. Raise your kids to be good people. Try to find a job that lines up with your personal philosophy. Find a local community and be helpful there.
Before the election we will be preparing bugout bags for my nuclear family and establishing concrete plans to flee.
After the election, if Trump wins we will monitor and be ready. At the first sign of trouble we get out of dodge. I have the ability to get EU citizenship for my family if need be. In the meantime, my wife and I have skills that can get us the privilege to move into some countries based on their employment needs.
My family and I would have reasons to be targeted by white nationalists if they felt empowered. I have received semi-threatening letters from such people in the past.
I hate that we have to think this way, but we do.
Resist. Reorganize. Endure. Survive. Same as we've always done with presidents.
Idk what settlers are gonna do. Probably what they always do: whine, move to someone else's land if they're seriously inconvenienced, steal their shit, ruin that too, complain about how this keeps happening to them.
Just keep doing what I am doing. My kids will have citizenship in my wife's home country by the end of summer. So I can get them out if I have to. Me personally I am in no real danger.
I'd like to think I'm not so backed into a corner that violence is the answer, so I'll do what I do every day of the week: keep my head down and wait.
If push comes to shove, and the lives of myself and my people are genuinely threatened, I won't retaliate in kind. I come from a long line of people that knew the benefits of blending in. I may not have the moxy to be a firebrand or to rally others to a cause, I may not have the heart to pull a trigger, but I have the means and skill to make triggers and the good sense to stay away from they places they get used.
It may not be the heroic sense of most Americans, but I was born into an America that sold us an action hero instead of providing us safety and I've never been one to buy rhetoric. I will not give my life for a cause, I will live to see it succeed.
In any sane world he’d have no chance. At least he’s shown enough incompetence and appointed so many corrupt greedy assistance, that he won’t succeed in doing as much damage as he wants, except to Ukraine. At this point it’s hard to believe he’s running for anything more than staying out of jail, making himself above the law
Well, I wouldn't call the world we live in "sane".
This time around the people surrounding him know what they need to do. It’s not like last time where they kinda tried to run the government with some pretense of obeying the rules. IMO should trump win this time they’re just going to go all-in and place themselves permanently in power.
Try like hell to move across the pond or Japan.
It was shocking to see how much better of a society Japan was when I visited. Really the one thing they don’t do as well as us is create shareholder value. To which I say, who gives a fuck?
Every former expat I've asked says the same thing.
Japan is for Japanese people.
Doesn't matter how long you live there or even if you were born there. If you don't look Japanese you're a foreigner.
Hugely sexist country though. Maybe it's nice for men to move there.
Yeah 🤷🏻♂️ it was fantastic for me though and that’s all I can speak to
It' really seems like a great place to live. They don't seem on the verge of a civil war and aren't evil to each other. Has more of a everyone get along feel to it and who cares what you're into.
I hope you’re Japanese or can pass for it. As beautiful as the country is (I loved it there) they are highly xenophobic and racist. There are literally restaurants where foreigners aren’t allowed in (even if you’ve lived there decades), getting housing in most places requires you to be “sponsored” by someone with a very high upfront fee, etc.
Same
Prevent it from happening in the first place my voting. It sounds like a lot of people have already given up before the election has even started.
I don't think you understood the prompt
Get ready for '26. Flipping/Maintaining the House and Senate has to be the priority.
Leaving the country and taking my kids in case plan 2025 starts happening.
So I just barely make it into the classes that do well under trump, but I’m very worried as the social safety net is falling apart for most americans, and that republican rule only speeds that problem. I’m going to be trying to strengthen resources that help people trying to make it to self-sufficiency, but I can’t overcome the typical american attitude of “I’ve failed because I need help.” I guess the best plan for most people is to take care of those around them, be moral and resist bad policy by quiet lack of compliance, and try to help good people get out of bad parts of the country so they collapse all the sooner.
make it to self-sufficiency
If a traffic accident can bankrupt you, unfortunately you're still at-risk.
nobody's going to do anything. people always say they will but they never do
I doubt it this time. People are unusually riled up.
There will be protests either way and they will be suppressed with violence.
Screenshotting this for later.
Be ready to admit you were wrong. Project 2025 is already talking about invoking the insurrection act against anti-Trump protestors. MAGA people are talking about protests and wanting another January 6 but bigger this time if Biden wins again.
One time I thought I did a thing...........but it was just gas.
I’m going to keep going to work, brushing my teeth, keeping my apartment clean, working out, visiting my father on the weekends. (serious)
Not sure. But my partner and I have an out, we will probably move to their home country and start a new life there if need be. It's kind of hard to determine when the right time to leave is.
If things get very, very bad, this will be our plan as well.
I’m in a blue state, so mostly help friends and family in red states. Specifically, help people access reproductive care.
Besides that, put more effort into local government.
not when they pass a nationwide ban.
Under what constitutional authority can they do that?
Ha, as if Trump will not tear up the constitution. He's already told us that's his plan. I believe him.
Laugh, fart, jack off. Probably simultaneously.
Move in with my friend in the Netherlands. He's wanted me to move even if Biden wins.
I say Go Anyway. The Netherlands is awesome.
What the fuck are you hanging around here for? Go live a better life
Trump will eventually do something that gets between rich people and their money while also being an impeachable offense. The "sane" bussiness republican VP will pardon Trump after his impeachment and have him live out the rest of his life as a fox news call in guest until he died of "old age".
If we're lucky he'll piss off his Russian contacts and end up falling out a window by accident.
More likely is that this puppet will be used by bad actors to advance their agendas and as usual he'll distract everybody from the actual bad shit happening.
If it's Russia, it will be a poison Big Mac.
He just wouldn't follow through the moment someone told him his idea was bad for rich people.
"On Tyranny" by Tim Snyder has an excellent set of practical guidelines based on how it's played out in other places historically
Move faster and work lots of overtime to get the last of my debt paid off then going to a friends place in Mexico. I speak Mexican Spanish well enough so I can avoid areas filled with expats.
As an athiest, go get on Jesus' good side and hope for a better afterlife
Move to New Zealand. TBF, I'll probably move there if doesn't will as well.
Welcome mate.
Nothing. Like last time.
i'll be ready to observe everything, and get a documented first hand account of fascism (assuming it happens)
Otherwise, i'll probably just shit and piss myself hoping nothing implodes. while staying very far away from the internet.
Hope it's not as bad as I think ("as bad as I think" means "mass killings;") What else can I do? Everyone else here seems to be privileged enough to have the skills or plain cash to say "I'll go somewhere else," isn't as worried as they should be, or think they're Apocalypse Badass Man (see: accelerationists.) That's not me. I'm unskilled, poor, I have the self-introspection to know I don't have what it takes to be a revolutionary.
Hope that Canada or one of the Nordic/EU countries have job openings for an engineer.
Why wait? Did the math, and depending where you go and what state you currently live in, you might even pay less in taxes (or even about the same if you go somewhere high tax like Finland and are coming from a lower tax state like Wisconsin - only 2.3% difference) while also not having to pay in healthcare. Public transportation is so excellent here a car is literally just a luxury, so if you can even consider transportation savings.
Really the only hurdle is language, but practice everyday really hard and you can get the gist of it. Most international companies here use English as primary working language anyhow.
The main hurdle is really experience (I am <5yr) and family (my parents are aging and may need my intervention in fewer years than I think). Firms usually only hire internationally for skilled engineers and there's no guarantee my accredited degree from the US is valid anywhere else. And if I went someplace other than Canada, the travel costs would likely result in me only coming back to see the rest of my family once every two years, which sucks and could pose actual problems.
Don't get me wrong, I honestly do like the idea of going someplace with real human rights, but unless it becomes clear there is actually a threat to my existence I can't justify that big of a change. I love my family too much.
I fully understand. But just do consider that once it begins a threat to your existence, it might be too late, based off past history in other places at least. Consider that EU countries are preparing for a potential Trump presidency too, and Finland and others will no longer accept entry with just a passport, even for vacation, starting next year. That's why I'm determined to help as many as I can move now while there's still time.
If you do want to look into jobs here in Finland at least I'd be glad to help.
We'll see how bad it gets, might ride it out, might leave for somewhere better.
Lots of head shaking and tsktsking but no real action
Same thing as last time.
Vote. He's not allowed to turn this country into a "shithole country" in his words.
Well, we survived him once, we can do it again.
I'd still prefer to not get set back another decade by having him in office, and the danger of him never leaving office by way of dismantling all of the safeguards that prevented his coup in 2021 can't be ignored.
If there are ways I can resist, I will. If there are people I can help just by reaching out, I will extend my hand to them. I won't let Trump's hateful rhetoric poison my humanity or turn me against my fellow man.
If things get bad enough, my girlfriend and I have a "bug-out" plan that we discussed and agreed upon that basically amounts to - withdraw everything from our financial accounts, sell everything that isn't nailed down if we can or abandon everything in place, round up the family and buy plane/boat tickets to head somewhere that has low requirements for citizenship or will accept American petitions for political asylum if things get desperate enough. This is in the worst-case scenario where the U.S. descends into a full fascist/totalitarian state and there is a clear and present danger of us getting killed just for being political dissidents.
