Doomposting containment thread

Rather than shitting up threads where people are having reasonable conversations, put your doomposts here & spare everyone else your misery.

My paranoid thoughts these days run along the lines of “Why would the ultra-rich let the middle class collapse, isn’t it more profitable in the long run for there to be a strong stable working and middle class so that everyone can keep spending and spending (and also not shooting CEOs in the street)?” and the little voice goes “They have more info than we do — they know there isn’t much time left — they know shit is going to fall apart so hard and so fast the rest of us won’t know what hit us so their strategy is just crushing as much wealth out of society as possible so they can live sci-fi lives in a bubble while the rest of us scavenge rat carcasses.”

if there's one thing the last decade has taught me its that the ultra-rich don't know shit

thats not a doompost

honestly the respect for thread rules is through the floor these days

It can be, if you combine the belief that the ultra-rich don't know shit with the belief that nonetheless any attempts to take the steering wheel away from them will fail.

We’re all doomed, doomed I tell ya

When do we get our super shotguns?

(bookmarks thread for predictable future need. sighs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrNlyDxowWo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPYmD7CyHlY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiMZCgpXuO4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuN83hqsn8U

Scott you have got to get off of youtube lol <3 How are you doing? Are you good?

That said I'm stocking up on things that might get...less available soon. Just in case.

The end is nigh!

Wasn’t thinking about this in terms of prepping, but since you mention, IO, what kinds of things are you stocking up on / anticipating shortages of?

Women's health-type stuff broadly speaking, Narcan, personal Rx that include some controlled stuff...those are top level. Under that is general first aid and personal care supplies.

The former are because I fear availability will drop, the latter because I expect prices will rise and/or they might be needed unexpectedly.

If you thought "Ehh it's a long shot, I don't need those things, that's for other people" may I suggest that the worst that could happen is someday you get to save someone's life? You can be a person who has a life-saving resource in an emergency! Especially if they get harder to...get.

"Are you good?"

haha, i'm okay! i watched ONE doomy economist video and all of a sudden my Youtube was filled with scare headlines like the ones above.

i'm so scared lol

Definitely see if we can get a lifetime supply of SSRI’s now lest RFK Jr. make us detox doing manual labor on an organic farm

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/rfk-jr-kennedy-addicts-wellness-farms-b2585835.html

haha, i'm okay! i watched ONE doomy economist video and all of a sudden my Youtube was filled with scare headlines like the ones above.

― scott seward

yeah i gotta be careful about what i click on or the algo starts feeding me crap

the stuff i'm most careful about trying to avoid is beato-adjacent content

so far things are looking ok

mostly what i wind up getting recommended are extremely long jammidodger reaction videos

i've started watching more baseball videos to switch things up, which means i get recommended Baseball Doesn't Exist videos - "The Most Illegal Baseball Bat Ever Created" is the new one

i also got poetic wax doing a 20 minute video on the Eno/Television recordings, don't care

a 40 minute breakdown of HIM, the "lost gay jesus" film. i'm more interested in the _other_ gay jesus film, the unmade Jens Jorgen Thorsen film _The Many Faces of Jesus_. technically he's bi in this one. apparently the script was published but only translated into danish (the original script was in english). there's also a 1975 danish porn film called Jeg så Jesus dø ("I Saw Jesus Die"), but it's apparently heterosexual. i guess i should check that one out.

i just ran across a low-quality copy of an episode of the 1970 low-budget Star Trek knockoff Phoenix Five - i was trying to find a complete youtube upload of the pilot of the Fifth Glacial Era. god, i know so little aobut australian '70s television. it's in colour too! they must've had high hopes for that, considering colour tv didn't hit australia until, like, 1975

did prussian hitler just say he was going to "crush the ducks that oppose us"? sinister ducks indeed

now the algorithm is recommending me a kat blaque video entitled "the best BDSM film is korean". no it's doing good for me today.

i keep watching random analog synthesizer videos, microgranny noise jams with 200 views. means i get recommended a lot of videos on the history of the 303. the LOC just posted a 90 minutes video on Morton Subotnick and the Buchla 100, 500 videos, ok, i'm in on that. here's a 90 minute video called "FEMME: Lesbian History, Identity Politics & Invisibility", ok, i'll give that a shot.

"the great calculator wars of the 1970s"? ok that sounds good. cornelius 30th anniversary special? ooooh. ouch. "which is the best home video release of rudolph the red-nosed reindeer?" interesting but i don't actually care. "black people rate black anime characters' hair". i guess this is what happens when i watch FD Signifier videos and anime videos.

i know the preceding isn't actually doomposting. even though this is a dystopia i will say the dystopian megacorporation does seem to have a good idea about my niche interests.

um. my ass won't stop bleeding and i can't figure out why. it's not cancer.

