I thought my dad would have come around by now with everything going on. Last night he was gloating about how much work is getting done in the White House and how everything’s about to get a lot cheaper.
Insanity.
Ask your dad why the GOP needs to raise the Debt Ceiling by $4 Trillion in their budget bill, and how many of the now dozens of lawsuits Trump might win based on his performance in 2020 when he lost almost every single court case, even when Trump appointed the judges himself.
I can't wait to talk to my parents. Lifelong republicans (though not specifically trump fans, just voting R), so it's extremely likely they voted for this.
I'm a federal employee. They voted to put my job (and my wife's job) in jeopardy. They voted for this. They voted to hurt us.
Then, you should challenge him and make him set a deadline for when everything is supposed to be a lot cheaper. When people starts to get sidetracked from thinking critically, that's when you need to make them set an ultimatum that either forces them to think critically, or make them set their own limit that you can then point back to later.
That only works for people who haven't taught themselves to ignore constant cognitive dissonance.
I mean, that's the real trump derangement syndrome. People who are outside of reality because of their support of the man.
Same with my Mom. I told her "yeah, Mussolini did a good job making the trains run on time". She never responded.
(Beside the point, but Mussolini totally did not run an efficient train network, it was a cluster fuck like everything else he did)
His only concern is himself, he thinks he'll benefit so everyone else can suffer as far as he is concerned. This is the broad motivation of the entire movement. As if America first didn't make it obvious enough, it was really "me first". What they don't understand is how the me in that is entirely relative and they quickly become expendable.
make it real for your dad - every chance you get, capture the price of a few things and chart it out over time... actual real evidence that you collected yourself is harder to refute than a graph produced by anonymous sources online.
He’ll just deny it and ultimately get angry.
They want something not that different from the Taliban. Subservient women existing only to make and raise kids.
DEI is bad! Treat everyone based on their merits! Remove the bio pages for anyone not white and male!
... ?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion get in the way of their nepotism and cronyism hiring. If they were hiring based on merit alone there would be no problem being transparent and publishing their hiring decisions.
It’s been said better by other people but the general understanding of the right’s use of “DEI” is as a convenient blanket slur.
It’s typically used against Black and Hispanic people the most, followed by trans people, but any/all women are convenient extra padding under the bus tires of their bigotry and insecurity.
Remember that their fascism is based in feelings of superiority in addition to fear. Use that against the cowardly bastards. They can’t stand to see someone “undeserving” do as well as or better than them, so they try to mow it down.
Fuck ‘em.
EDIT: It seems like Rose Ferreira is of Hispanic descent, hailing initially from the Dominican Republic then moved to NY and eventually secured an internship at NASA, and is now an astronomer and aerospace engineer. It seems like her NASA page got reinstated, maybe after backlash. She’s awesome. Hell yeah for the Streisand effect.
The current admin cabinet hires are completely based on DEI. What other companies would hire such a diverse cadre of alcoholics, rapists, and idiots, while most companies tend to hire on merit.
So how much longer before we get pissed enough to start doing something about it? I’m a white CIS heterosexual male and this is infuriating to me. This isn’t correction of DEI policies. This is blatant sexism and racism. Fuck these nazis.
I watched AOC's "What's Happening & How You Can Take Action" video and thought it was really impactful, so much so I decided to write up a summary of the insights, copy pasted below.
TL;TR for what you can do about it:
Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:
However, we're not currently there yet. We don't need to wait until things get impossibly bad before taking action. If you think all that stuff like "contacting representatives" & "organizing for elections" will do is slow our collective downfall, then realize that a slowed downfall means more time to organize a resistance and more time for vulnerable groups to escape the country.
Also, feel free to copy-paste this excerpt anywhere if you'd like!
TL;TR End
Insights from "What's Happening & How You Can Take Action" by AOC:
Executive Orders are not that powerful: For all the Executive Orders being signed, know that they're not actually as powerful as they might seem. Congress can block Executive Orders, courts can block Executive Orders (you might have heard of this being done for the EO ending birthright citizenship), and they're essentially more limited in scope/permanence than actually signed laws. In fact, much of the EOs Trump has signed are meaningless or completely unconstitutional, which is not a pointless distinction, because as mentioned before, courts are blocking these EOs.