Ideally, we'd like to stay here and hope that things get better, but every year things seem to get worse and worse. The American Dream is dead and rotting, and we can just barely see a pinhole of light at the end of the tunnel for us to be able to achieve a life, but we're both left wondering if we're even going to be able to hold on to that if we do manage to seize it given how much the economy is backsliding each year.
tl;dr: the plan is to keep our heads down, but our spirits as high as possible, and always know where the closest exit is in case of an emergency.
The problem is knowing it's time to leave when you're still able to leave...
I was going to say something along similar lines, once the borders are ordered shut, you'll have a much harder time getting out of dodge, not impossible, but much, much harder.
As a person made utterly destitute and disabled by a series of crimes committed against me, well, I have SSDI and thats basically it.
Cost of living is way lower in Ecuador, i can relearn the Spanish I knew in high school, and theres a good number of affordable cities and towns there with considerably better crime statistics and public transportation than anywhere I can afford in the US.
I have done the math and it would be vastly more cost and time effective to move abroad... as I have been evicted, and basically that means I can't rent anywhere in the US for at least two years.
I am seriously considering noping the fuck out if Trump wins. Spent most of my adult life advocating for minorities, the poor, the disenfranchised, and now I am too fucking tired, in too much pain and too broke.
(Ironically my last job was at a non profit assisting the homeless, who didn't give a fuck about me becoming homeless.)
Not like anyone will miss me, every family member and friend I thought I had either committed crimes against me, told me to fuck off, or told me that they what was happening to me was too emotionally traumatic for them to deal with right now.
Of course this plan goes to shit if Trump and the Republicans somehow massively defund or cancel Social Security.
I used to think they would not be so stupid as to actually do that, as... an insane number of Trump's core voter base rely on SSI ot SSA or SSDI... but obviously with the MAGA crowd, anything is possible.
Guess I can always teach English. Maybe if I can ever walk again I can guide tours.
as I have been evicted, and basically that means I can't rent anywhere in the US for at least two years.
There are an increasing number of sublets and private rentals in my area, that don't check rental history. Everything is fairly under the table, month to month with no binding leases, for better or worse depending on your situation. Just bringing it up as a potential avenue to consider, maybe there are options in your area too.
Can you like dm me where this place is?
I am basically bound to my current roach motel that just happens to allow month to month rent, without kicking you out after 3 weeks.
I have been using a shit tier 4g phone for months now trying to find no credit check apartments. Everything is a scam, and none the shady apartments seem to actually list online anywhere.
'Look for private rentals!' Is good advice but... with what search engine, what rental website actually has a private rentals filter that actually works? Ive not found one.
Craigslist is bone dry where I am, and the few times a listing pops up, either they don't respond or they don't allow evictions or , again, its a scam.
I bussed halfway across the country to find the cheapest motel rates I could.
Im not a resident of the state as I do not live in a residence.
I dont qualify for rental assistance as I do not live in a residence.
And I don't qualify for homeless assistance as I am not homeless.
Its fucking wonderful.
My plan is to leave the US my rent ends in November of 2025 so if trump wins I'm probably be leaving country
Feel a crushing sense of despair at the state of my country and probably get more involved in local issues.
I'm a govt. contractor. I will retire the day before he's swarn in. I'm not sure what I'll do beyond that. A lot of Americans already retire to Costa Rica or Panama. I'll have to decide whether to run away or stay & resist.
Panic
Someone has already opened an opportunity for me to move to the UK, but for non-political reasons. Though it will remain an option.
Just keep on living without trying to let the complete bullshit affect my well being.
Why wouldn't you want a man-baby rapist pedophile as president? He's good enough for the republicans.
Insurrection? Lol
I would immediately erase everything that I have ever posted, anywhere. I would go underground as much as possible, online speaking. When the purges come, I would be a target.
IDK if we would leave. We are not prime immigrant status, not qualifying for Canada. That shocked me, TBF.
Well, I'm definitely going to lose my job if he gets elected. So I guess I'll do one good thing with my life.
Hi, Biden.
Could be the current vice president, whoever it is
Honestly not sure if you're making a social commentary about the intelligence levels of Americans regarding their modern government.........or if you just ARE the social commentary that you unintentionally made about yourself.
I'm not 'murican, so 🤷♂️
Candian here.
Do not come north.
We cannot house and feed you. Most of you will die of exposure the first winter you are here.
If you have thoughts of coming here with guns and taking our homes or food by force know that most of us outside the cities are armed, we're just not so scared that we constantly show off our guns and feel no need to go prepared for combat to buy donuts or groceries.
So, Mexico is your best bet, if they will take you. I bet you'll be glad that all the talk of a border wall was just neo-fascist virtue signaling.
Bud not only are we coming north, but we're going to turn your subarctic tundra into orange groves.
The Diagaloons want to divide North America in half with a line drawn from Alaska to Florida and put all the Liberals on the south side of the line. We get BC and Alberta, Texas, the Pacific northwest, and California and they get ice, snow, and Florida.
Wow you're an asshole
Yeah. Also, clearly doesn't understand what is going on (TBF, I don't know shit about Canadian politics either), but the stupid violent people with guns will be overjoyed if trump is the president.
Just as the students in Iran were overjoyed when the shah fell right up until the reality of living under a theocratic dictatorship sunk in.
True story!
I simply pointed out the reality of the situatuation. Canada can't take in millions of American refugees fleeing a christofascist authoritarian regime.
Your understanding of the effects of immigration is childish.
Ok. Explain to me how a country of 40 million people that doesn't have sufficient housing for the people who are here now can house millions of political refugees from the US before winter hits and they all freeze to death?
Keep in mind we're not talking about gradual immigration. We're talking a wave of potentially millions of refugees fleeing a christofascist dictatorship or civil war.
Your insults are very childish. Do better.
Just make Newfoundland pay for it, they pay for everything else.
Newfoundland gets over $200 million in annual equalization payments.
The New-fees I have worked with have a different assessment of the situation
But I'm Minnesotan. I can blend in really well.
You're well north of the south most point in Canada. You're practically Canadian. We just don't have enough housing up here to take in a bunch of refugees. If Americans end up in tent city refugee camps they will die in winter. We could put a few tens of thousands in school gymnasiums and community centers but it would turn into a humanitarian disaster.
Nah bud, we're going to cut down all your trees and build shacks. All those lakes surrounded by trees, going to put up condos.
If Trump wins: WWIII.
If Trump does not win: Civil war.
Maybe? Either one could have a few years delay.
Somehow we all are okay with him being the literal center of everything.
Portugal.
If nobody paid any attention to him we could just passive aggressively get through the next 4 years.
Yeah. That worked last time
For the survivors at least
It did
Regardless of whom is elected, I’m going to keep listening to Bernie Sanders’s podcast, which I just discovered.
He’s just a few episodes in and is still learning, but it’s gonna be a really good podcast.
I had no idea he had a podcast! Thank you so much for sharing this! I just looked it up and am listening now.
I saw he had a podcast during the 2020 election season too, so I’m going to listen to that while waiting for new episodes to come out.
Currently getting my passport in order, friend in Canada said I could stay with them.
"Getting your passport in order?" You mean having one?
Signing up for the Preferred Refugee Status program actually takes some lead time. Bureaucracy, ya know.
Same as every year the country gets shittier, keep trudging along, voting, and hoping things improve. The way things are set up here I can't feasibly leave, even moving in country would be a beast to save and prep for let alone out of country.
The "Freedom" we have is voting every couple years and that's it. Even then they have tried everything possible to strip the voice of the majority of Americans. We are pretty fucking powerless for the most part.
Have a general sense of disappointment and despair as I watch bad decisions be made. My glimmer of hope is that he is an old man in bad shape and he could drop dead at any moment now.
I live in Texas and i work in public education. That said, I'm in a mostly blue bubble, I have a pretty good retirement fund, and I'm unlikely to get pregnant. My school district is still mostly reasonably run (by idiots, but not magas, just regular idiots) but we're feeling the budget cuts, increase in kids with needs, and difficulty hiring. I'm hoping for the house and Senate to protect us because it looks like the justice dept is already too far gone.
I’m in the privileged class so despite being pissed off I won’t be targeted. If I was a minority or woman I’d GTFO.
Grit teeth for 4 years.
'28 he leaves. If not?
Shit gets ugly fast.
Start getting into a resistance mindset. People have a rapidly vanishing window to organize for what's coming. Biden or Trump this cycle it doesn't really matter that much, Democrats and their supporters are simply are not equipped to resist fascism. We've reached the terminal end of the lesser of two evils, and it's going to be bad. Genocide Joe won't save us.
Indeed. I keep asking what is the plan to stop a fascist MAGA candidate from winning the Presidency in 2028, when the Democrats don't have incumbent advantage, and the historical pattern is a party flip, and have received only one (joke) answer. I have heard no talk whatsoever about how to handle a Biden win this year, although the MAGA politicians are signaling another attempt to overturn the election. (My state AG is still "investigating" the fake elector scheme from 2020; no way a prosecution will happen before the election, and likely never.) "Vote harder" is not going to be effective.
Ill see what happens, presidents like to talk big before they're elected, but if everything really goes down the shitter, and project 2025 is successful I'll seriously consider leaving. Very fortunately I am British by decent. Not the greatest improvement but a significant one nonetheless.
"I'll see ... but," "if," "I'll seriously consider."