The calculator wars sounds interesting! I got my dad a book about the history of the calculator and what Texas Instruments brought to the industry, slide rules to graphing machines, the whole nine yards...for Christmas last year. lol

My first time programming anything was with a HP-34C calculator. I still have to have RPN calculators ever since and can easily spend hours on that HP Calculator Museum site

lest we forget

every news headline i accidentally see throws me into quiet panic and rage and that's fine

I was very proud of myself yesterday, while I was making lunch I told my partner:

—I promise I'm not gonna spend the next four years telling you every stupid, infuriating thing that the people in power said or did.

Which lead to this exchange when we sat down to eat:

—What was the thing you wanted to tell me earlier?
—What thing?
—You said "I promise I'm not gonna spend the next four years telling you every infuriating thing, but..."
—Oh. I didn't though! I left out the "but"! There was absolutely gonna be a "but," but when I heard myself speaking, saying "I promise I'm not gonna spend the next four years..." I was like, Why wait? Why not start today. Aren't you proud of me?
—...Yeah!

(For the record though, the "but" was some jackass GOP congressman braying about deporting Bishop Budde)

The tariff stuff and other bans made me contemplate a career change into smuggling and trying to decide whether I would be good at it. I wouldn’t do it if I thought I wouldn’t be good at it.

The other day I had a minor panic at the thought of our city and state having to decide between deporting immigrants vs being banned from federal funds for affordable housing and education.

The tariff stuff and other bans made me contemplate a career change into smuggling

I mean

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gonewiththewind/images/1/1c/Rhett1.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/295?cb=20081103033236

https://medias.spotern.com/spots/w1280/356/356134-1646043443.webp

The dog is sitting at the table and drinking a nice relaxing beverage. The room is in flames. The dog knows it is not fine. The dog is engaging in self-care. The dog radically accepts that the room is on fire and they are not able to put out the flames. The dog cannot get out of the room. The exists are blocked. The dog prefers not to think about the reason the exits are blocked.

Nobody is coming for the dog. The people outside know the dog is there, but it is not safe for them to try and rescue the dog. The people outside love the dog very much and really, really want to help the dog. They can't. The dog accepts this. The people outside may not have radically accepted this yet.

The dog considers that she might perhaps be suffering from smoke inhalation. The dog wonders if she should stop, drop, and roll, like she was taught in obedience school. If the dog did this, though, she wouldn't be able to drink her tea. It is a very nice cup of tea. One wouldn't think drinking hot tea in a room that is on fire would provide much solace, but it does. The dog is very glad and grateful for the cup of tea.

is this for US politics specifically or was it envisaged as like wide use

Do you mean like...Spurs?

wide use

spurs haven't got any width

I think it was last year. I think it was after the election. The human memory isn't as reliable as we like to think it is, and the longer ago something was, the less reliable my memory is. So I want to write it now, at least, as fully as I can remember it.

I don't follow the media, as a harm reduction measure. It wasn't until after the election that I heard about what he said he was going to _do_. One of my friends said that she was worried for her father-in-law, that
That Man said he was going to deport all immigrants, legal and illegal, and her father-in-law was a naturalized citizen. (Her father-in-law voted for Trump, incidentally.)

And I... have learned to think before I speak. And at the same time, it was like... of course That Man said it. That Man was a fucking lunatic. He had no idea about anything. I mean, you can't just deport people who are _legal_ citizens to countries they are _no longer_ legal citizens of, the logistical hurdles alone are...

"Leave the Bronx."

Oh. Oh, _fuck_.

It is like that, sometimes, The stupidest possible things. There's this terrible mockbuster of "Escape From New York" called _Escape From the Bronx_. Made in Italy, naturally. When Henry Silva sends people around with loudspeakers assuring people that they'll give everyone a nice place to live in Arizona, it's obvious that he's actually going to kill them. He's evil. That's what evil people do. I mean, not just in movies, the movie didn't just make that up. There's precedent. A well-known precedent. A man who said in public that he was going to "deport" a certain group of people, and what he meant, very obviously meant, was that he was going to kill them all. And he did, in fact, kill a large number of people. Millions.

And I know this, have known it for quite a long time. And Trump is so obviously like this other man that it doesn't even bear saying, at this point. And somehow my brain didn't make that connection until I thought of _Escape From the Bronx_. My brain couldn't get there by direct flight. It needed to make a transfer.

And then I was suicidal for, I don't know, maybe a week or so.

I've learned to think before I speak. I've learned to watch what I say and to who. If I'm not careful about what I say and how I say it, I could put people I care about at risk, the way I was at risk for a little bit. The flipside of that is that I'm carrying a lot in my head. A lot I can't really say. And sometimes I don't know if something's really true until I say it.

Yesterday I said it out loud to someone else for the first time. It was my therapist. I said that if things didn't change, a lot of people were going to end up dead. And it's normal... it's normal for patients to say things like that, and one gently pushes back, in a way that doesn't make the patient feel challenged or invalidated but encourages them to "check the facts". She said, lots of things could happen. You don't know that for certain.

