The Tennessee Federation of Republican Women were promoting their Literacy Program whose theme if "Growing American Patriots Through Literacy" Their website names Hitler specifically as one of the "Intelligent Leaders" and describes how they were inspired by his use of indoctrination of the youth of Germany.

A new study on Gen Z men revealed that Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson are among the most trusted influencers.

It also found that 52% of UK men believe a "strongman" leader is needed to improve the country. Meanwhile, this article highlights how the right has been incredibly successful at indoctrinating young men into their ideology.

Why the hell is right-wing content so much more effective at gaining support? And why do left-wing influencers consistently fail to do the same? I’ll tell you why: we decided that social issues should take precedence over everything else, and by so doing have thrown all nuance out the window in the process.

The left—and I don’t want to hear Marxists bitching about how progressives “aren’t really leftists” because this kind of in-fighting is part of the fucking problem—needs to radically rethink its approach. Right now, the priority isn’t pushing our agenda. It’s stopping the worldwide fascist takeover.

And yes, this might mean abandoning identity politics entirely, as it is largely responsible for driving people away from the left and toward right-wing populism.

We need left-wing influencers who can effectively use populist tactics. We need less extremism from the progressive left, because in our obsession with social issues, we’ve lost the plot. We need to refocus on the economic needs of the people and stop alienating those who would otherwise support us.

The clock is ticking. Germany's elections are coming up, and Elon Musk has already shown support for the AfD—the most far-right party in Europe. If we don’t correct course now, we’ll soon be living in a world where fascism dominates and equality is a pipe-dream.

This is an interesting read by a data forensic scientist of sorts who argues Trump would not have won the 2024 election without the numerous voter suppression efforts .

This is an interesting read by a data forensic scientist of sorts who argues Trump would not have won the 2024 election without the numerous voter suppression efforts .

As of now, ICE is only going after known criminal targets, not going door-to-door raiding for suspected illegals. That comes later.

A dozen officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement gathered before dawn Monday in a Maryland parking lot, then fanned out to the Washington suburbs to find their targets: someone wanted in El Salvador for homicide, a person convicted of armed robbery, a migrant found guilty of possessing child sexual abuse material and another with drug and gun convictions. All were in the country illegally.

It's a little fucking alarming the government knew about such people and hadn't acted already. Anyone know more than I?

Under Trump, officers can now arrest people without legal status if they run across them while looking for migrants targeted for removal. Under Joe Biden, such “collateral arrests” were banned.

So for now, I'm fine with this, not so much the collateral business. Sounds like ICE has authority to act beyond their immediate remit. Surely there's no room for abuse? However, the "collaterals" in this case were due for arrest or deportation.

Of those “collaterals,” one had an aggravated theft conviction. Another had already been deported once, and two others had final orders of removal.

Problem being, they'll run out of legit targets before the electorate runs out of hate. The percentage of criminal illegals (heh, you know what I mean) is tiny. The one's I've known keep their heads down, don't want to risk deportation. Hell, my wife's a legal immigrant and she's terrified of crossing the law.

The issue is far to valuable to Trump and the GOP to ever slow this train. That's when the concentration camps really get rolling.

Thoughts? Seems the going opinion is that MAGA wants slave labor. But how does that actually work? Think on the turn-around time. They can't just pick someone up and plop them back into the fields the next day. Meantime, this will crash the economy once it really gets in gear. They have to know this.

Been saying for years, if the GOP really wants to end illegal immigration, start knocking doors at employers. My wife supervised an all illegal cleaning crew at a hotel. Yes, all illegal. FFS, they worked through an employment agency! Maybe they came illegal, still aren't documented, but get a pass as long as they're working and working towards a green card? That sounds great, but I suspect that ain't what's happening.

We all know that's the solution, if they really want a solution. So why is no one calling them out? You, me, Democratic politicians, all should be screaming this hypocrisy to the heavens. Threatening business owner's is the only way I can think of to kill this. They'll STFU quick, I saw that in Florida.

Any of y'all got a tracker that is following which portions of Project 2025 have actually been enacted? Something like the chump lawsuit tracking? Not finding anything with a search.

EDIT: Trump and Columbia seems to have come to an agreement where the Tariffs have now been canceled.

