On top of what everyone else has said, I'm gonna be that person and bring up capitalism, which I'm defining as private ownership of business (as opposed to state ownership, or ownership by the workers, etc). Capitalism concentrates money, and by extension power, which is never good for people without it. I'll admit I'm biased as a socialist, but at this point the biggest indictment of capitalism for me is that most of what we're seeing these days isn't new: rampant wealth inequality which leads to institutions decaying, followed by liberal and conservative elites being either unable or unwilling to fix problems that are plain for everyone to see, followed by people being radicalized.

The new thing is global warming, which can't be attributed solely to capitalism but is being exacerbated by it. A handful of people who get their money and power from fossil fuels would rather burn the world to ashes than give up that money and power (yes, they're probably investing in renewables, but if they treated global warming like the existential threat it is, they wouldn't be bankrolling climate deniers.

(this should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the Soviet Union or the current Chinese government, they are/were both also results of capitalism failing but neither of those is relevant to democracy failing in the West™ also I'm not a tankie, authoritarianism of every stripe is bad)

Having an idea of the government we want to have before shit goes down is a great idea. I've thought about writing down my thoughts for what a better government would look like and maybe I should do that. I'm sure none of us randos on Lemmy would be the people in the room where it's happening, but if we talk about it maybe we can influence it.

If you like the aggressive energy of that song, other ones like that are WWIII; Bullets, Bombs, and Bigotry; Paradise; and KMF. They have a shitload of music but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.

Let's dispense with the fiction that Marco Rubio doesn't know what he's doing, he knows exactly what he's doing.

(rubio said this about obama in 2016 please don't hurt me)

It really does. And I do think it was on the Brutal Legend soundtrack. I know it because I'm just old enough to remember that sort of stuff back in the 90s when it was big.

Is killing people for profit not backwards?

Making ByteDance sell 80% to US companies is a win for the powers that be because then that too can be manipulated by right-wing oligarchs.

I don't trust Chinese companies all that much either, but Mitt Romney outright said this was about Palestine, you can see another reply of mine below with a link.

Facebook and YouTube have for years boosted conservative people and posts/videos: this is fine according to the powers that be.

Russia and no doubt countless others run influence operations through all US social media companies: this is also fine according to the powers that be.

China probably runs influence operations through a Chinese social media company: this is a national security problem that needs to be dealt with!!

The reasons TikTok is maybe being banned are because it's the only major social media that isn't suppressing pro-Palestine speech and because it's not owned by a right-wing US oligarch. Musk is the shadow president, Zuckerberg is blatantly sucking up to Trump, etc etc.

Health insurance companies are already judge, jury, and executioner. Thousands of people die every year because they can't afford health insurance and I guarantee I'm not the only one in here who's had family die that way.