And I'd been thinking about this in a while, trying to de-escalate that thought, "check the facts" on that thought for a while, and I said it. A lot of times I do check the facts on something and it doesn't hold up. Usually only takes a day or so for me to realize. And like I said, it'd been months. So I told her. I told her about how he said he was going to "deport" all those people, and she said what I thought when I first heard about it - oh, that's ridiculous, I don't know how he thinks he's going to manage something like that, and I said (therapist's name). He doesn't intend to. When fascists say they're going to "deport" people, they mean something else.

And she believed me. I'm cautious about... I don't want to be a Cassandra to the extent that I can help it. I'm never quite sure if people will believe me or not, when I say some things, even if they are true. She believed me, though.

Last night I was at movie night with some friends, and my friend who has a car gave me a ride home. And she said, how are things going. It's difficult for people to talk about things like that these days, not just me. I don't want to be negative, I don't want being around me to be an unpleasant or traumatic experience. And I talked for a little while about watching movies with friends. I've started doing a lot more of that, because a lot of times I just don't know how to talk, things being the way they are. And I said look, I don't want to be... I don't want to be negative, but I think it's important to say this. When a fascist says he's going to deport a certain group of people, a large number of people, he doesn't mean deport. And she's culturally Jewish. (Pretty sure anti-Zionist. It's not a conversation I initiate, but in my social circle it's a safe assumption.) She knows immediately what I'm saying. And she says yeah, I think it was important to say that.

So I'm gonna say it here. It's easier to say it to cis people, simply because, well, you're overall a lower suicide risk. I get the impression... I'm not hugely socially connected, my world is pretty small... but I get the impression that most people haven't made that connection. To me it's not... I don't look at it judgmentally. My experience is that there are personal consequences, it can be pretty traumatic for me to _think_ certain things, _especially_ if they're true. And so I don't want to say those things. It's important to say, though. If That Man is not stopped... that is something he _will_ do to the people he's saying he's going to "deport". That those are, literally, the stakes here. I think it's important for people to know that and be able to accept that.

But I'm not going to say it outside of the doomposting thread. Yet.

You're not the only one, Kate. I've seen more than a handful of people saying out loud that these ICE raids and threats of deportation aren't about deportation, they're about the other thing. Things. Most people are at the very least connecting the dots to labor camps and effective slavery. The proposed Missouri law makes this very clear: life in prison without the possibility of parole for being undocumented, and humans being hunted by bounty patrols.

hi all ... just dropped in to see what's happening in this thread. i'm going to go now. thanks!

Alpine Static’s condition was in no condition to be in this thread.

I hear you, Kate & IO. I have a lot of the same thoughts and I have them a lot. I think about that famous passage from “They Thought They Were Free” about how people accustom themselves to the intolerable incrementally. I think about the boy who cried wolf — there’s a version of the story where he wasn’t making it up, someone was putting wolf-shaped decoys up all over the place and whisking them away before the villagers could get there, and — “see, it’s always wolves with you shepherd boys, everything’s a wolf.” And when they send in the real wolves nobody will come.

I think about how many people — myself included — would be willing to give up their livelihood to confront the horrors, in the face of almost certain failure & consignment to the horror-house. Not many of us. Myself included, probably, depending.

They’ve been preparing for this for years. We’ve been crossing our fingers that our roommates wouldn’t invite the vampire across the threshold. Now we’re in the room with the vampire. Our roommate has gone to get the vampire a beer. The vampire doesn’t care about me. Yet. But he’s looking at the closed door of our other roommate. She works nights. We both know she’s not sleeping in there — she knows the vampire is in the living room. She and the vampire are acutely aware of each other. They can hear each other thinking.

Added “what if there is a bank run?” to my doom list that needs containing

Added “what if there is a bank run?” to my doom list that needs containing

I'm sure the FDIC is on some right-wing maniac's kill list.

Added “what if there is a bank run?” to my doom list that needs containing

― Elvis Telecom

Yeah I don't spend much time thinking about it because, well, it seems trivial in light of the other things happening, but one of the... less awful possibilities in this whole thing is that That Man actually winds up implementing some fucking Larouchite economic policy in order to, I don't know, pay off the national debt or something, thereby rendering global currency basically worthless. Or maybe he'll decide the official currency of the United States is Trump Memecoin. Or something. IDK. Everything seems so up in the air that doing any long-term planning - like, say, looking for a job - seems pretty fucking pointless.

I've started relying a lot more on less "healthy" coping mechanisms. Alcohol. Sleeping pills. Not to an extent that it's likely to cause problems. I've just historically been kind of an ascetic about substances. "Drink more" doesn't _seem_ like the kind of thing that would be a good life decision, but neither did "come out as transgender", which was such a good decision that it's _still_ a good decision even if it winds up getting me killed.

Serious-Not-Serious thought: I was at coffee the other day and this older couple had flyers printed up saying "TAX THE VAMPIRES". I get the metaphor, but I am a nerd, and I tend to think about literal vampires. Also, I am gay, and while I am not a monsterfucker, I do think vampires are hot in a gay way.