Anarchy seems more likely to mr than fascism in the aftermath of such an election outcome. Trump has too many haters for there to be a peaceful transition this time.
My plan is to vote in candidates at all levels that are endorsed by The Forward Party.
We need to overhaul our voting system so that we're not trapped in this downward spiral of a 2 party system that we're currently in. Ranked Choice voting, Star voting, Approval voting... they all have pros and cons but any one of them is better than the current system that we have.
The way we get better options for Presidential candidates is to have a voting system that gives other parties a chance.
I don't care if I have to vote for a particular Republican, Democrat, or some third party individual for this to be accomplished.
Following the trend of "vote out all Republicans/Democrats" is how we got here in the first place.
Can I persuade you to choose party for socialism and liberation over fwd where there is one?
Psl is a far left party whose vision of democracy is radically far reaching, extending into even the workplace. Unless you simply favor the self described centrist policies of fwd, psl might be more your speed where there is a candidate.
I think you're misunderstanding what the Forward Party is.
You can be a part of any side of the political spectrum and still fall in line with the Forward Party.
The only thing that the Forward Party cares about is overhauling the voting system with something better: RCV, Star, Approval, etc.
They don't take a stance on much of anything else.
And in terms of priority, any candidate endorsed by the Forward Party has my initial vote. If multiple candidates in the same race are backed by the forward party, then I will start digging in deeper to figure out which one I want to vote for.
i didn't know that they had dropped everything but electoral reform after yang.
that's a really interesting move. i'm excited to see how they do in november
I'm shocked more people aren't already better prepared for this, but it's actually the same thing we should be doing now, and continue to do if Biden actually wins:
Organize locally. Get hyperlocal. Organize your city, neighbors, block, building, workplace, and friend group. Establish mutual aid networks, take back city councils, county boards, and school boards from the stewards of landlords and big employers.
Establish protection for those who need it, and plant the crop of future national leaders who will do the long overdue work of putting government to work for the masses. Make it harder for any president or governor to exercise state violence by getting our people in prosecutors offices and judgeships.
The Democrats are not going to save us. Biden is just planning to go down with the ship. Absolutely vote for the lesser of two evils if you live somewhere where your vote matters, but recognize that the Democratic party is not an ally to the antifascist movement, because combating fascism conflicts with the interests of capital.
That can change, but until it does, don't put faith in them. Anything positive they do will be because power-players were replaced. And that starts in your own neighborhood.
Edit: Since this has been well received, I want to say a quick word on third parties: don't be afraid of them.
Without getting into a lot of details, there are a lot of myths about the risks that third parties present, but before we parrot all of that, we should just acknowledge that there is no harm in listening to their platforms. It doesn't make you a kook to hear ideas that often get suppressed by the mainstream, or to use third parties as a way to network and meet people. I think Jill Stein has a lot of useful things to say, and if a pollster asks me, I will gladly try to bump her numbers up so that she is harder to ignore. Don't be afraid to do that.
This is good, and I'm piggybacking so I can add on:
Get a passport, make friends in another country.
Vote to slow them down, yell at anyone who tries to say that it's better to not vote or that Trump would be better for Palestinians.
If you want to engage in electoral reform, you need to start years in advance.
If you live in Texas: Vote for Biden and encourage GOP voters to not vote for Trump. If you're in a place with lots of GOP weirdos, try publicly and loudly watch his rallies at 1.5x speed; I've heard it breaks the spell b/c his cadence gets disrupted. If Texas goes blue, Biden wins and all the DNC voters suddenly know they can win, making it immediately more likely.
If all else fails, remember someone might [Comment Cannot Legally Be Finished], which would solve multiple problems.
Texas was won by fewer than 633k votes. Considering Trump's popularity I'd say it's ripe for flipping but we can't lay down on the job. Also the GOP policies are pushing out liberals and people that are vulnerable (LGBTQ+ and families with LGBTQ+ kids) so the window is closing.
I believe this so strongly!!! Everywhere i go i beg people to vote. It was really only a few percentage points. We don't even have to flip people; just get the non-voters to go to the polls.
Think it's worth mentioning that U.S. politics sets the tone of politics in a lot of the west. When Trump won, the alt-right parties in more or less all of Europe grew significantly. Here in Sweden over the span of the almost 8 years since, our nazi party grew from a smaller party that the right wingers argued whether or not they should collaborate with in order to create a right-wing coalition and win majority, to the second largest party in Sweden.
Here in 2016 South Africa our online media spaces lit up like a fucking Christmas tree with all the white supremacists coming out of the woodwork to celebrate Trump's win. Since then, the second-largest of our (so-called) "opposition" parties - a party that can pretty much be described as the party of white liberalism - has dumped any black people they had in senior positions and began using GOP-esqe dog-whistling. All our parties - pretty much the entire formal political establishment - has been very receptive to violent, USian-style anti-immigrant narratives.
So yeah... you can flee the US - but you can't really escape US politics.
I'm not even a little bit surprised, sadly.
Last election we had here (2022) surveillance and stop and frisk were decently big talking points. Even the supposed Liberals are like "uwu so sad privacy is dying we have to be careful but
big brother needs to sees youwe nweed to be hawd on cwime!1!" I think the only party that's not OK with it is the leftists.Lol! That reminds me... about three years ago I was notified of a "town meeting to discuss local problems" held at a local school here in middle-of-nowhere South Africa. It turns out it was just a shady PR attempt by the local branch of the "white liberal" party I described above (the so-called "Democratic Alliance"), and the suit there doesn't talk about our decrepit and failing water, electricity and sewage infrastructure or the fact that this mining town is being economically extinguished by privatized interests... instead, the only order of business was to brag about how they had set up surveillance in our main streets and handing off the data to the piggy for free.
I feel like strangling that particular suit every damn time I lay eyes on him.
I still don't quite get how these people make sense of the world. We recently had a big reveal that our nazi party is using "anonymous social media accounts" to try and influence popular opinion. They claim that they don't, and that the accounts aren't affiliated with the party, but there was a whole report on the thing and it's landed them in some hot water. The people voting for them are pretty much unfazed but the right-block alliance overall has taken quite a hit to their public support.
One of the things these people who supposedly really love Sweden discussed, was how they could perhaps create some sort of campaign website to try and incide violence among migrants, and possibly incite terror attacks. Like, how do you reconcile your "patriotism and love for your country" with wanting people to perform terror attacks?
Were I to play devil's advocate I'd say that it's possible that they were just shooting the shit, but even then? Isn't it a bit over the top? As a gay guy I'm not joking about conversion therapy or forcible sterilisations.
We had that exact thing here in South Africa in the late 80s and early 90s - the only difference was that it was actually enabled by the Apartheid-state through their terrorist proxies (ie, mainly the South African Police). When the anti-Apartheid groups didn't act "terroristic" enough for their taste, they just did it themselves and used the media to create a narrative of "black-on-black violence" to try and destabilize the country.
They "love" their countries in the same way that a rapist "loves" his victims - the feel themselves entitled to it and deserving of holding the power of life and death over it. They do not actually care about the real people living in Sweden in any way whatsoever. That's pretty much standard fare when it comes to far right-wing ideology no matter what part of the world you find them in.
The reason they want to "incite" (so-called) "terror attacks" among migrants they see as not "white," "Swedish" or "Nordic" enough is two-fold.
Firstly, they want the Swedish people to see these migrants the way they see them - as a (supposedly) bloodthirsty and rapacious "other." Not much different from the way the Nazis portrayed the "Jewish-Bolshevik hordes" before and during WW2. A (supposed) "terror attack" that can be blamed on the "other" will essentially result in the media performing this function for them.
Secondly, they want an atmosphere of panic - such as existed right after 9/11 in the US. They know that such a state of things will allow their ideology to suddenly seem "relevant" in the same way that militarism suddenly became standard fare in the US afterwards.
You. I like you.
Just be careful you dont get "Boeing"ed.
Project 2025 The plan the Conservative have for our future
This is for everyone that is taking the "oh well" stance... or the I'm going to wait it out stance... If you are unfamiliar with what the Republicans plan to do, I encourage you to look at the Project 2025 plan.
Some highlights
Project director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, explained that Project 2025 is "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state."
So, for fucks sake, can we stop saying that we can wait out Trump for another term. There won't be an America left if there is another term.
Good luck with criminalizing porn
Anyway it's sickening and shocking, apparently you don't need a coup and president assassination for the Gilead to emerge
They already blocked porn sites in a couple states
Nothing a VPN can't solve
the problem is, when it's illegal, and you get caught, you'll face the consequences.
Or if you did something else wrong. VPN installed to look at porn? Well, now you did two things wrong, you must be a super special bad person. More prison time for you.
The people behind it don't care in the slightest that you watch porn. They care to have something in hand against you in case you're falling out of line
With the current law, I thought the onus was on the websites to verify user's ages. Not technically banning porn, but effectively making the big names drop support. Are there any US states where porn viewing itself is criminalized?
This sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan from the perspective of a conservative. Criminalize porn so people have to take the urges out elsewhere, criminalize abortions so rape victims have to give birth, and slash social services and education funding to create the next generation of uninformed, emotionally-driven voters.
