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malaise

(292,940 posts)
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 01:26 PM Friday

Call it what it is

- a war on cities and states with Democratic party leadership.
Wake the fuck up people.

37 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Call it what it is (Original Post) malaise Friday OP
I agree with you. OLDMDDEM Friday #1
US govt attempting to destroy centers of commerce: cities. For pootin SheltieLover Friday #2
And the real answer is secession 31st Street Bridge Friday #3
Seriously! EuterpeThelo Friday #8
Balaji Srinivasan had the same idea! jfz9580m Friday #20
Thanks! EuterpeThelo 17 hrs ago #35
Please don't leave us behind Farmer-Rick Saturday #23
I understand EuterpeThelo 17 hrs ago #36
This should result in the prosecution of tech executives jfz9580m 11 hrs ago #37
K&R spanone Friday #4
That it is! H2O Man Friday #5
Zackly. K & R. Permanut Friday #6
Exactly 👍 TommieMommy Friday #7
Yup. Intimidation, bullying, defunding (theft), military invasion, violent confrontation. Martin68 Friday #9
That is exactly what's going on... La Coliniere Friday #10
Every accusation is a confession (re: "domestic terrorists"). Justice matters. Friday #11
I've said the same repeatedly BeneteauBum Friday #12
I agree but I would further that is is a war on our democratic form of government and the people who support that. Eko Friday #13
What we need is more highway banners! EarthFirst Friday #14
With an eye toward denying voting rights to radical citizens of hellhole cities? 70sEraVet Friday #15
We are awake Picaro Friday #16
K&R red dog 1 Friday #17
The people in Red Cities and States popsdenver Friday #18
We do care Farmer-Rick Saturday #24
One day before the tragedy in Minneapolis, the DHS mocked the city's citizens with this: John1956PA Friday #19
Indeed Malaise.. jfz9580m Friday #21
Truth. yellow dahlia Friday #22
Damn right, malaise. ReRe Saturday #25
Because the Republican owned media won't ... live love laugh Saturday #26
So, in 2026 midterms jaymac Saturday #27
I've seen no proof that there are illegal immigrants in Minneapolis FakeNoose Saturday #28
Yes, wake up and swim down in unison Magoo48 Saturday #29
"... if I think the midterms alone will save us, then I'm simply bullshitting myself." OldBaldy1701E Saturday #30
Dems are still voting for his nominees. nt RandiFan1290 Saturday #31
We're awake, thank you very much. NT CommonHumanity Saturday #32
Yep. Blue_Roses Saturday #33
All Democrats should wake up malaise Yesterday #34
3. And the real answer is secession
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 01:39 PM
Friday

Start the conversation!
The southern states left the union for far less cause than we're experiencing now.

EuterpeThelo

(184 posts)
8. Seriously!
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 02:52 PM
Friday

I don't even effing CARE if CalExit turned out to be a Russian psyop. I support us ditching this irreparable failed nation ASAP.

jfz9580m

(16,592 posts)
20. Balaji Srinivasan had the same idea!
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 11:17 PM
Friday

And he seems..like he is ..a person.
Btw Welcome to DU!!!!!

I have never said that before.

EuterpeThelo

(184 posts)
35. Thanks!
Sun Jan 11, 2026, 03:55 PM
17 hrs ago

I've actually been reading here since 2002! Just registered an account last year in the run up to that travesty of an "election."

Farmer-Rick

(12,490 posts)
23. Please don't leave us behind
Sat Jan 10, 2026, 01:14 AM
Saturday

Many so called red states are just barely red. Just the outside edges in the poverty stricken rural areas, or behind rich plantation sized gates where reality never reaches. There are many liberals hidden among the the idiots who vote for filthy-rich men because god?

Don't leave us to fight it on our own. Look at all the people who marched on No Kings day. Many red states are really very purple and marched against the pedo king. We need to fight the bullies together.

Pedo Trump sent his goon squads to Memphis TN too. While Governor Lee cheered on, the goon squads arrested and disappeared entire apartment complexes of people. They attack everyone. They will murder anyone. We need to fight this together.

EuterpeThelo

(184 posts)
36. I understand
Sun Jan 11, 2026, 03:58 PM
17 hrs ago

I guess I'm just sick of having stood in the streets with signs screaming for the past thirty-five years or so an it feels like nobody even looks up. I've marched, written THOUSANDS of postcards to voters, written letters to the editor, called/written/visited my congress critters, voted in every election since 1988, registered voters, amplified stuff on social media and in conversations, had my car keyed multiple times due to bumper stickers, created and circulated voters guides to my circle of friends for the past fifteen years. I'm TIRED.

jfz9580m

(16,592 posts)
37. This should result in the prosecution of tech executives
Sun Jan 11, 2026, 09:23 PM
11 hrs ago

Last edited Sun Jan 11, 2026, 10:08 PM - Edit history (3)

This is speculation and an opinion, except where it is personal. That is why the title.

I lived in a red state. The Republicans there - white and working class - were generally really nice. Like poor working class people here in India. Whether it is here in India or in the US working class people, men without college educations etc whom I met irl were typically really nice. You keep it superficial and cooperative living is the norm.

They never harassed me and I never harassed them.

My problems started with info about bts how encroaching and non consensual use of data was..the rampant violations of privacy normalized and worse fraudulently medicalized or used to monitor people with fraudulent concerns because we may complain. It has only ensured complaints.


This CATO and Koch form of migration was bad enough to make me return to India. It is a cancer on your society and mine. And parasitic right wing grifters use it to rile people up.

Offline, most people who are smeared and stereotyped as racist and misogynistic are typcially nice. Online it is a cesspool. In my estimation 7-8/10 people are nice enough at arm’s length which is how it should be. We don’t need this much connection on or offline.