I definitely understand the desire to dehumanize fascists, and at the same time... I'm not a monster. It's taken me a long time to accept that. The problem with all fictional points of comparison for fascists is that most of them are more sympathetic than That Man. I while away my time talking with friends about whether this fictional villain or that fictional villain is as bad as That Man. A lot of them just aren't.

IDK. A lot of people do like the villains, the bad guys. In my generation it seems like it's always been that way. There are people who like the Joker because he's evil, and there are people who like the Joker because he's gay, and as the meme goes, we are not the same... but we do have the same cultural reference points, the same _heroes_ in a lot of cases. We just understand them differently. The Matrix? Fantastic film. I think that. Some dumb kid who shot up his high school thought that.

I guess that's not "doomy" as such. Just interesting.

the thing with that is all the villains that my generation empathized with or found 'relatable' - Tyler Durden, Walter White, Tony Soprano, Jordan Belfort, Joker...they all at least had some personality. they said cool things and had moments that were badass. because they are fictional characters. the real life versions of them have none of this, they are in fact the most cringey, uninteresting, miserable people on the planet, at least Trump circa the 2015 debates kinda looked like he was having some fun, now they're just throwing their entire being behind some dude who has literally everything a human being could ever ask for but instead spends 12 hours a day responding "so true!" to race science on Twitter. they're all just unbelievable losers

Hence the meme

https://64.media.tumblr.com/8ce692e029d948264cea6f9a8be08bf8/4b6f27f088f1cc81-ad/s540x810/4d6299ada59d80087e653cde8133bf0152a47464.jpg

I'm sure the FDIC is on some right-wing maniac's kill list.

Hence the meme

― the real slim pickens (Ye Mad Puffin)

every generation gets the hannah arendt it deserves, ig

xp I can't believe this took until 2025, but it finally occurred to me the other day: When Donald Trump looks in the mirror, he sees Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, right?

I don't think he knows what that is.

Apply same scenario to Elon tho and I'd agree.

Trump's mirror fantasy is probably closer to 1981 Arnold

ump subsequently asked response coordinator Deborah Birx whether "[hitting] the body with a tremendous [light]" that could be "[brought] inside of the body" through the skin or "in some other way" could be used as a treatment for COVID-19. Birx stated she had not seen any heat- or light-based treatments in use.[271][269][272] In response to another statement by Bryan on research into disinfectants that could kill the viruses on surfaces, Trump also openly wondered if disinfectants could be used on humans "by injection" or as "almost a cleaning, sterilization of an area", stating that it would be "interesting to check". Trump attributed both of the above ideas to him being "a person that has a good you-know-what".[273][271][272][274]

The Guardian reported that a few days before Trump had made his comment on disinfectants, advocates of Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS), a form of bleach, had sent a letter to the president with information about what is fraudulently touted as a "miracle cure" for a wide range of diseases. It is unknown if Trump was aware of the letter.[275]

In 2024, a New York Times fact-check determined Trump «did not instruct people to inject bleach, but suggested that doing so with a disinfectant was an “interesting” concept to test out».[

xpost We just watched a Kurzgesagt video about Teller's plan to dig a new Panama Canal with a few hundred nuclear explosions.

no yellow fever no malaria makes you think

xpost We just watched a Kurzgesagt video about Teller's plan to dig a new Panama Canal with a few hundred nuclear explosions.

― Hive Guys Burgers & Flies (President Keyes), Tuesday, April 7, 2026 11:57 AM

that must be why they never let him talk

anyway, all american tv stations should just start airing "the day after" and "threads" on loop

if we're all gonna die, we might as well die in terror like god intended

also, Salo by Pasolini

i mean, proper doomposting here

i _have_ seen "the day after"

the first 45 minutes are full of, like, what we're experiencing now

"never gonna happen" versus "oh god they're actually going to do it, aren't they?"

i've heard "never gonna happen" too many times over the past ten years

it's not, at this point, a matter of public opinion

it's not a matter of public _anything_

it's waiting and seeing what happens

the american president is a psychopath who has directly threatened genocide

whether anybody is going to say it or not, acting on those threats will have Consequences

and since nobody is saying anything publicly, my brain is coming up with all kinds of interesting ideas about what those Consequences might be

possibly controversial statement

i do not think the american president ought to have the ability to commit unprovoked genocide

reportedly Reagan watched The Day After and was disturbed for days. and we nearly came to nuclear war earlier that year

'The Day After' also had study/discussion guides sent out to schools, so all the freaked-out kids could try to make sense of what they'd seen the night before.. it was pretty powerful anti-war propaganda on a large scale

Didn't do my annual Nuclear Winterval watch of Threads this year... should I be thanking Donald Trump for bringing me the real thing to make up for it?

i was seven in '83 and i'd, like, _just_ gotten over my fear of global thermonuclear war, _just_ come to the conclusion that no, actually, humanity probably _will_ survive me

i still believe that, for the record

_how_ that will happen is probably being decided right now without my input, lol

that audio of him at lunch that wasn't supposed to be released to the public suggests tonight he'll give Iran another two weeks to comply and then brag about how he's the best at everything ever

narrator: they did not comply

feel like that's been the plan all along (which is to say, no plan) but even still, publicly threatening genocide like that even if he does nothing is a pretty huge step, certainly the most evil statement ever made from a US President, sure would be nice if we had a functioning Congress

i admit that as distasteful as i find "kremlinology", i still have a taste for it - just not with the american president, who i long ago concluded is far too stupid to make plans and carry them out. out of all of the defendants of the nuremburg trials, he bears the strongest resemblance, in my view, to julius streicher. i know too much already about what goes on inside the minds of men like streicher. i do not find any benefit to me in considering the matter further.