You’ll be surprised
The non-voters don’t care. The ones that actually subscribe to the ignorant narrative of single issue protesting are too stubborn to admit they’re wrong. And the rest of them are right-wing/Russian propagandists.
Basically, what you shared is what either of the aforementioned will use as a platform to bolster their effort to sell everyone on their bullshit ideology.
I think they do care, they've just been taught that their vote doesn't matter. This seems to be especially true of non-white people i talk to. How can we encourage people to engage? A meme or a list of concerns is not going to change their mindset when they've been manipulated into generations of apathetic resistance.
No, they’re upset over a single issue every election year. They’re easily manipulated. That’s it.
This happens every four years. Like clock work. They find some hot button social issue and use it to hold our election ransom.
And also, If they thought their votes don’t matter, they wouldn’t threaten to not vote at all or vote third party if they don’t get their way. Because if their votes didn’t matter- it would be empty threats.
The people I've spoken with who don't vote are mostly black or brown and aren't withholding votes because of some issue. They've never voted. I invited a friend to go primary vote with me and she said, "no thanks, but you have fun with that."
I don’t think we’re taking about the same thing.
The degree to which one person’s vote matters is a simple matter that is easily seen. There’s no room for “believing” anything.
In the USA for instance, a Presidential vote is extremely unlikely to change the election outcome. Therefore, that vote doesn’t matter very much.
The idea that voting makes a difference, for the individual, is an illusion we use to get people to vote. In the most basic, real, concrete way, which way I vote in an election does not make a difference.
That's like saying $1 doesn't mean anything.
Swede here, we just joined NATO and this shit terrifies me, and what is worse is that this is what people are saying publicly, how far will they go in practice?
Nah, I doubt they'll manage what they say. Some maybe, and shit'll suck no doubt, but there's a lot of inertia in the bureaucracy. My real worry is what the CCP & Russia will do once they have a green light that the US won't intervene in their expansionist ideals.
Usually they go less far in practice than their promises, because our government was designed to be gridlocked.
What am I supposed to do then. I tried voting progressive and Democrat, I tried organizing, I tried donating and fund raising, I tried at the local level.
And every step of the way the Democrats have gone out of their way to help move the goal posts to the point that my choices for a school board member we're someone openly racist or someone who is openly sexist.
For president I get genocide or fascism... Gee really motivating me there folks.
No, for president you get a lot of genocide and fascism vs some genocide with sprinkles of humanitarian aid.
Exactly, they're the same picture, right? /s
Not even close but that still does not mean I have a valid choice.
you get one choice that has shown he can be pressured with reason and public opinion and one that wants to commit domestic crimes with impunity, that openly wants to have his political enemies killed, and that has shown he can be pressured by Russia. You know, the country that swore to defeat the US from within.
but yeah, both sides.
I will never suggest any form of equivalency because there simply is not one. The republican party is clearly a bad actor and comparing the democrats and suggesting they are in some way an equal evil is a ludicrous fallacy.
But that does not mean that voting democrat is an imperative, nor that they become a valid choice because the "others" are invalid.
The bulk of my voting power comes from republican primaries where I can have an outsized impact on which evil will get the chance to run, but beyond that my votes count for nothing.
My point is simply that if the democrats actually cared about making a difference, they would not prop up dead candidates, they would not bend over backwards to help move the goal posts for the republicans. What they could really do is change the laws around how we vote, create automatic registration, make election days mandatory holidays with mandatory time off to vote, pass laws around campaign fiance and transparency. But they wont, because the same tools help them "win" and have power.
Just look at Trudeau, who ran on a platform of voting reform in Canada, the second he had control he dropped that promise like it was radioactive. Why voluntarily break the system that put him and his party into power.... It clearly worked for them before. Same logic applies to the dem's in the US. They wont change the system, even while its being broken, because they still think it gives them a shot at power. We dont need power, we need actual population based representation and robust protection from corporate ownership of our government.
I don't think you can state the plan legally
sic semper tyrannus
...tyrannis
Though you might have thought of Darth Tyranus. Which is fine.
You and I both know I was thinking of Tyrannosaurus Rex, but okay.
He had the right idea.
He came and he went.
If I end up on try that jury, not guilty.
Jury nullification goes brrrrrrrrrrrrr
Tree of liberty is gettin' mighty thirsty.
Oh man. I'm pretty non-violent, but Nov 2016, when my adult kids called me in tears, i had ideas swirling.
Keep doing what I have been doing - dragging MAGA fence sitters back from the brink one by one. The ones who have adopted Trumpism as their religion are too far gone. But there are a lot who just need to be taken by the hand and shown a better path.
When you see MAGA BS, challenge it with well-reasoned arguments. The object really isn't to change the mind of the poster. It's to prevent them from changing the minds of others.
Yeah, there's a huge difference in tactics depending on whether you're trying to comvince the person you're arguing with, or the audience.
The latter is soo much easier - often it's enough to back them into a corner where they out themselves as wrong whatever they say, and they'll quickly descend into a ball of rage.
Making someone descend into a ball of rage is now how you get them off the fence.
Thats what my brother does, but he is a cis het man who works in construction as an electrician. He is very left leaning so he does try to challenge things where he can.
But I can't do that. I am a trans woman and confrontation legitimately would put me in danger and it wouldn't work anyways. People claim I am biased because I am in a group who is being targeted, its bullshit beyond belief but thats how people are.
Can you please give an example of a well reasoned argument that's relevant here?
I'm not sure of the relationship of reason to people that aggressively disregard objective fact and fluidly move the goalpost of their burden of proof.
I like to ask who will replace the main stream media, and how that won’t make them the new mainstream media.
IME this just leads to "yeah, but ours will be different/better!" type responses like...
"Politicians suck, but ours are good"
"Stop giving out all these services with our tax dollars but don't touch our Medicare"
"Gay marriage shouldn't be legal, but my gay daughter is fine."
"Immigrants are evil, except for the waiter at my favorite Mexican restaurant, he is one of the good ones"
I/Me/Mine is ALWAYS the exception to every rule for them.
So the NEW mainstream, MY mainstream, will be different and tell the REAL truth.
Look up how to debate. Success is not measured by how bad you make the opponent look. That may work on one person, but you have to repeat it for every person who advances the same argument. Instead, take apart their argument, reveal underlying motives, expose untruths with irrefutable documentation, uncover false logic and bad assumptions, and respond without attacking the messenger.
For instance, "The economy is terrible! Everything is so expensive." Well, stuff -is- expensive. But is the economy really the reason behind it? The US stock indexes are at record highs. Most companies have been beating the expected earnings per share. Isn't it more likely that things are expensive because companies are taking more profit to give to their shareholders? Which candidate do you believe is more inclined to change that?
The object is not to defeat the opponent. It's to prevent others from being convinced by their arguments.
I’m torn on this. I’m “white”-ish enough, no kids, can’t get pregnant (or anyone pregnant) and I’m in the top 10%… so would anything for me fundamentally change? No…. I could stick my head in the sand and ignore it, but that’s really not me and it freaking breaks my heart to see all the people it impacts.
So I see one of three things:
I don’t really want to think about it, but it’s been at the back of my head.
Stick around and keep trying to improve the country despite everyone else's best efforts to fuck it all up
This is my plan. I have to finish medical school anyways, and once I've done that, I'll be in a better position to help other people.
Same thing I did last time he was president. Ignore the news and spend as much time as possible in the woods on a bicycle.
Whine about my taxes going up again. Cry laugh at John Stewart. Go defend my school board
And if he gets what he wants you’ll just never return from the woods? The dude that reasons that presidents can kill opposition- literally
That's my intention and I've been doing it for decades. It's kind of president-independent action.
Al-Awlaki. The president can order the death of American citizens. The fact that we're pretending they already haven't is insane.
They shouldn't be able to at all, of course, but it's what you do with a standing army.
Try to avoid being murdered by my neighbors.
Living in a cop neighborhood is fun, no ?
Living in a neighborhood with open Trump supporters feels like sitting on a ticking time bomb.
The same thing I did the last time he was president. Absolutely nothing.
Correct answer. People thinking murder will magically be legal are insane.
However, thinking that murder will magically be legal for a sitting President as part of his executive duties, is slightly more based in reality.
No, just no. The turnip if he whens will not magically make murder legal.
It will make murder legal for him, depending on how the Supreme Court rules on the presidential immunity case. Which they're conspicuously refusing to do before the election.
If they ruled presidents had immunity it would literally make murder legal: Biden could legally murder Trump and only face impeachment. No criminal proceedings could be brought against him.
They're obviously not ruling on it now. Cynically one could argue that they're going to change the ruling depending on who wins. If Biden wins reelection then they'll rule that presidents have legal limits. If he loses then they expand the power of the dictatorship.
That is exactly what I meant. Thanks!
Spend a solid week posting screenshots of my comments on this platform about how the DNC is digging their own grave after they inevitably blame the voters for their loss just like in 2016.
you blame people who a) voted for trump or b) didn't vote for Biden. simple as that.
you want to blame the DNC because you voted for Trump/didn't vote for Biden? yeah, nah.
I guess "get fucked", realistically speaking. I can't afford to leave on my own, my social life is empty of anyone else I can depend on, and I will almost certainly have a target on my back as a gay guy -- after they're done with trans people, we'll probably be next.