I'm leaving this post up for posterity's sake. We just need to wait for the next opportunity to push. I'm still confident that Trump and co will dramatically misstep soon and leave an obvious opening. But for now, we should get our meme-skills up and ready. I'm still supportive of large-scale real-world messages, be they stickers or chalk messages or even simple notifications that point out Trump's political missteps.

First off: condolences to any Colombian who is harmed by these events. We have a Colombian in our family and I certainly fear for her safety and her way of life. She's the nanny to my nephew, and there's a solid chance this shit won't be fixed in time for her Visa renewals, so she'll be effectively deported due to these events. I understand that Trump's latest actions today are frightening, but we need to focus on the political messaging needed to swing the tides back into our favor.

As Donald J. Trump tariffs the USA's #2 trade partner in Coffee (remember, Coffee CANNOT grow in the USA outside of like Hawaii), we can all expect coffee prices to shoot up by 25% in the near future. This is the inflation event we need to begin rubbing shitty marketplace inflation into the MAGAT's faces.

Coffee is one of the most essential of luxury goods consumed in the USA. Everyone drinks it, and we need to be ready to pin the coffee price hikes on Trump's shitty policy.

So, what's the plan people? What's the best meme we can make a sticker and print en masse. Coffee Shops seem like a liberal safe-haven, it shouldn't be too hard to ask Baristas to post up signs (or little protests) indicating that coffee shops are against the Columbian Tariffs.

Like I really think this has real action available. Even a sign that says "Due to recent Tariffs, we have been forced to increase the price of our coffee by 25%", and that's it. We don't need to make it incredibly related to Trump, its implicit in Trump's actions. We need the public to know how Trump is affecting them, but without necessarily rubbing it into their faces.

As Trump signs in his deportation plan, it is becoming evident that Trump is targeting blue states and so called sanctuaries (not just sanctuary cities but the traditional sanctuary of Church, School and Hospitals).

So now it’s time to think and plan the next move and how to protect those in our community. ICE isn’t very big and has no hope of any mass deportations scheme yet. But the deportations they do accomplish will traumatize families and even citizens (as they will obviously target any brown person, even US Citizens like Puerto Ricans).

The plan IMO is for us to make sure that our local schools and Churches collect as little information as possible. ICE will be looking for missing social security numbers for example and may target school and church databases with warrants. Now is the time to consider destroying or deleting that data if you haven’t already.

We don’t necessarily have to directly confront ICE officials to hamper their work. Indirect changes like this might be best especially given how small ICE is.

EDIT: I don't believe there's any good reason for schools to be keeping proofs of citizenship or building up such databases. Nonetheless, teachers and principals may have made that mistake 10 years ago before Trump was a threat or back in the era where ICE was literally not allowed into schools or Churches. Those days are behind us. If you know your school principal is trustworthy, you should campaign on getting unnecessary records deleted ASAP and start building defenses immediately.

Catholics know what I mean: our records on students and parishioners are kept for long periods of time. (Any Catholic knows and expects this, especially because we prioritize Baptism records and other such Church level Sacraments and such). I don't know how all the other Churches do it but if your local church is anywhere on the level of organization of Catholics (I know 7th Day Adventists and Mormons are also "record-keepers"), you will want to check in with your church's offices and maybe ask them to review records in the face of Trump's new executive orders.

There have been messages going around the federal government with these emails listed to "report" anything

[email protected] (main email sent to employees)

[email protected] (address given to agency heads)

[email protected] (address given to agency heads)

The government memorandum with these emails spelled out

I've seen people mentioning that they will probably filter for .gov email addresses. Here's how we can flood all those emails with .gov emails

.gov Newsletters

Federal agencies, states, US territories, counties, cities & other localities have .gov domains and many of them have automated email newsletters. Sign these addresses up for as many of them as you can. Some of those news letters will probably not be sent from the actual .gov domain, but others probably will. Our goal is sheer numbers here

When you sign up, put as many keywords as you can in the first name field. Newsletters often say your first name, so we can make keyword search a pain for them. Can even add some LLM prompt injections to limit their searching through that

You can find some of those newsletters with searches on any search engine like this:

[insert agency/state/locality] email newsletter site:.gov

So for instance search

Nebraska email newsletter site:.gov

Spoofing emails

These are much more likely to not get through and be blocked by filters but it's worth a try to see if it will get through. Not going to go into too much depth here, so only do this if you know how to

It's time. Everyone agrees the DNC is a failure for numerous reasons. It's time to stop bitching and figure out how to fix it.