The concept of nuclear war is certainly terrifying, but absent a Soviet Union to retaliate there's another scenario which is pretty blood chilling in its own right - the USA nukes a country, again, and neither Trump nor the many other Western powers aiding him (which include both the country I'm from and the one I live in) get the punishment they would deserve.

feel like that's been the plan all along (which is to say, no plan) but even still, publicly threatening genocide like that even if he does nothing is a pretty huge step, certainly the most evil statement ever made from a US President, sure would be nice if we had a functioning Congress

― frogbs, Tuesday, April 7, 2026 2:23 PM (three minutes ago)

the issue, to my mind, is that he is pretty unquestionably the legitimate, duly elected leader of the president of the united states. as much as i would like to shit-talk congress, people have _tried_ to check his power. he has been impeached, put on trial, convicted, and then permitted to run for president again, at which point he was elected president by both a popular and electoral majority of the american people. the question of what american institutions _should_ have done, how they _have_ failed, is to me a bit of an academic one. the problem is that america, the most powerful nation on earth, is now ruled by a genocidal psychopath and his cult of personality. he has the ability to kill 99% of the world's population on a whim - and he is extremely prone to very, very stupid whims. this is a serious problem, and it is not a problem that anybody here is in a position to remediate (and if someone reading this _is_ in such a position, hi, i want to stress again that i am in no way interested in advocating for anything that might be considered seditious under any current and/or future administration, please don't send me to a death camp kthxbye)

I guess Pakistan has asked for two more weeks, and it seems that Trump has made murmurs that he might be okay with this, but if two weeks pass and they don't make a 'DEAL', they will of course have to be annihilated

The concept of nuclear war is certainly terrifying, but absent a Soviet Union to retaliate there's another scenario which is pretty blood chilling in its own right - the USA nukes a country, again, and neither Trump nor the many other Western powers aiding him (which include both the country I'm from and the one I live in) get the punishment they would deserve.

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf), Tuesday, April 7, 2026 2:34 PM (four minutes ago)

not really something i'm worried about, since if he _is_ allowed to commit genocide, there's nothing to say that he won't do it again. i fully expect him to continue to threaten genocide as long as he has the capacity to. i mean, what's the punishment the western powers _deserve_? we wanna have, i don't know, john woo make a film called "Your Job in America"? that's the _real_ question i am wondering about - what are the powers of the world going to decide to _do_ with america? we're not ok. y'all may wanna pretend we're ok, but it's not gonna get you anywhere. america is not ok.

I guess Pakistan has asked for two more weeks, and it seems that Trump has made murmurs that he might be okay with this, but if two weeks pass and they don't make a 'DEAL', they will of course have to be annihilated

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, April 7, 2026 2:39 PM (four minutes ago)

that's nice! looks like i might get to live to see my 50th birthday in two days after all!

I guess Pakistan has asked for two more weeks, and it seems that Trump has made murmurs that he might be okay with this, but if two weeks pass and they don't make a 'DEAL', they will of course have to be annihilated

Im willing to bet that Donald himself asked them to make that request, kinda funny how they use his favorite “two weeks” placeholder.

it’s infrastructure genocide negotiation week

'Sir, we beg you for two more weeks, and in your gracious magnanimity we pray that you will grant this to us, sir."

Threads >>>> The Day After

I am teaching Wojnarowicz tomorrow.

“There were times in my teens when I was living on the streets and selling my body to anyone interested. I hung around a neighborhood that was so crowded with homeless people that 1 can't even remember what the architecture of the blocks looked like.
Whereas could at least spread my legs and gain a roof over my head, all those people down in those streets had reached the point where the commodity of their bodies and souls meant nothing more to anyone but themselves. I remember times getting picked up by some gentle and repressed fag living in a high-rise apartment filled with priceless north american indian artifacts and twentieth century art who was paying me ten bucks to suck on my dick. As 1 studied his head bobbing against my belly while seated on a leather couch, marveled at how simple it would be to lift the carved stone fish from the glass coffee table and smack the top of this head in and live on easy street for a while. I thought of the hundreds of times standing in a moving subway car, a cop standing with his back to me, his holster within easy reach and me undoing the gun restraint with my eyes over and over. I thought of the neo-nazis posing as politicians and religious leaders and thought of my genuine tantasies of murder and wonderer why I never crossed the line. It's not that I'm a good person or even that I am afraid of containment in jail; it may be more that I can't escape the ropes of my own body, my own flesh, and bottom line in the pyramids of power and confinement one demon gets replaced by another in a moment's notice and no one gesture can erase it all that easily.”