Get a lesbian beard now would be a decent plan to consider. Just someone you can stand enough to have as a roommate.
This is a problem that needs fixing regardless of who’s elected.
Why don’t you have a support network?
Where does one buy one of those, and how much do they cost? Asking for me. 😂
Mine cost me about $4k from an at-the-time reputable fursuit maker
Ah that’s my problem. I’m spending too much on silicone dicks and not enough on the suit.
Nah, I don't think you spent too much. We all need to take Chances once in a while.
It does cost a lot though, gotta be careful not to Nix your wallet and Crash your economy.
And this is why I love Lemmy. :D
Aww, and Lemmy loves you! 💖
Also, just to toot my own horn, I felt pretty proud of that last one. I initially was like "how the heck do you casually drop Fenrir or David in a sentence" but... It's not nearly as elegant as Chance.
We are friends now, if you need support just let me know :3
Aww, that's so sweet! I suppose this means that the way to make adult friends is to tongue-in-cheek talk about adult toys.
I did actually make a in-person friend doing exactly that once.
Depending on your sexual culture and relationship status, tongue-in-cheek can be a great way to make friends
Very well done. :D
You too!
I think you buy them by keeping your own promises to people consistently, but I’m not sure since I haven’t done that yet.
I think you likely also have to be decently sociable, and I find socialising with people in real to be both difficult and exhausting.
The only family I have supporting me right now doesn't want to leave the country and can't provide meaningful support from afar, meaning I have to stay here. And staying during a second Trump term could be dangerous very quickly indeed if I'm to believe even half of the insane shit coming out of Project 2025.
other than my family, I just don't have much luck making connections with other people, I get along better with dogs. Unfortunately, dogs don't help pay rent. worse, if Trump wins another term, I would actually consider it dangerous to be openly gay. Not that I was getting dates anyways, but it means I probably won't try anymore if it's going to put me or my family at risk of harassment.
I'm just trying to enjoy every day I have with my family and try not to panic too hard, now, mostly through distracting myself with weed and videogames. I don't know how soon things will get bad, but I don't think we have the resources necessary to protect us from what's coming if he wins again. We're struggling as is -- I've lost my job recently, I had to go through cancer this past year, I'm depressed -- I don't also need to be shit-scared of how the election plays out. Even if he loses, so much is still so fucked with our country right now.
What games do you play?
helldivers 2, mostly, as of late
I smoke weed and play video games too. Let me know if you want to game sometime
I sent you a dm with my steam ID, a week ago.
Well apparently there are no negative consequences for staging a coop.
Coup. COUP! It's not a fucking chicken house!
He meant a co-op. A cooperative arrangement to leave the country
I don't know, it doesn't seem far off.
Well, as a real estate agent I staged a coop once but I still couldn't sell it. It was a low quality flip though.
I mean do you like being woken up at 5 am every day? Because we had chickens growing up and it sucked. But with the price of eggs these days, maybe it's a good tradeoff.
If I had a plan to respond to someone horrible getting elected president, I would've used it long before now.
man fuck this i ain't have "flee the country" money
I really don't want to be here if it happens. Full stop.
Curl up in a ball and weep a salty creek.
There's not much to do except try to stay in my house and not engage with the outside world any more than I have to for four years.
It's also not like the Democrats are going to reign Trump in in any significant way. (Don't get me wrong. I'm voting for Biden, I just don't expect much.)
You are making a lot of assumptions. If everything goes absolutely perfectly we might have an end in four years. I doubt it though. This man has already started dismantling our government with his federalist society stooges on the court. He plans to gut the executive branch so there is no Opposition within government. He has shown he will use violence to keep power.
You don’t oppose fascism by being quiet. You oppose it by being loud and making it impossible for them to do their evil shit.
I mean, you can do it quietly too. Spying and sabotage are also really useful.
Yeah, on the podcast “Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff” by Margaret Killjoy she talked about a group of art students who slipped piece of paper with fake spy shit on them in Nazis coats and car and what not to frame them as part of a conspiracy. It ended up sparking a rebellion in the army and helped destroy its cohesiveness.
If anyone needs help moving to the EU (and in particular Finland) let me know. I moved to Finland after 2016 (I saw the writing on the wall for awhile, before Trump - it's just that's when I finally had the best opportunity and Trump accelerated the need to move).
It takes less money to move than you might think to move. If you have a specialty (especially in STEM) it's really easy, and most jobs will even provide language classes for free.
If you don't, it's still possible, but it'll be much harder work I'll admit. You may end up as a janitor or laborer, but know this - you'll still be able to live comfortably. Wages can be much fairer here, public transportation is excellent to the point where you don't need a car at all, and you won't be bankrupted by healthcare. Even a low skilled SINGLE job will afford you financial security - something I remember was not the case in the USA.
And on the bright side, if you want to go to higher education here, university is a lot cheaper or, if you live long enough in a place to become a permanent resident or citizen, free.
If you get yourself at least 8k and 3 months of intensive Duolingo and maybe Mondly, you have a chance to move.
Finland is one of three countries that banned my wife and stepdaughter's race by using a procedural "gotcha." Despite being a part of the Apostille convention in Geneva, Finland, Germany and Greece refuse to accept any documentation from Philippines. Therefore, they are banned from your country entirely.
Thanks for the offer though.
Reminder to all here: USA is not the only country on the planet with racism.
Could you go into more details? I have friends from the Philippines (like, directly from there, never were US citizens) and they still even visit family every year.
I'm not denying there's racism here - there is, especially against Muslims (possibly more their religion and culture than the race itself, since it's viewed very misogynistic and against Finnish values) and Somalians (this one is just racism based off ignorance). Recently against Russians too for, well, obvious reasons.
But none of my Philippine friends have experienced racism, especially the ones with Hispanic names (there's Hispanic favoritism here).
Of course, racism isn't why I recommend moving out of the USA to anywhere in the EU - it's the civil unrest, unjust work practices, broken healthcare, rolling back of women's and LGBTQ rights, corruption in government, etc.
Are you sure it wasn't missing paperwork or errors? I'm assuming your wife doesn't have a US passport for example since you said all paperwork was from the Philippines, and my high school friend's grandmother mentioned Philippine record keeping, much like Salvadorian one, leaves much to be desired. Especially after Duterte's reign making things worse and not complying with other global governments, if this was 2016-2022.
I don’t have direct knowledge on whether or not Duterte made all of this worse, but I suspect you’re correct. Philippines is worlds behind on records, which is why I understand the purpose of the Apostille certification agreement.
According to USA friends he fucked with records of ex-pats and it was a nightmare for a bit when their family members were getting citizenship. That's why I also brought him up.
Oof. Considering his ex-presidential behavior in addition to his behavior while in office, this seems like something he would do.
Please see my long comment in thread above.
Is that race related? Sounds like an issue with paperwork from the Phillipines. Would they have been considered had they been a different ethnicity?
It didn’t seem that way, but the behavior of the Grecian consulate officer said otherwise.
We had been planning a trip to Italy and Greece for two years. We’ve been paying on the trip monthly. My wife and stepdaughter are Filipino citizens, here in the USA as permanent residents. They have applied for citizenship. Since they still have Filipino passports, they must apply for Schengen visas.
We we through the process of applying. We live in north Alabama. We were initially told we would have to fly to Tampa, FL to apply in person for the visa. I contacted the consulate and asked if we could instead apply in Atlanta since it was closer and I was having to check our daughter out of school to attend the visa appointment. They said that was fine.
We made plans and checked out of work and school to drive to Atlanta. We arrived on time and had most (if not all) of the paperwork that we were aware that needed to be completed. I could tell right away from the sneer of the attendant that there was going to be a problem. When she saw my wife and stepdaughter her attitude changed almost immediately. She took our paperwork, then made us sit in the waiting room about 45 minutes. Finally, she came back out with a guy dressed in suit. He asked me to come back to speak with him. I’m not the one applying for the visa.
I came back to the office and he explained that in 2019 there was a convention in Geneva that most countries signed onto - it was called the Apostille convention. It was intended to resolve the issue of countries certifying documents like birth and marriage certificates for use abroad. I understood the issue, since other countries do not really know who the certifying authorities are. I told him I would gather the information. They also wanted a certified letter stating that I would sponsor and support my wife and stepdaughter abroad during the trip. I’m like… uhh, ok dude, this is my wife and yes we share finances but ok.
So he asked me to return to the waiting area while they looked into other things and I gathered the income information they wanted (this information was above and beyond what was stated on the website, so I had to pull my W-2 records to satisfy their requirements).
After some time, the suit came back out and asked me to come back to the office again. This time, my wife and daughter also got up. He let me into the office, then put his hand up in my wife’s face and said, “Not you” and shut the door in her face.
Now I know something’s really wrong.
The man holds up my marriage certificate (we got married in Philippines) and my stepdaughter’s birth certificate and said, “These are garbage. They shouldn’t have even let them in the USA.”
I asked him very calmly to explain and he again brought up the Apostille convention. He said that we must supply the required Apostille certification for the documents and “they shouldn’t have let them in the country without it.” I said ok, well, while I was waiting I researched this and found that I can get an electronic Apostille certification from Philippines and get this resolved.
The man rolled his eyes and gathered the paperwork up and slammed the folder shut. The lady said, “we’ll take your money and keep their passports and run the application after you get the required information emailed back to us. Have a nice day.” They took our $180 and kept the passports and ushered us out.