How do we get people like Bernie, AOC and Jon Stewart in charge?

In the other topic, I've brought up the importance to prepare the meme-army to spread word about the Coffee Tariffs / Covfefe Tariffs to make sure we rub the price hikes into Trump supporter's faces.

But we need to seriously consider our strategy of memes and outreach. This is the year 2025, not the year 2015.

• Threads / Facebook / Instagram is suspect as Zuckerberg is bending the knee. Expect memes to be suppressed by Zuckerberg and his minions.

• Twitter / X is also suspect. We likely don't have a fair chance.

• Mainstream media: WashPo has been captured by Jeff Bezos. LA Times was captured by Patrick Soon-Shiong. Gannett (USA Today, and thousands of local papers) also are our political enemy as these papers cut off endorsements days before the election in support of Donald Trump. CNN has been on a rightward shift. We are now the minority and the rebellious underground, we will not get any beneficial press from these papers or media anymore.

• Reddit is suspect. Reddit is a techbro owner. Maybe not as tech-bro as Elon Musk but there's only a matter of time before things get worse.

• TikTok's recent actions have proven them to be pro-Trump as well. We cannot trust their algorithm to help us.

Get it? We're stuck and now the rebellious underground. The few allies we've got are ignorant and terrible at their jobs (I'm looking at you MSNBC). But whatever, it just means its our own damn job to change the politics of the USA for the better.

And how to do that? The power of memes.

Why meme?

Ultimately, memes are fun. Short image macros that should be easy for us to make, and easy for us to copy once made and spread around. While a large number of internet sites are busted, we need

Don't Argue

The opposition did not reach their current viewpoints through thoughtful discussion or arguments. They memed their way and mind-controlled each other into their current predicament. Don't fall into the trap of trying to convince others (or yourself) of facts.

Preach to the Choir

Normally a bad argument, but at this juncture its necessary. The left as a whole is angry, demoralized and beginning to shut off politics. Memes could provide us a way to make our painful politics more pleasant through the power of jokes.

I would argue that memes should be uplifting. Yes, preaching to the choir but is that really a bad thing right now? We need all the encouragement we can get right now. I'm sure you've noticed the chill in the room.

We have literally years to reinvigorate and revitalize our political side. However, you'll find that 2 short years are... much shorter in practice than you'd expect.

Friendly to the Neutrals

The neutrals could be former Trump supporters who are now growing disgust at Trump's actions. Who is, or isn't, neutral will largely be politically chaotic for the near future.

I expect MAGAs to become frustrated at some tariff structures, maybe not racist enough for them or something. I expect TechBros to be harmed by foreign policy and grow disgust. I expect Hawks to fear USA's declining position and reputation in the world. I expect Doves to grow angry at Trumps outbursts and hateful rhetoric.

We need memes that make Trump look dumb or otherwise foolish. But without necessarily attacking the identity of these subgroups. A pro-Muskite will be pro-EV and anti-Climate Change. They're compromising on their values right now because they trust and believe in Musk. But when Trump inevitably cuts Musk out in a few months, we shouldn't push the Muskites back to Trump, we should instead drive them apart from each other. That would mean memes that mostly attack Trump (the big guy), without necessarily attacking subgroups (that may be split off later).

Keep the target in mind and stay focused. I'm not saying "be friends" with the Muskites, I'm saying be a little forward thinking.

Ease off in public

Its not just the left who is tired of Trump, but most people in the USA are tired of politics.

If you have a meme that needs to be made public (ex: I 100% believe we need to start a campaign to distribute coffee tariff notices out and tie the rise in coffee prices to Trump), we need to have simpler language that resonates with people who don't want to hear about politics.

Ex: "Trump's Tariffs" might cause people to stop listening to our signs.

"Tariffs" might be better. Its already a politically charged word.

"Tariffs have caused our coffee prices to go up. We apologize" at least sounds neutral to the less-politically active. And that's the kind of language we want in public to keep people listening to us.

Hello everyone. In response to rising tensions in political scenes. I wanted share a google doc I’ve created with information from Chat GPT about highlighting the longest lasting products like Menstruation products, Contraceptives, Wash (body and hair), First Aid Kits and how to make them naturally incase of dire need. While some aren’t suggested generally. If you need them. They will be here.