I woke up this morning and spent time in bed staring at nothing in particular while my mind rehearsed a long line of familiar doom-laden thoughts about all the interlocking pieces of our human brains, habits, addictions, societies, our specialized systems, and much more, all combine to create an accelerating global spiral into ever greater human catastrophes.

Then I remembered what I told the the sweet older couple of Jehovah's Witnesses who came to the door yesterday morning and gently urged me to accept their little pamphlet. We had a nice conversation and before they left I said, "Our job isn't to fix the world, it's to fix ourselves." This in no way contradicted the gloomy truths I'd been mentally pacing over in bed. We are rushing knowingly toward a Terrible Reckoning, but it did put my own place in this horrific mess into a perspective that's a bit easier to maintain.

That thought gave me enough space in which to recall that the combined wisdom accumulated during a billion years of life on earth, as expressed in the great natural systems, within which we are merely one figure in a magnificent whole, is far greater than ours and far stronger than our ability to spoil it.

Our highest duty is to love. The rest is just time serving.

I haven't even read this myself but this is the thread we chose for this stuff, right?

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-midterm-elections-takeover

Looks like the people will have to fight back.

I think someone linked to it in the politics thread on Monday or Tuesday.

my bad, I missed that

no, you're good!

yeah I kinda wonder how effective all this 'stop the steal' bullshit will play out this time around... he's got a real stink on him right now, MAGA seems to be crumbling around him and I'm not sure he can still convince all the right assholes to do his bidding. I could be wrong

(that said, they will absolutely carry on with widespread voter suppression wherever possible)

It is throwing up chaff as always.

They just need to lay the ground to make noises about the results being in doubt / disputed.

Magically, in cases where they win it's because they prevented fraud. In places where they don't it's because Democrats cheated.

voter supression, even if it's hyper targeted, could still backfire when your base's enthusiasm is lagging behind the other party by double digits. feel like the 1-2 combo of Epstein and Iran really laid these fuckers bare and it very much feels like we're at the 'rats fleeing the sinking ship' moment. even Trump seems to know the midterms are gonna be bad for him. idk maybe he can turn it around by attacking the Pope some more

yes - and going after vote by mail, which is very popular with seniors could really backfire as well

and yet, it's still very bad

Sure. Good evening!

People had Trump fatigue in 2019 and 2024 too, I kinda remember hearing lots of "people are fed up" stuff then too, including here. I'm not gonna count them chickens

Republicans consistently lose elections where Trump himself is not on the ballot because he, and only he, brings out a bunch of nonvoters

People had Trump fatigue in 2019 and 2024 too, I kinda remember hearing lots of "people are fed up" stuff then too, including here. I'm not gonna count them chickens

― the savior with the flavior (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, April 17, 2026 12:34 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is what I keep coming back to!

yeah I kinda wonder how effective all this 'stop the steal' bullshit will play out this time around... he's got a real stink on him right now, MAGA seems to be crumbling around him and I'm not sure he can still convince all the right assholes to do his bidding. I could be wrong

― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, April 16, 2026 1:30 PM (two hours ago)

it's kind of fascinating, really. part of me wants to say that "HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT" but i look at the other people in his mold... orban didn't get away with it. bolsonaro didn't get away with it. the kind of "success" he has is the only sort fascists _want_, and i'll never understand it but it's the only conclusion i can draw. the man can do whatever he wants and nobody is going to directly stop him and i guess to people like him that _feels_ like power. velvet gloves are for sissies, doncha know. he's a hard man ruling a hard country and if it's hard times, well, get on that fucking griftset.

proper doomposting, that man is doomed, everyone who follows him is doomed. the levels of cope on display are staggering, absolutely staggering. real "cutting off my arm so i don't have to shake hands" (shout-outs to cheer-accident) energy. the most gutwrenching thing is not... i'm not afraid of dying. i'm afraid that i'm going to have to watch them die. i'm going to have to watch people who i genuinely love suffer while screaming in agony for someone, anyone to help, and not say anything, because of course they can't understand that it's not _safe_ for me to do that, that i _can't_ save them, that for so long, for all this time, i've wanted to, but i long ago accepted that it wasn't in my power. that it was always up to them. and now it's too late.

i mean yeah. i've done that a number of times by now, actually. i fucking hate it. i mostly don't want to die, but the parts of me that do want to die? it's just to be rid of the fucking survivor's guilt.