I got home that night and then went to the Philippines website to process the Apostille certification for our documents and started the process. That’s where I noticed on the Philippines website that despite all of these countries being privy to the Apostille convention, Finland, Germany and Greece have “elected” to not accept any documentation from Philippines even if it’s certified electronically. The only way to have them certify an Apostille document is to fly all the way to Manila, have an appointment with their consulates in Manila, and ask them nicely to certify the documents and Apostille seal.
Since that wasn’t happening, we had to cancel our trip.
Instead, I’m writing this comment from a first class seat to Hawaii. Our flight credits were enough to pay for a first class round trip to Honolulu for our family of 5.
Normally I would say it was just a paperwork snafu, but the treatment of my wife and daughter at the Greek consulate suggests otherwise.
Fuck Greece (and Finland and Germany too). Respectfully.
Wait, I'm confused. You went to a Greek consulate that wasn't assigned to your location, and never interacted with Finnish or German ones but lumped them in? And why didn't you apply for the Schengen visa using your wife's US paperwork? She's a permanent resident of the USA after all, and should have a social security number no?
But also, none of that has to do with the approval process of moving to a EU country
You cannot apply based on US permanent residence. You must use the process based on citizenship at the time of desired entry.
Finland and Germany are lumped into this because they also refuse to accept Filipino paperwork, according to the Apostille site. This is despite their agreement to the convention, of which Philippines is a part.
Schengen visa rules dictate that you must apply at either the country you enter first or the country you are planning to spend the most time in. In our case, Greece was the answer to both of those questions. Had we applied to Italy, they would have refused to process the Schengen visa and told us to apply at Greece, who refuses to accept the papers.
We asked the Tampa consulate if it was possible to apply in Atlanta instead, and they agreed to this request. We did not show up to the Atlanta consulate blind or without their permission.
The reason I brought this into the discussion is because an EU country is very difficult for us to move into until my wife and daughter become US citizens. I expounded on the experience because I was asked.
From my understanding what you said and texting my friends, sounds like a paperwork issue. They never had trouble, but yeah, they lived in the Philippines. The issue in your case is that she doesn't live in the Philippines, so yes, she has to go there for the process because that's the only country she's a citizen of currently, although it would probably be possible to also do through a Phillipine embassy.
So they do accept Phillipine paperwork, but only official documents from the country itself.
Did you not have any official paperwork from there first notorized by the US? That's what's usually done in cases like yours, like my Highschool's friend's grandmother had to do when she got her US citizenship as well (so it's something you might want to look into anyway just in case).
That's probably your confusion on them "refusing" to accept the paperwork (although of course it also sounds like you had to deal with a racist cunt).
That said, it's weird for you to judge entire countries as super racist when you live in Alabama based off a few racists. I mean, even my black friends from when I lived in Texas didn't like stopping in Alabama. Just, something to consider for the future. I know racism can be extremely infuriating having experienced it both myself and seeing it done to my family, but you always have to remember that the asshole doesn't make the nation. Otherwise you end up also becoming what you hate.
We had original marriage certificates from Philippines with the PSA seal. We also had original birth certificates from PSA for my daughter. The USA accepted them without question for our visa and green card processing.
These are the documents that the consular officer held up to my face and said “these are garbage.”
We were not aware of the Apostille certification process and the USA, despite being a member of the convention, did not require this extra certification for our documents.
Greece would only accept them after they have been presented in person at their Manila consulate with the Apostille certification.
I did not feel it was a racism issue until the consular officers’ behavior made it feel evident there was more to it than a paperwork snafu.
I agree that I portrayed Finland and Germany as racist in an unfair fashion, that was unintended. The racism was evident only at this Greek consulate.
The information I received about Finland, Germany and Greece not accepting Philippines documentation was found here: https://dfa-oca.ph/quick-facts-on-apostille/
Upon opening this page I see that now Austria is now also not accepting these documents.
Yeah, I'm pretty certain that racist asshole used bureaucracy to be an asshole.
But you should get them notarized in the USA when you can in the future just in case. Harder for smaller countries to not accept diverging when a country line the USA already legally okays it.
We decided not to stress, finish the citizenship later this year, and enjoy some time in Hawaii.
Hawaii is nicer than Greece. My brother lives in Waikiki. If they exterminate the mosquitoes then it truly would be pretty close to a mythical tropical paradise.
Unfortunately I picked the wrong specialty (architecture). Still trying to get licensed by the end of the year, that's the only chance I have at another country maybe recognizing my degree. Regardless, it's not very in-demand.
It is in the Nordics and some western Europe countries if you get some kind of green certification, as eco friendly and energy efficient architecture is in high demand to meet climate goals but there's a lack of architects specializing in that. Though from the news here it seems there's a lack of architects in general as it was seen by many as not the most profitable field for so many years, so ironically you kinda lucked out lol
Continue living in California, and probably not go to any red state. At least not with my wife. Continue to vote Democrat and spread progressive values.
California is clearly the best state. It's like if you bought the EU off wish.com, but at least there's hope 😂
West Coast is best coast.
Canada. Maybe northern Europe. But I live in a blue state and I don't want to see how long it takes him to say "states' rights only apply to those that voted for me"
The same thing I’m doing now. The same thing I did during trumps first term and Bidens too.
Build stronger ties and more resiliency within my community, organize and agitate to improve it for everyone.
Find new loopholes to exploit. Adapt and overcome. Possibly buy some some snacks.
Let's talk about these snacks
Fruit by the Meter?
Nice try non-american
First I'll do whatever I can to be sure my communications and whereabouts aren't trackable, tell my friends how to contact me, and recommend they use the same channels anyway.
Then I'll find protests to go to and local campaigns to support however I see fit, and I'll do that right up to the point where I feel unsafe, at which point I don't know how I procede.
This would essentially require you to not communicate outside of Signal.
So be it, I guess. If that turns out to be unrealistic I would just have to be careful about the content of the messages I send. Discord and WhatsApp have to go, obviously, but I think I could convince most of my friends and family to download Signal if push came to shove. Maybe I could look into hosting a small Matrix instance if I felt comfortable with whatever risks would come with that.
I don't think a second Trump administration is going to force me into complete anonymity, at least not overnight. I do want to commit to keeping my finger on the pulse so to speak, and staying a step ahead of whatever threats to my rights may be introduced. I have friends that would be much more threatened by Trump 2 than myself so if I can familiarize myself with these tools then I think I can help them feel safer.
Jump ship. Honestly, I’ll execute plan “leave the U.S. while it’s still possible.”
Hope it don't turn out that's before the election. he's signalled every intent to clamp down hard
You must realize he's pandering to the far right extremists. He had every opportunity to actually close the borders and realistically build a wall. This guy is so full of shit his eyes are brown.
Check out project 2025 to see how Trump's cronies are planning on purging the govt of anyone not loyal to Trump and MAGA and replacing them with loyalists.
It’s not him I’m afraid of, it’s his followers.
Just try to live my life like I did during all the bad presidents I've had over my life. I grew up protesting against George Bush Jr and my friends still died in Iraq. now I just try to live my best life, and love and help protect others. I've always been lower class and on the outside of middle class suburban America, so I'm used to just going about my life, no matter what's taboo, or illegal at the time. Hell, DnD was the devil when I was growing up and I still played it. I still smoked weed when it was illegal, and I'll still love a man even if they say I can't.
This is the way. Some things you have control over and some things you don’t. Don’t waste your limited life sitting in your house being mad about who the president is. Raise your kids to be good people. Try to find a job that lines up with your personal philosophy. Find a local community and be helpful there.
Before the election we will be preparing bugout bags for my nuclear family and establishing concrete plans to flee.
After the election, if Trump wins we will monitor and be ready. At the first sign of trouble we get out of dodge. I have the ability to get EU citizenship for my family if need be. In the meantime, my wife and I have skills that can get us the privilege to move into some countries based on their employment needs.
My family and I would have reasons to be targeted by white nationalists if they felt empowered. I have received semi-threatening letters from such people in the past.
I hate that we have to think this way, but we do.
Resist. Reorganize. Endure. Survive. Same as we've always done with presidents.
Idk what settlers are gonna do. Probably what they always do: whine, move to someone else's land if they're seriously inconvenienced, steal their shit, ruin that too, complain about how this keeps happening to them.
Just keep doing what I am doing. My kids will have citizenship in my wife's home country by the end of summer. So I can get them out if I have to. Me personally I am in no real danger.
I'd like to think I'm not so backed into a corner that violence is the answer, so I'll do what I do every day of the week: keep my head down and wait.
If push comes to shove, and the lives of myself and my people are genuinely threatened, I won't retaliate in kind. I come from a long line of people that knew the benefits of blending in. I may not have the moxy to be a firebrand or to rally others to a cause, I may not have the heart to pull a trigger, but I have the means and skill to make triggers and the good sense to stay away from they places they get used.
It may not be the heroic sense of most Americans, but I was born into an America that sold us an action hero instead of providing us safety and I've never been one to buy rhetoric. I will not give my life for a cause, I will live to see it succeed.
