What fire will we light? What will we do? Prisoner dilemma is in full effect. There are hundreds of millions of Americans spread over billions of acres of land. This isn't like getting past the tipping point of protesters in a few major cities, as would happen in Europe. This would require a movement the likes of which the world has never, ever seen in all of recorded history. And we've been purposefully divided for generations now, to avoid such a thing. Bread and circuses.

Lemmy is the real place people are huffing their own farts. People imagine, in leftist bubbles like this, that Average Joe down on Main Street USA believes some of the same. They don't. I'm in a gayborhood full of progressives, exactly where you'd expect to see movements coalesce. Everyone is trying to get through their day, still. Because no matter what any one of them do, 300 million Americans will continue doing their thing. Their rent and mortgage won't get cancelled because of this. Their kids schools won't suddenly become free, their groceries won't suddenly buy themselves.

I really encourage people to study game theory and understand the reasons underneath it that nothing will continue to happen, no matter how many impassioned speeches they type out on a forum. I really encourage people to go speak to non-leftist Americans, who are the majority.

I'm in a capitol city in the US, an today we had about 10 people on an overpass, holding up "fuck trump" signs and big banners that said - nothing about Venezuela or Greenland. They were Jan 6 banners. And not a single mind was changed towards our side. If anything it probably peeled a few more folks off our side, thinking "wow they look pathetic, everyone else has moved on, there's less than a dozen of them." We stopped realizing how we're perceived by the others here.

And let's talk about that. Jan 6 was the most troubling day our democracy has EVER FACED. I watched it unfold live, thinking, "surely this will be what breaks the maga coalition." You know what happened? Maga got stronger. They were emboldened. It was normalized for Gen Z, they think this is just politics as usual. And look how they voted in 2024.

Venezuela and Greenland are likely building his strength. Americans are idiots, they love strongmen, even if they're illusory. Surely that should be obvious to everyone by now. People associate the military's strength and legacy with Trump whenever he uses them. A lot of folks have hardons thinking about how our forces dropped from the sky and yanked a world leader out of his secure base in just 140 minutes. They think, wow look at us go! We're so strong, god bless the troops.