This is nothing related to a specific group but incase anyone needs it! With how dire the political system seems. I also encourage others in the US to buy a few things for themselves. A mask to cover your mouth and forehead, Reinforce gloves, Military Backpack, A Gas mask, Running/Hiking Shoes, Water straws for drinking from rivers, tiny pots and pans, fire starter kit, crank/emergency radio, I also suggest a hunting kit, knives for skinning and cutting. A bow, arrows, tent and sleeping bag, hunters and forging guide, lastly a survival book. I ask if there’s anything I’ve missed please add into comments.

Also to consider if you like energy. You may want to consider C4 Pre Workout. For me it works similar to a pain med but remember it’s different for everyone.

Survival Document

If this isn't the right community to post this please let me know (I couldn't find a political theory community).

I'd like to think that I can keep up decent enough in modern political discussions based on my current understanding of the major ideologies, but I'd like to know more. What are some books/works you guys would recommend I read to be able to hold my own in a political conversation?

More specifically I'd like to focus on:

• Major works of political theory that are often referenced in discussion
• Works which identify and describe these ideologies in a modern climate (i.e. real world examples and commentary)
• Works discussing recent events (the last 15-20 years or so) and how they have impacted things either locally or globally

I find myself mainly interested in leftist works and ideologies, however all recommendations are welcome, especially those which are frequently referenced (regardless of general agreement/disagreement you might have with it).

Look our politicians may refer to themselves as nazis on porn forums,

we may use nazi symbology at our national conference,

our campaign rhetoric may mirror nazi rhetoric exactly,

our leader may have publicly praised hitler,

our policies may be carbon copies of nazi policies,

we may count literal nazis as some of our most fervent supporters,

our leader may have praised a public nazi march,

our leader may have hosted and praised literal nazis at his estate,

our leader may curry favor among socialite nazi sympathizers in charge of large swaths of american media,

and we may perform nazi salutes at our leaders inauguration,

but.... we are NOT NAZIS 😤 😭 🤡

I hate that I found this through Facebook, but it was an interesting read. There are quite a few parallels to the US situation.

I'm not saying this could happen in the US, there were a LOT of unlikely situations that lined up, and some risky decisions that went unopposed, but not everything has to be identical for things to get bad.

I say it's worth a read.

The article warns that even the most well-intentioned constitutions can be vulnerable to manipulation. It emphasizes the importance of robust democratic institutions, political stability, and a vigilant citizenry to safeguard democracy.

I thought this is a fascinating take that has merit.

There’s been so much going on in the world so I wanted to take the time to say that the threat of Trump’s cabinet is looming closer and closer each day.

There is something you can do about this and it only takes a few minutes. Call your senator and ask that they oppose Trump’s radical cabinet picks.

Say no to Russian-asset Tulsi Gabbard, xenophobic Pete Hegseth, Qtard Kash Patel, nutjob quack RFK Jr.

Assets owned by Rupert Murdoch or Fox News are not committed to journalist integrity and not committed to reporting of facts. This is why it's important to avoid supporting those websites if possible.

Often times websites like nypost just summarize articles written by other people. If you are about to share a link from one of these websites it's better to find another source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Fox_Corporation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_News_Corp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:News_Corporation_subsidiaries

Also if someone has a Reddit account could you try to advocate for this on Reddit too please?

Here is a possible message you could use to advocate for this. I would recommend personalizing your message before sending. In a comment I will show an example how I tweaked my message. In fact this was the message I was about to send to the moderators of [email protected] but then I read their rules and realized I could update my message to make the message more personal.

According to Wikipedia "Many of [Rupert] Murdoch's papers and television channels have been accused of biased and misleading coverage to support his business interests and political allies". For this reason I'm calling for Murdoch and Fox websites to be considered "B"-tier sources, that is to say other websites that have a better reputation should be preferred. Often times articles on websites such as the New York Post (nypost) and Fox News are nothing more than summaries of articles from other reporters with added bias. A New York Times article (archive link) has mentioned this practice.

I see the following possible actions that could be taking on the Politics community.

• The automoderator can reply to any link to a Murdoch owned website and issue a warning. The warning could be something like this:

The following website is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Assets owned by Murdoch have a reputation for bias and misleading coverage to support Murdoch's business and political interests. Please use caution when reading and sharing the article and seek out more reputable sources. Consider using an adblocker such as uBlock Origin when visiting the link or use the archive link instead of visiting directly.