In any sane world he’d have no chance. At least he’s shown enough incompetence and appointed so many corrupt greedy assistance, that he won’t succeed in doing as much damage as he wants, except to Ukraine. At this point it’s hard to believe he’s running for anything more than staying out of jail, making himself above the law
Well, I wouldn't call the world we live in "sane".
This time around the people surrounding him know what they need to do. It’s not like last time where they kinda tried to run the government with some pretense of obeying the rules. IMO should trump win this time they’re just going to go all-in and place themselves permanently in power.
Try like hell to move across the pond or Japan.
It was shocking to see how much better of a society Japan was when I visited. Really the one thing they don’t do as well as us is create shareholder value. To which I say, who gives a fuck?
Every former expat I've asked says the same thing.
Japan is for Japanese people.
Doesn't matter how long you live there or even if you were born there. If you don't look Japanese you're a foreigner.
Hugely sexist country though. Maybe it's nice for men to move there.
Yeah 🤷🏻♂️ it was fantastic for me though and that’s all I can speak to
It' really seems like a great place to live. They don't seem on the verge of a civil war and aren't evil to each other. Has more of a everyone get along feel to it and who cares what you're into.
I hope you’re Japanese or can pass for it. As beautiful as the country is (I loved it there) they are highly xenophobic and racist. There are literally restaurants where foreigners aren’t allowed in (even if you’ve lived there decades), getting housing in most places requires you to be “sponsored” by someone with a very high upfront fee, etc.
Same
Prevent it from happening in the first place my voting. It sounds like a lot of people have already given up before the election has even started.
I don't think you understood the prompt
Get ready for '26. Flipping/Maintaining the House and Senate has to be the priority.
Leaving the country and taking my kids in case plan 2025 starts happening.
So I just barely make it into the classes that do well under trump, but I’m very worried as the social safety net is falling apart for most americans, and that republican rule only speeds that problem. I’m going to be trying to strengthen resources that help people trying to make it to self-sufficiency, but I can’t overcome the typical american attitude of “I’ve failed because I need help.” I guess the best plan for most people is to take care of those around them, be moral and resist bad policy by quiet lack of compliance, and try to help good people get out of bad parts of the country so they collapse all the sooner.
If a traffic accident can bankrupt you, unfortunately you're still at-risk.
nobody's going to do anything. people always say they will but they never do
I doubt it this time. People are unusually riled up.
There will be protests either way and they will be suppressed with violence.
Screenshotting this for later.
Be ready to admit you were wrong. Project 2025 is already talking about invoking the insurrection act against anti-Trump protestors. MAGA people are talking about protests and wanting another January 6 but bigger this time if Biden wins again.
One time I thought I did a thing...........but it was just gas.
I’m going to keep going to work, brushing my teeth, keeping my apartment clean, working out, visiting my father on the weekends. (serious)
Not sure. But my partner and I have an out, we will probably move to their home country and start a new life there if need be. It's kind of hard to determine when the right time to leave is.
If things get very, very bad, this will be our plan as well.
I’m in a blue state, so mostly help friends and family in red states. Specifically, help people access reproductive care.
Besides that, put more effort into local government.
not when they pass a nationwide ban.
Under what constitutional authority can they do that?
Ha, as if Trump will not tear up the constitution. He's already told us that's his plan. I believe him.
Laugh, fart, jack off. Probably simultaneously.
Move in with my friend in the Netherlands. He's wanted me to move even if Biden wins.
I say Go Anyway. The Netherlands is awesome.
What the fuck are you hanging around here for? Go live a better life
Trump will eventually do something that gets between rich people and their money while also being an impeachable offense. The "sane" bussiness republican VP will pardon Trump after his impeachment and have him live out the rest of his life as a fox news call in guest until he died of "old age".
If we're lucky he'll piss off his Russian contacts and end up falling out a window by accident.
More likely is that this puppet will be used by bad actors to advance their agendas and as usual he'll distract everybody from the actual bad shit happening.
If it's Russia, it will be a poison Big Mac.
He just wouldn't follow through the moment someone told him his idea was bad for rich people.
"On Tyranny" by Tim Snyder has an excellent set of practical guidelines based on how it's played out in other places historically
Here's a video on it https://youtu.be/19IhRaWZUl4
Move faster and work lots of overtime to get the last of my debt paid off then going to a friends place in Mexico. I speak Mexican Spanish well enough so I can avoid areas filled with expats.
As an athiest, go get on Jesus' good side and hope for a better afterlife
Move to New Zealand. TBF, I'll probably move there if doesn't will as well.
Welcome mate.
Nothing. Like last time.
i'll be ready to observe everything, and get a documented first hand account of fascism (assuming it happens)
Otherwise, i'll probably just shit and piss myself hoping nothing implodes. while staying very far away from the internet.
Hope it's not as bad as I think ("as bad as I think" means "mass killings;") What else can I do? Everyone else here seems to be privileged enough to have the skills or plain cash to say "I'll go somewhere else," isn't as worried as they should be, or think they're Apocalypse Badass Man (see: accelerationists.) That's not me. I'm unskilled, poor, I have the self-introspection to know I don't have what it takes to be a revolutionary.
Hope that Canada or one of the Nordic/EU countries have job openings for an engineer.
Why wait? Did the math, and depending where you go and what state you currently live in, you might even pay less in taxes (or even about the same if you go somewhere high tax like Finland and are coming from a lower tax state like Wisconsin - only 2.3% difference) while also not having to pay in healthcare. Public transportation is so excellent here a car is literally just a luxury, so if you can even consider transportation savings.
Really the only hurdle is language, but practice everyday really hard and you can get the gist of it. Most international companies here use English as primary working language anyhow.
The main hurdle is really experience (I am <5yr) and family (my parents are aging and may need my intervention in fewer years than I think). Firms usually only hire internationally for skilled engineers and there's no guarantee my accredited degree from the US is valid anywhere else. And if I went someplace other than Canada, the travel costs would likely result in me only coming back to see the rest of my family once every two years, which sucks and could pose actual problems.
Don't get me wrong, I honestly do like the idea of going someplace with real human rights, but unless it becomes clear there is actually a threat to my existence I can't justify that big of a change. I love my family too much.
I fully understand. But just do consider that once it begins a threat to your existence, it might be too late, based off past history in other places at least. Consider that EU countries are preparing for a potential Trump presidency too, and Finland and others will no longer accept entry with just a passport, even for vacation, starting next year. That's why I'm determined to help as many as I can move now while there's still time.
If you do want to look into jobs here in Finland at least I'd be glad to help.
We'll see how bad it gets, might ride it out, might leave for somewhere better.
Lots of head shaking and tsktsking but no real action
Same thing as last time.
Vote. He's not allowed to turn this country into a "shithole country" in his words.
Well, we survived him once, we can do it again.
I'd still prefer to not get set back another decade by having him in office, and the danger of him never leaving office by way of dismantling all of the safeguards that prevented his coup in 2021 can't be ignored.
If there are ways I can resist, I will. If there are people I can help just by reaching out, I will extend my hand to them. I won't let Trump's hateful rhetoric poison my humanity or turn me against my fellow man.
If things get bad enough, my girlfriend and I have a "bug-out" plan that we discussed and agreed upon that basically amounts to - withdraw everything from our financial accounts, sell everything that isn't nailed down if we can or abandon everything in place, round up the family and buy plane/boat tickets to head somewhere that has low requirements for citizenship or will accept American petitions for political asylum if things get desperate enough. This is in the worst-case scenario where the U.S. descends into a full fascist/totalitarian state and there is a clear and present danger of us getting killed just for being political dissidents.
Ideally, we'd like to stay here and hope that things get better, but every year things seem to get worse and worse. The American Dream is dead and rotting, and we can just barely see a pinhole of light at the end of the tunnel for us to be able to achieve a life, but we're both left wondering if we're even going to be able to hold on to that if we do manage to seize it given how much the economy is backsliding each year.
tl;dr: the plan is to keep our heads down, but our spirits as high as possible, and always know where the closest exit is in case of an emergency.
The problem is knowing it's time to leave when you're still able to leave...
I was going to say something along similar lines, once the borders are ordered shut, you'll have a much harder time getting out of dodge, not impossible, but much, much harder.
As a person made utterly destitute and disabled by a series of crimes committed against me, well, I have SSDI and thats basically it.
Cost of living is way lower in Ecuador, i can relearn the Spanish I knew in high school, and theres a good number of affordable cities and towns there with considerably better crime statistics and public transportation than anywhere I can afford in the US.
I have done the math and it would be vastly more cost and time effective to move abroad... as I have been evicted, and basically that means I can't rent anywhere in the US for at least two years.
I am seriously considering noping the fuck out if Trump wins. Spent most of my adult life advocating for minorities, the poor, the disenfranchised, and now I am too fucking tired, in too much pain and too broke.
(Ironically my last job was at a non profit assisting the homeless, who didn't give a fuck about me becoming homeless.)
Not like anyone will miss me, every family member and friend I thought I had either committed crimes against me, told me to fuck off, or told me that they what was happening to me was too emotionally traumatic for them to deal with right now.
Of course this plan goes to shit if Trump and the Republicans somehow massively defund or cancel Social Security.
I used to think they would not be so stupid as to actually do that, as... an insane number of Trump's core voter base rely on SSI ot SSA or SSDI... but obviously with the MAGA crowd, anything is possible.