Fascist dictators thrive on perceived power instead of actual power. They want to "flood the zone," pump out so much terrible nonsense the populace becomes overwhelmed and docile. Don't believe them, don't become docile and don't consent in advance. The reason Trump is using Executive Orders instead of actual laws is because he knows he only has a slim majority in the House (218R-215D, ie 2R's could flip a vote, 2 vacancies in FL to be voted on 4/1, 1 R departure in NY-21 to be up for another special election)/Senate (53R-47D/I, ie 4R's could flip a vote), and he doesn't want his perceived power to crumble, such as when 3 GOP Senators John McCain, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski blocked an Obamacare Repeal Bill "Health Care Freedom Act" from going through in 2017.
(In this case, by erasing this womans history NASA is doing a little thing called complying in advance.)
Action Being Done by Democrats: Apparently Trump did a bunch of stuff while Congress was on recess, and they only got back in session Feb 5th, which was why there hasn't been much news from democrats. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently released a 10 objectives plan for House Democrats to obstruct the administration
What You Can Do: While I'm sure we're all positively exhausted with everything going on, at a minimum, you can know your rights regarding ICE Raids: Don't let them in without a Judicial warrant signed by a Judge, don't answer their questions even if you are a citizen, don't talk to them without a lawyer. If you have extra energy, you can:
Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:
However, we're not currently there yet. We don't need to wait until things get impossibly bad before taking action. If you think all that stuff like "contacting representatives" & "organizing for elections" will do is slow our collective downfall, then realize that a slowed downfall means more time to organize a resistance and more time for vulnerable groups to escape the country.
Contacting your Representatives: To contact your representatives, you can make a short 2 min phone call to their office, which will either be picked up by a staffer or go to voicemail. Representatives listen to phone calls when trying to get a sense of what their constituents care about, but other forms of contact (email, text, etc) are by and large ignored. Additionally, you should say where you live, because representatives only care about what their constituents think, not outside people. Note that the voicemails only record up to 2 min so be brief. You can find your representatives phone numbers at https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
To express your views to your representatives, the format goes like this: "Hi, my name is [Name] and I live in [City, State, Zip Code]. I wanted to ask for your support on [Policy, Bill, etc]. [Anecdote if you have one to be more personalized]. Thank you for listening, my phone number is [Phone Number] and my email is [Email]."
I personally have just called my senators to let them know I want them to vote NO on advancing/approving all Trump nominees, and that I supported them continuing obstructionist actions including the 30hr filibuster against Russ Vought, Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget pick. Florida 4/1 Special Elections for 2 House of Representative Members: Summary, trying to elect Gay Valimont (D) District 1 & Joshua Weil (D) District 6. You can sign up to volunteer on their websites (linked) if you'd like.
New York-21 Eventual Special Election for 1 House of Representative Member: Elise Stefanik (R) will be vacating her seat to become the U.N. Ambassador for the Trump administration, after which within 80-90 days a special election will be held for a new House member. While it's somewhat of a pipe dream, if Dems win all 3 of these House seats up for grabs, it puts the House at 218D-217R.
I hope this helped you get a sense of what you can do, feel free to copy-paste this anywhere if you'd like!
Fascist dictators thrive on perceived power instead of actual power. They want to “flood the zone,” pump out so much terrible nonsense the populace becomes overwhelmed and docile. Don’t believe them, don’t become docile and don’t consent in advance.
Well said
Project 2025....
Https://2025realitycheck.com - please review, and if you're able go to the GitHub link at the bottom and help me fill everything out!
I will feel mad as fuck for you and use this as evidence when people say these EOs aren't hurting anyone other than illegal immigrants.
While all this is going on, I'd also like to point out that grants are being flagged for being "woke" by this anti-DEI nonsense. Grants that have to do with cancer, physics, eclipses, and so on.
DEI is just a dogwhistle.
Completely unrelated, book burnings
The 1950s boom was built on two things. Subsidizing a middle class instead of corporate (awesome). And the notion that a mediocre white male was more valuable in any job role than a woman or a non-white male.
The 1950s was, in part, built on the backs of women sent home from jobs after the war to have those jobs taken by folks who may or may not have been less qualified, as it was based entirely on gender, and to lesser extent, color.
Woman’s minds were squandered. I encourage you to ask about grandma back in the day. How mean was she? How mentally I’ll was she? How many suicides or addictions occurred? The mean stories abound at this time for a reason. Alternatively there’s the paper thin personality-less woman who avoids anything even remotely confrontational.
Ask your family.
Equality before the law is introduced and a subset of men who don’t have coping skills for not having power over other human beings, lack capacity to stand as an individual, lose their collective shit.
Never Compromise With Fascists
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