There are people in our country right now who heeded those desperate calls, who stood up and took action, which after all was only the humane thing to do. And now they're facing decades in federal prison. And there's not really much we can do for them either. It's rather grim

People had Trump fatigue in 2019 and 2024 too, I kinda remember hearing lots of "people are fed up" stuff then too, including here. I'm not gonna count them chickens

― the savior with the flavior (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, April 17, 2026 12:34 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean electorically the Dems did pretty well from 2016 all the way up until 2024, think its pretty obvious that the GOP is still incredibly unpopular but Trump himself brings out crazies, and he won't be on the ballot again

that said it's not really the short term that worries me. I think Dems are going to do very well in 2026 and 2028. what worries me is the knowledge that this country is never going to fucking learn, they won't take any steps to make sure this doesn't happen again, nobody is going to suffer any consequences besides maybe some low level staffers, and all the while evil motherfuckers like Elon and Peter Thiel and Zuckerberg will just keep getting more powerful

There are people in our country right now who heeded those desperate calls, who stood up and took action, which after all was only the humane thing to do. And now they're facing decades in federal prison. And there's not really much we can do for them either. It's rather grim

― Cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria de Episcopio, Thursday, April 16, 2026 7:11 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago)

see, i don't see it that way at all! the thing for me is that ok america is to some extent a dystopian surveillance state, but the truth of it is the the _internet_ is a dystopian surveillance state. the fascinating thing about fascism is the way in which it _changes_ speech. punish people for telling you the truth and they'll stop telling you the truth, you know? what fascinates me is that i see things out in public that i wouldn't ever see on the internet. people are empowered, emboldened, the words of the prophets are written on the bathroom walls or whatever, right? as scary as it is to get outside, be social, as _exhausting_ as it is for me, i keep doing it because there are things outside because the walls of the panopticon are very thin, because there are a number of things that keep me on the internet, both out of necessity and, as in the case of ilx, by choice, and frankly the internet was never able to give me what i needed, us what we needed. it's a liminal space that people treat as though it were ultimate reality. the myth, the lie, is that the things we see through these screens _are_ reality, and that there's nothing we can do that don't exist within these screens.

and sure, there is hope, and i'm not going to say or so much as suggest here where that hope might be, because i might be misconstrued. i oppose acts of violence for personal moral reasons. i see no benefit in advocating for sedition. i am polite, i am discreet, i do not blow up buildings, if a police officer talks to me i won't ask them for their name, rank, and serial number, i'll smile and say "how can i help you, officer?" i am not a threat at all, to them, to anybody.

well i can't help it if people _treat_ me as a threat, as a contagion, as a _groomer_. i'm past being outraged at people who believe that. i'm past _hating_ people who believe that. those people are wrong. no more, no less. while people in power acting on false beliefs _can_ very severely materially affect me, what being in power _can't_ actually do is make them _right_. what i've found is that treating people who mean you no particular harm as if they are your enemies tends to lead to one having a great, great many enemies. me personally, i have fewer enemies than the internet would lead me to believe i do, fewer enemies and a great many fierce, devoted friends who... who, this is the fucked up things, aren't _empowered_ to say how much the support me, how far they will go for me.

there are a lot of people who _could_ be walking away from supporting me right now who _aren't_. they didn't support me just because the DEI initiatives told them to, lol. they supported me because _most people are humane_. we're humans, we have a fucking tendency to be humane, funny that. it's constant work, constant vigilance, to keep people from being _kind_ and _caring_ and _humane_ behind their backs. sure, sure, people may say "oh yes, i support you entirely, we must blah blah blah" and then as soon as your back is turned their out there trying to fulfill their social, emotional, and spiritual needs by practicing kindness, and no matter how many times you beat them for violating their orders, it _doesn't improve their morale_. it's a dreary, colorless life being a totalitarian, one of constant fear, constant uncertainty. the more power one has, the more _tight_ the grasp on power one has, the greater the fear that it could all be taken from you at any second. things just get worse and worse, you just get more and more miserable, ah, but it is the only way they know....

that said it's not really the short term that worries me. I think Dems are going to do very well in 2026 and 2028. what worries me is the knowledge that this country is never going to fucking learn, they won't take any steps to make sure this doesn't happen again, nobody is going to suffer any consequences besides maybe some low level staffers, and all the while evil motherfuckers like Elon and Peter Thiel and Zuckerberg will just keep getting more powerful

― frogbs, Thursday, April 16, 2026 8:13 PM (six minutes ago)

the problem with the democrats is that their vision is to gain power based on the popular mandate of about 100 million people and, once in power, to govern based on the wishes of the approximately five oligarchs who actually paying them. i'm sorry, i don't really see a way of making this work. i don't think the democrats lost an election to a man who is a strong candidate for "most evil man in history" because the electorate are stupid or evil. i think they lost because the policy goals of the five oligarchs who are paying them are fundamentally at odds with the values and priorities of the 100 million people they're seeking a popular mandate from.

and no, they can't beat the republicans at their own game. the republicans have spent the better part of a century building up a fanatical death cult of people who will do nothing but swear fervent allegiance to the most convincing liar in the room. even if the democrats _could_ emulate the republicans' success, why the fuck would they? people who act like republicans are stuck only being able to do the sort of shit the republicans do. where's the fun in _that_?

the problem with the democrats is that their vision is to gain power based on the popular mandate of about 100 million people and, once in power, to govern based on the wishes of the approximately five oligarchs who actually paying them.

