- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Rattled by a horde of MAGA trolls, here’s what I learned about today’s social media miasma.
Last Friday I made a post on Bluesky and X, concerning U.S. President Donald Trump’s description of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor.” It occurred to me that, numb as we are to Trump’s stream of blather, the importance of that remark was being overlooked. It was an overt declaration by the president of the United States that he does not recognize Canadian sovereignty. That’s scary.
So, my post: “For a US president to refer to the Prime Minister of Canada as ‘Governor’ isn’t just rude. It’s a hostile act.”
The post got little attention on Bluesky. On X, for whatever reason, it went berserk. Over the weekend it racked up close to 3,000 reposts, over 29,000 “likes” and more than 5,000 replies. Those replies came almost entirely from Trump-loving trolls, piling scorn and abuse on my concerns. “Yeah but it’s Canada so who gives a fuck?” said one.
Do the responses represent a genuine glimpse of U.S. opinion on Trump’s bully-boy act?
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I wish I could get the time I wasted in this thread back. How is this so highly upvoted?
You might have missed some important context. It’s probably best explained here in this companion essay.
I missed nothing. This is a left wing circle jerk piece about how toxic Twitter is and how over encumbered it is with far right Trump supporters, and I don’t need a companion essay to provide further context on that.
“Do the responses represent a genuine glimpse of U.S. opinion on Trump’s bully-boy act?”
Obviously fucking not. Saved everyone else a click.
Sure, you can stay married to your pointless, impotent rage or you could have your concerns addressed.
That’s on you.
Sure, you can stay married to your pointless, impotent rage or you could have your concerns addressed.
That’s on you.
I am not mad, nor do I have concerns to be addressed. I was expressing how utterly wasteful this article and thread is because posting anything not in agreement of the far right on a far right echo chamber will not be received well by the far right, and any attempt to say it is a general opinion of everyone in the US is asinine at best.
Just because I think your circle jerk is stupid and pointless that does not mean I have “pointless impotent rage” or any concerns beyond the dumbfuckery presented to me.
You can stay married to your obsession with sniffing your own farts and being pretentious or you can realize how unhelpful both activities truly are.
That’s on you.
I was expressing how utterly wasteful this article and thread is
You have been given the tools to correct your ill-formed opinion but have refused them. Instead you insist on endlessly spilling the beans on the you problem you have. This isn’t a therapy session. Physician heal thyself!
You have been given the tools to correct your ill-formed opinion but have refused them. Instead you insist on endlessly spilling the beans on the you problem you have. This isn’t a therapy session. Physician heal thyself!
I knew you would choose the prior. Enjoy the circle jerks and farts.
Good night and good luck!
Blogger uses a clickbait title, you’re never guess what happened next!
What happened next is I don’t take the article seriously, titling it like the audience is a bunch of 14 year olds with impulse control issues is a great way to burn credibility.
@breakfastmtn You have to remember that a lot of the accounts on X aren’t real people, they’re bots.
Its bad on TikTok too. I’ve seen lots of news clips on TikTok of Trump and the 51st sate comment. Most comment replies to these videos have been from Maga supporters. Along the lines of “Canada should be honored to become part of the greatest country on earth”.
It’s very disturbing and very serious. An outright sign of war. It’s a tarrif war for now but I worry about what it will be in future.
This post from a political scientist they quote in the article is one of the most baffling statements I’ve seen in a while. I keep starting at it.
“You know, it’s sad,” Givens says. “I was one of the first Americans to study the far right in Europe. I’ve looked at various aspects, anti-immigration stuff, anti-discrimination policy, the roots of racism. I did a video for PBS called ‘Can democracy survive racism?’ This was back in 2019.
“And now I’m like, ‘Damn, I didn’t think the U.S. was going to be the first to fall.’”
It is simultaneously nonsensical and the essence of “this explains a lot”.
While the situation in the US is indeed very dire, I would say that places like Hungary did fall first. I am also afraid that the US wount be the last to fall. Many countries in Europe are shaky at the moment.
Oh, it absolutely won’t be the last, but the source was always in the US (via Russia, perhaps). European fascists recently held a summit and the standout quote, from Marine LePen, no less, was “Donald Trump has shown us the way, and the way is strength”. Orban said that “The Trump tornado changed everything, yesterday we were outcasts, today we’re mainstream”.
The rise of the far right worldwide is in no small part driven by US social media profiting and enabling the grotesque drive of misinformation and radicalization that was deployed first in the nromalization of the Tea Party and the justification of the war on terror nonsense and then weaponized during Brexit in the UK.
It was always going to be the US first. And with US backing as a second, wealthier hostile actor, others will likely follow. Keep an eye on Germany to see if the US implosion acts as a driver or a deterrent. Not everywhere will behave the same, but the dominoes are thudding down now.
And all of this comes down to the last US election. As far as I’m concerned, anybody who could have voted for Harris and didn’t is a fifth-columnist, as is anybody who could vote for a non-fascist party with representation in Europe and doesn’t.
I wonder if this is will be the end of Germany and France’s 70 years long alliance.
There’s a scenario where it’s still not and it’s somehow worse.
I think they’re just kind of fucking stupid.
They searched the world for clues of downfall by authoritarian fascism but ended up right back at home.
Even some of us in Australia could see it coming. Back in 2023, one of our former PMs interviewed a member of a CIA taskforce that had created a predictive model for civil wars. Normally it’s used on other countries, but they tried applying it to the US and you can guess what the results were.