In the future note that it's recommended when posting to Politics to use reputable sources. We discourage the linking of this website unless the reporting on the specific article you posted was original and verified.

• People should be encouraged to seek another more reliable source if possible unless the link offers unique and verified reporting.
• People visiting the link should be encouraged to use an adblocker such as uBlock Origin
• Instead of linking directly to the website an archive link should be visited.
• If the article contains misinformation or disinformation it should be removed. (I'm thinking you all already do this but perhaps articles on these website should get more scrutiny or be removed if a better source exists)

Wikipedia has a list of entities that are ultimately owned by Rupert Murdoch:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Fox_Corporation
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_News_Corp
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:News_Corporation_subsidiaries

I hope you will consider taking a stand for journalistic integrity and truth and consider deprioritizing Murdoch owned assets. Thank you so much for your time!

When you use Twitter/X what you see is controlled by Elon Musk. Elon has already interfered in our politics by using X to boost Republicans and himself. There is no reason to believe he is going to stop at doing this in the US. Elon is already moving on to trying to influence politics in other countries as made evident by wanting to donate to £78,000,000 to Nigel Farage.

Basically no matter what country you live, if you use Twitter/X you are not safe from Elon Musk. He has your data and he can use it to send you micro targeted messages just as he's done to help Trump win.

That is why I'm calling on everyone to work towards getting people who use Twitter/X to move to different platforms. Bluesky is a great drop in replacement for Twitter. Also there's Mastodon which is great and of course I would love to see your friends from Twitter come here to Lemmy!

It doesn't take a lot of your time. The most simple and effective thing to do is create a post saying you'll no longer use Twitter and you are now on Bluesky or whatever replacement app you choose. You can also consider deleting your account. I've read conflicting reports on if your username could be used by someone else if you delete your account so take note of that if you decide to delete your account.

In addition you can tell your friends and family why it's important to stop using Twitter/X. Also it would be great if you can convince them to spread the message farther! Use your own words to describe why it's important to you such as maybe your mental health got better after you stopped using it or you feel you don't want Elon Musk interfering with your country's politics.

Another thing is if you see an advertisement on Twitter/X try contacting the company and demand they stop advertising on Twitter/X. We should not fund disinformation.

If you work at Twitter/X maybe you can consider quitting your job and organizing a mass resignation.

Let's work together and defeat X and Elon Musk's extreme agenda and make the world a better place.

It's only ~5 minutes long, and very worth a watch imho.

@4:31: "liberal democracy has been marked by its emphasis on procedures, not outcomes - we honor the process, even when we dislike the outcome; the drive to quickly get what we want even at the cost of bypassing procedures and undermining institutions is deeply dangerous"

LAKELAND, Fla. (WFLA) — A Lakeland woman was charged Tuesday after police said she ended a call to an insurance company with the words, “Delay, Deny, Depose.”

In an arrest affidavit, the Lakeland Police Department said officers were contacted by the FBI on Tuesday, Dec. 10 regarding an alleged threat made over the phone.

Briana Boston, 42, had reportedly placed a call to BlueCross BlueShield regarding recent medical insurance claims she was denied. The entire phone call was recorded, according to the affidavit.

Near the end of the call, investigators said Boston could be heard stating, “Delay, Deny, Depose. You people are next.” The first three words are similar to those written on the ammunition that a gunman used in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last week.

The affidavit noted the similarities between the incidents, stating that those words have become nationally recognized as a phrase “directed against insurance companies.”

Police made contact with Boston at her home in Lakeland, where she reportedly admitted to using those words during the call, telling detectives that “healthcare companies played games and deserved karma from the world because they are evil.”

Boston reportedly told detectives she used the phrase “because it’s what is in the news right now,” and that she had learned of the phrase due to the UnitedHealthcare homicide.

However, Boston added that she does not own any firearms and “was not a danger to anyone,” police said.

Based on Boston’s statements, investigators said they believed she meant to threaten the insurance company “by using the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s homicide to her advantage.”

Boston was charged with threats to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism, according to the affidavit.

A judge set her bond at $100,000, stating, “I do find that the bond of $100,000 is appropriate considering the status of our country at this point.”