Guess I can always teach English. Maybe if I can ever walk again I can guide tours.
There are an increasing number of sublets and private rentals in my area, that don't check rental history. Everything is fairly under the table, month to month with no binding leases, for better or worse depending on your situation. Just bringing it up as a potential avenue to consider, maybe there are options in your area too.
Can you like dm me where this place is?
I am basically bound to my current roach motel that just happens to allow month to month rent, without kicking you out after 3 weeks.
I have been using a shit tier 4g phone for months now trying to find no credit check apartments. Everything is a scam, and none the shady apartments seem to actually list online anywhere.
'Look for private rentals!' Is good advice but... with what search engine, what rental website actually has a private rentals filter that actually works? Ive not found one.
Craigslist is bone dry where I am, and the few times a listing pops up, either they don't respond or they don't allow evictions or , again, its a scam.
I bussed halfway across the country to find the cheapest motel rates I could.
Im not a resident of the state as I do not live in a residence.
I dont qualify for rental assistance as I do not live in a residence.
And I don't qualify for homeless assistance as I am not homeless.
Its fucking wonderful.
My plan is to leave the US my rent ends in November of 2025 so if trump wins I'm probably be leaving country
https://media1.tenor.com/m/NazCMjC7DOcAAAAC/pce-peace-out.gif
Feel a crushing sense of despair at the state of my country and probably get more involved in local issues.
I'm a govt. contractor. I will retire the day before he's swarn in. I'm not sure what I'll do beyond that. A lot of Americans already retire to Costa Rica or Panama. I'll have to decide whether to run away or stay & resist.
Panic
Someone has already opened an opportunity for me to move to the UK, but for non-political reasons. Though it will remain an option.
Just keep on living without trying to let the complete bullshit affect my well being.
Why wouldn't you want a man-baby rapist pedophile as president? He's good enough for the republicans.
Insurrection? Lol
I would immediately erase everything that I have ever posted, anywhere. I would go underground as much as possible, online speaking. When the purges come, I would be a target.
IDK if we would leave. We are not prime immigrant status, not qualifying for Canada. That shocked me, TBF.
Well, I'm definitely going to lose my job if he gets elected. So I guess I'll do one good thing with my life.
Hi, Biden.
Could be the current vice president, whoever it is
Honestly not sure if you're making a social commentary about the intelligence levels of Americans regarding their modern government.........or if you just ARE the social commentary that you unintentionally made about yourself.
I'm not 'murican, so 🤷♂️
Candian here.
Do not come north.
We cannot house and feed you. Most of you will die of exposure the first winter you are here.
If you have thoughts of coming here with guns and taking our homes or food by force know that most of us outside the cities are armed, we're just not so scared that we constantly show off our guns and feel no need to go prepared for combat to buy donuts or groceries.
So, Mexico is your best bet, if they will take you. I bet you'll be glad that all the talk of a border wall was just neo-fascist virtue signaling.
Bud not only are we coming north, but we're going to turn your subarctic tundra into orange groves.
The Diagaloons want to divide North America in half with a line drawn from Alaska to Florida and put all the Liberals on the south side of the line. We get BC and Alberta, Texas, the Pacific northwest, and California and they get ice, snow, and Florida.
Wow you're an asshole
Yeah. Also, clearly doesn't understand what is going on (TBF, I don't know shit about Canadian politics either), but the stupid violent people with guns will be overjoyed if trump is the president.
Just as the students in Iran were overjoyed when the shah fell right up until the reality of living under a theocratic dictatorship sunk in.
True story!
I simply pointed out the reality of the situatuation. Canada can't take in millions of American refugees fleeing a christofascist authoritarian regime.
Your understanding of the effects of immigration is childish.
Ok. Explain to me how a country of 40 million people that doesn't have sufficient housing for the people who are here now can house millions of political refugees from the US before winter hits and they all freeze to death?
Keep in mind we're not talking about gradual immigration. We're talking a wave of potentially millions of refugees fleeing a christofascist dictatorship or civil war.
Your insults are very childish. Do better.
Just make Newfoundland pay for it, they pay for everything else.
Newfoundland gets over $200 million in annual equalization payments.
The New-fees I have worked with have a different assessment of the situation
But I'm Minnesotan. I can blend in really well.
You're well north of the south most point in Canada. You're practically Canadian. We just don't have enough housing up here to take in a bunch of refugees. If Americans end up in tent city refugee camps they will die in winter. We could put a few tens of thousands in school gymnasiums and community centers but it would turn into a humanitarian disaster.
Nah bud, we're going to cut down all your trees and build shacks. All those lakes surrounded by trees, going to put up condos.
If Trump wins: WWIII.
If Trump does not win: Civil war.
Maybe? Either one could have a few years delay.
Somehow we all are okay with him being the literal center of everything.
Portugal.
If nobody paid any attention to him we could just passive aggressively get through the next 4 years.
Yeah. That worked last time
For the survivors at least
It did
Regardless of whom is elected, I’m going to keep listening to Bernie Sanders’s podcast, which I just discovered.
He’s just a few episodes in and is still learning, but it’s gonna be a really good podcast.
I had no idea he had a podcast! Thank you so much for sharing this! I just looked it up and am listening now.
I saw he had a podcast during the 2020 election season too, so I’m going to listen to that while waiting for new episodes to come out.
Currently getting my passport in order, friend in Canada said I could stay with them.
"Getting your passport in order?" You mean having one?
Signing up for the Preferred Refugee Status program actually takes some lead time. Bureaucracy, ya know.
Good luck finding housing
Same as every year the country gets shittier, keep trudging along, voting, and hoping things improve. The way things are set up here I can't feasibly leave, even moving in country would be a beast to save and prep for let alone out of country.
The "Freedom" we have is voting every couple years and that's it. Even then they have tried everything possible to strip the voice of the majority of Americans. We are pretty fucking powerless for the most part.
Have a general sense of disappointment and despair as I watch bad decisions be made. My glimmer of hope is that he is an old man in bad shape and he could drop dead at any moment now.
I live in Texas and i work in public education. That said, I'm in a mostly blue bubble, I have a pretty good retirement fund, and I'm unlikely to get pregnant. My school district is still mostly reasonably run (by idiots, but not magas, just regular idiots) but we're feeling the budget cuts, increase in kids with needs, and difficulty hiring. I'm hoping for the house and Senate to protect us because it looks like the justice dept is already too far gone.
I’m in the privileged class so despite being pissed off I won’t be targeted. If I was a minority or woman I’d GTFO.
Grit teeth for 4 years.
'28 he leaves. If not?
Shit gets ugly fast.
Start getting into a resistance mindset. People have a rapidly vanishing window to organize for what's coming. Biden or Trump this cycle it doesn't really matter that much, Democrats and their supporters are simply are not equipped to resist fascism. We've reached the terminal end of the lesser of two evils, and it's going to be bad. Genocide Joe won't save us.
Indeed. I keep asking what is the plan to stop a fascist MAGA candidate from winning the Presidency in 2028, when the Democrats don't have incumbent advantage, and the historical pattern is a party flip, and have received only one (joke) answer. I have heard no talk whatsoever about how to handle a Biden win this year, although the MAGA politicians are signaling another attempt to overturn the election. (My state AG is still "investigating" the fake elector scheme from 2020; no way a prosecution will happen before the election, and likely never.) "Vote harder" is not going to be effective.
Ill see what happens, presidents like to talk big before they're elected, but if everything really goes down the shitter, and project 2025 is successful I'll seriously consider leaving. Very fortunately I am British by decent. Not the greatest improvement but a significant one nonetheless.
"I'll see ... but," "if," "I'll seriously consider."
You ain't gonna do shit.
Why so aggressive?
Dude, I've got family there in the UK already, happy to take me in and I don't mind the change in scenery.
Chill...
Anarchy seems more likely to mr than fascism in the aftermath of such an election outcome. Trump has too many haters for there to be a peaceful transition this time.
My plan is to vote in candidates at all levels that are endorsed by The Forward Party.
We need to overhaul our voting system so that we're not trapped in this downward spiral of a 2 party system that we're currently in. Ranked Choice voting, Star voting, Approval voting... they all have pros and cons but any one of them is better than the current system that we have.
The way we get better options for Presidential candidates is to have a voting system that gives other parties a chance.
I don't care if I have to vote for a particular Republican, Democrat, or some third party individual for this to be accomplished. Following the trend of "vote out all Republicans/Democrats" is how we got here in the first place.
Can I persuade you to choose party for socialism and liberation over fwd where there is one?
Psl is a far left party whose vision of democracy is radically far reaching, extending into even the workplace. Unless you simply favor the self described centrist policies of fwd, psl might be more your speed where there is a candidate.
I think you're misunderstanding what the Forward Party is. You can be a part of any side of the political spectrum and still fall in line with the Forward Party.
The only thing that the Forward Party cares about is overhauling the voting system with something better: RCV, Star, Approval, etc.
They don't take a stance on much of anything else.
And in terms of priority, any candidate endorsed by the Forward Party has my initial vote. If multiple candidates in the same race are backed by the forward party, then I will start digging in deeper to figure out which one I want to vote for.
i didn't know that they had dropped everything but electoral reform after yang.
that's a really interesting move. i'm excited to see how they do in november