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/americas-coming-civil-war/id1674095396?i=1000626742633 https://open.spotify.com/episode/0MVeiDPgEtLRMsg3kMHV2K https://www.audible.com.au/podcast/Americas-coming-civil-war/B0CH8QQ4N2
Yeah, Americans are very keen on the idea that the situation will resolve violently through civil war (or revolution).
I’m skeptical. More likely they will quietly submit, as they have so far. Non-US countries should consider the entirety of the US a hostile regime until I’m proven wrong, the same way they do with Russia or Belarus.
Honestly, with the way Musk is tearing through departments and the cybersecurity threat his team poses, none of the US’s allies (e.g. Australia) should be sharing intelligence with the US any more. If we’re smart, we should be treating the US as having been compromised by hostile foreign powers.
I’d forgotten that episode. Time for a relisten, Turnbull has done a good job with that podcast.
He probably needs another host though, someone else to bounce off to liven him up a little.
I heard Shorten is about to become quite a lot less busy…
Say what you want about how many Americans disagree with Trump blah blah blah, when it comes down to it, Trump could invade us tomorrow and throw us into concentration camps and enough Americans would be behind it that he could get away with it. I don’t see how canada doesn’t become annexed by the us within the next few years. I doubt the Republicans will ever lose power of the government again, so this is pretty much our future. I’m thinking of moving but I doubt I can convince my wife to come with me. Plus our house is here. Not sure if I sell it before the us comes and steals everything.
Canada also has an army, navy and airforce. And a border with Alaska. And a massive border that’s hard for both sides to defend.
It would also likely pit the entire world against the USA, who could do massive damage with trade sanctions without even firing a single bullet
We have 1/10th your population and economy. We have a tiny military in comparison with outdated technology. It would be laughably easy for you to take us over. Yeah, maybe the rest of the world joins in, or maybe they just let it happen. You guys are the preeminent military force on earth. I could see it happening without any resistance from our allies. I bet that it woudl lead to the collapse of nato. In fact, I bet it ends the way that putin had hoped for Ukraine. Even an under ground resistance would be weak since you guys are right next door. The logistics of a full scale invasion would be simple for your guys. Honestly at this point i don’t think there is a lot preventing it from happening. Trump has made it clear he isn’t going to follow the law. He has also made it clear that he is willing to do extreme things. At this point I think it’s a matter of what is easiest for him. Collapse us economically so we join willingly or a military invasion. I think the reason he picked the first is because it’s easier.
I’m not American btw.
America did lose in Vietnam, and more recently in Niger, though. It’s not easy, especially in the modern day, to subsume a country.
Trump could invade us tomorrow and throw us into concentration camps and enough Americans would be behind it that he could get away with it.
A rather large chunk of Americans would rather fight for Canada tbh. Also, most battlegrounds would be in blue states, which are the ones who least want that.
But would they? I’m sure they’d disagree but I don’t think they’re gonna rise up and try to fight against the military. We’d get steam rolled and the world would just sit and watch. Sure they’d be mad, but in the end, the us military is #1 without any actual competitors other than China who is fixated on Taiwan and at the same time hates us anyway.
What do you expect when you engage in the platform ran by a wannabe-Nazi?
Wah! I refuse to leave the leopard cage and don’t understand why there are leopards in it!
I know right, what did they expect would happen in the platform owned by a literal Nazi?
Twitter seems like it has basically turned into YouTube comments.
I don’t know what YouTube comments are then because all I see under videos is “Who is watching this in 2024? ✋” Everywhere
Yeah youtube comments aren’t the same as the ones of yore people generally think of. They used to be filled with slurs and racism and now they’re mainly just insipid with some very occasional ok discussion or info
The thing that is surprisingly hard to keep in mind is that the US is a culturally fascist country. It has been for a very long time. It’s what a fascist democracy looks like.
It is a country with long standing and broadly shared and accepted foundational mythology. It glorifies the military, and the “All American” young adult. There’s a strong cult of tradition, a deep distrust of learning and knowledge, and firm belief in the United States as a country and people of “action”. Despite their own claims to the contrary, they believe that disagreement with the US is betrayal, particularly on the part of people who arr not white and born of white US citizens. They always have an external enemy (and often an internal one, too) to judtify any action. They have contempt for countries and peoples they see as weak, and a huge hard-on for machismo.
American exceptionalism, which is taught to every school child in the country, is a fascist doctrine.
You can go down the list of fascist qualities outlined in Ur-Fascism and see that the US has always ticked off a large majority of them. The only thing that’s different today is that Americans are confronting someone trying to turn it into a disctatorship.
It’s not the fascism that bothers people about the current shift, but the governing structure the current fascist-in-chief is trying to impose.
It’s founders were pretty clear that they wanted the roman republic with a dictator on a 4 year term. They even have a city named Cincinnati.
I like how The Thee has replaced their X link with Mastodon and Bluesky. More sites need to do this.
X is full of Musk bot propaganda which was always his plan. X is obviously manipulated but by who? I’d love for someone to take him to court & find out. Wouldn’t be surprised to learn him & Trump have foreign countries helping, likely Saudi Arabia & Israel.
They forget. We burned down the white house once, and we’ll fucking do it again.
Don’t just stop at the White House. A Tsar Bomba dropping on DC would be more worthwhile.
The purpose of troll farms is to overwhelm people with a wave of opinion, making it seem like it’s the opinion of the majority even if it’s only a minority, to make readers doubt their own opinions as they see to much support which really is only 1 person for every 1000 comments if that.
Anyone with any sense doesn’t use Twitter anymore. This is like throwing bait into a shark tank and being surprised by the reaction.