This may cause people to roll their eyes and call me a dupe, but it does not seem like the current crop of Democratic candidates for the House and Senate are a bunch of wannabe Chuck Schumers. It really doesn't. It very much seems to me that people are running for office in 2026 who are as angry as the voters they want to put them there. And yeah, I include the guy with the now-covered Nazi tattoo in that number. When you listen to the words coming out of his mouth, and the words coming from other Democratic candidates across the country, these are not people who are talking about putting the past behind us and moving forward. These are people talking about impeachment and trials. Now, you can go ahead and say, oh unperson, don't you know yet that electoral politics only attracts the bought-off and the corrupt? And I will say, then I guess we have nothing left to talk about. Because I am watching special election after special election where Democrats are either winning, or narrowing former 25+ Republican district margins to under 10 points. And I see a blood tide of rage building, represented by candidates who are actively rejecting billionaire money, who are actively rejecting AIPAC, who are doing mutual aid out of their campaign offices, who are about as clean as anyone who calls themselves a leftist could possibly ask for. (That last part is a joke. No one who actually runs for office is acceptable to the true leftist.)

This may cause people to roll their eyes and call me a dupe, but it does not seem like the current crop of Democratic candidates for the House and Senate are a bunch of wannabe Chuck Schumers. It really doesn't. It very much seems to me that people are running for office in 2026 who are as angry as the voters they want to put them there. And yeah, I include the guy with the now-covered Nazi tattoo in that number. When you listen to the words coming out of his mouth, and the words coming from other Democratic candidates across the country, these are not people who are talking about putting the past behind us and moving forward. These are people talking about impeachment and trials. Now, you can go ahead and say, oh unperson, don't you know yet that electoral politics only attracts the bought-off and the corrupt? And I will say, then I guess we have nothing left to talk about. Because I am watching special election after special election where Democrats are either winning, or narrowing former 25+ Republican district margins to under 10 points. And I see a blood tide of rage building, represented by candidates who are actively rejecting billionaire money, who are actively rejecting AIPAC, who are doing mutual aid out of their campaign offices, who are about as clean as anyone who calls themselves a leftist could possibly ask for. (That last part is a joke. No one who actually runs for office is acceptable to the true leftist.)

― wipes chooser (unperson), Thursday, April 16, 2026 9:35 PM (sixteen minutes ago)

i'm certainly not going to accuse you of being a "dupe". i don't think there's any value in assuming the worst of people. i do think that there are good people within the party, that they want to do well, and that like a lot of us, they're _not empowered to act on their beliefs_. i hope that they gain that power. i've seen enough people with high ideals worn down by a corrupt system that... well, i'm convinced by evidence. i'm not convinced by speeches or by promises, which guess is maybe i voted for harris, who didn't seem to offer much of either. i didn't support her beyond being willing to push a button on a screen in an election in which, i knew, _my individual vote for her did not matter_.

i do also want to point out that i am absolutely _not_ a "true leftist". i make a lot of compromises, maybe more than most people. in fact i don't, honestly, see the value in a "blood tide of rage". i don't think it'll make my life any better. people will say a lot of things in person that they won't on the internet and i do truly, genuinely, oppose violence as effective political praxis, oppose "propaganda of the deed". i think violence is a poor substitute for justice. i just don't see "violence" as something only being perpetrated by vigilantes. i do see the effects of systemic violence, of violence legitimized by a system that recognizes no power but the power to kill, to destroy. it's easy to destroy. it's hard to build. i'm not against america. i just want a country that can do more for us than america has done. i think that we're capable of more, that we're capable of better. the systems we have now have put the worst people in power, have brought out the worst in all of us, and so yes, i do oppose those systems. mostly i just want to see people stop pouring time, resources, energy, into something that _doesn't fucking work_, something that is fucking killing all of us, into ideas and beliefs that we _know_ have no future.

i'm tired of me and everybody i know being so fucking _disempowered_. if the power is held by men like the president, by men like jeff bezos, of what _use_ is that power? fellas, what's the presidency _for_? the fate of all mankind i see is in the hands of fools. gambling and fraud. fraud and gambling. it's stupid. i'm not _angry_ at it. i don't want it washed away in a tide of blood. i just think it's stupid and i'm sick of it and i'm tired, tired of crying, i've cried too many teardrops. i'm ready for something better. the way things are right now, i don't think it should be that fucking hard, for us to have something better.

all we have to do is learn to tell these entitled-ass white patriarchal nepo babies "no" and stick to it. of course it's difficult. people like that go through all kinds of changes, put on all kinds of disguises. to be pretentious, i feel like there's a mythical element to it. the embodiment of power can be a newt, or a snake, and i guess there are those who would style themselves as lions bold with golden manes, and i'm done being afraid, and i'm not going to let them go. because there's something of _value_ to be found if we just insist on people being _human_. i don't give a fuck what their poll numbers are. what are they able and willing to _do_? because i know what i'm able and willing to do. i have a lot to give. i'm just waiting for people who will recognize that, recognize the value of what so many of us truly have to offer.