I am not saying there aren’t real tensions or fault lines. I am saying they don’t have to be this bad. This is internet oligarch driven divide snd rule and shockingly and scarily they are bleeding into the real world and no…enough.

Internet and social media companies drive shallow, angry engagement which is riling people up.

These algorithms fuck with your head even when you don’t use social media.

Mass media were always too bad (I can now see) at separating fact from opinion. And they boost opinions that enable more destruction of earth and all for tacky malls, tabloids and junk food as real life degrades. They drive explosive population growth sans any infrastructure to support it. They want to ignore the limits to growth and find sleazy and confusing red herrings to blame. Since education and critical thinking are embattled by the net and underfunded it all goes to shit…it is awful.

And once it is the opinions of all sorts of randoms..shit stirrers, trolls etc. Militarized pop psych, shallow analyses of our fellow humans based on which set of online grifters or morons people follow..Beverly D’Angelo or Matt Taibbi? What’s the difference. Except that I once respected Matt Taibbi.

As a nonwhite woman I hide from people like Beverly D’Angelo.

These people are making pawns of us and inciting violence and anger. They throw a set of decent or somewhat douchey PMC classes out there as the evil-the exception Jews Arendt wrote about.

Secession is not the answer imo-I am not American, but you guys affect everyone not least because of douchey business running NRIs who make this place their playground.

The answer my human brain suggests is that Pichai, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Nadella, the Palantir creeps (I forget their names), Musk, Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Mark Cuban etc must all be prosecuted for incitement and algorithmic divide and rule with some shitty studies thrown on top insultingly as a palliative (anything but ending the fake gravy train). It is very rarely someone gets jobs like that right and those people have hellish lives. They should also start considering turning on the tech ceos.

There is no music or voice assistant background that is the good one..let us exploit your space some more! No. It should all just be gone and I will file complaints anyway.

These guys are the root issue and till their needless use of data and ai and algorithms results in prosecutions they will callously and irresponsibly imperil all the rest of us.

It is not red states versus blue states. It is the vast majority of decent and oblivious or awake humans and this parasitic pseudo elite class and their sycophants and shills-both corporate and a bloated and needless national security state which is a drain on real security.

Human Terrain Systems was a bad idea. Defense contracting is a poor fit for anthropology, psychology etc. in the long run.
Someone like Yasha Levine/Evgenia Kovda or or the Current Affairs crew or Christopher Ketcham or even Ed Zitron could do a decent job otoh with deradicalizing an angry populace without exploiting the same cynically. Google or Facebook style “deescalation” is an insult. You need savvy humanists…not troglodytes..

Till these guys (Pichai, Zuckerberg, Nadella, Musk etc) are prosecuted for incitement, sending a brutal warning to others with similar predilections, we will all be at each others’ throats and the war and extraction machine will be a parasite on us.

They set jewish people against palestinians, they set hindus against muslims, white people against nonwhite people, men against women and on and on and make everyone miserable. The shallow explanations of our vichy media add to the noxiousness. Blah mainstream pap is as offensive as it serves to anger people who rightly feel lied to. But then they get parasitized by right wing grifters.
American History X was the rare mainstream movie that captured the latter dynamic well imo.

Lina Khan was right. But that isn’t enough. These guys need to be prosecuted starting with Pichai, Nadella, Musk and Zuckerberg. These grifters should not be able to parasitize so many people via those loathsome platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram etc). Anyway that form of media is junk.

People can have solidarity..i see it offline all the time. I also see people get riled up by this shit. When we should all be sending these parasitic oligarchs to prison because a cancer won’t stop till it kills its host.

I don’t mean anything violent or hasty -I don’t incite (I am now caught up and careful what I write). But legal prosecution ..if I were a young lawyer who wanted to change the world, I would wonder if these tech ceos with defense contracts and in data mining and ai can be legally held accountable for all this societal unrest. Once the profit is hobbled by starting to push for regulation, the cancer will start getting checked with consistent pushing.

I want my home and street off these grids and for all this shit to be shutdown without further tests and probes and studies. Just pull out immediately and I will file targeted complaints anyway. I will fine hone it and make it minimal. Conflict should be minimalistic to work.

They need to learn. You go this far, pushback is..to use a favorite word of theirs..inevitable.
I am simply not stupid enough to wait till I have lost everything and wishing I had pushed back earlier yet again.

I am not a parasite so I had to self-cannibalize (my mom, dad and my savings) and I am sick of it.

I tried for 14 years and I have seen enough. I am going to personally see if a criminal case can be inititated over incitement and exploitation. Eventually incited humans (incited against somewhat annoying but essentially decent academic colleagues rather than the builders and makers of junk tech, fraudulent and unwanted healthcare products and services ) like me turn on these tech ceos. It is necessary for survival at this point. This divide and conquer has gone on long enough with their flunkies assisting in the farce..

It is time…I don’t wait passively to get shat on more..

My best to you Farmer Rick and everyone else here. .

I believe in human solidarity not secession. But these tech ceos must be prosecuted and it will send a strong message about how you don’t mess with democracy and women’s rights and civil rights with no pushback, while thinking divide and rule will protect you.

(There is no bot in my head nor was any of this ai generated. It is bitterly learnt human experience. I must follow the work of this Prof Ryan Williams more. He like Yan Lecun is the rare computer scientist I find interesting).
I have to go work, but I promise pushback. These stale scripts are lame. Lina Khan was awesome..But that wasn’t enough.
I really want to see Pichai and Nadella in orange jumpsuits behind bars..And not a virtual simulation or diplomacy game’s fake prison either. The real kind that Google’s Geofence warrants used to send people to. As a medical marijuana user this was an endless extortionate strain and I have had enough.
That way creepy little local data miners will also get the message.

La Coliniere

(1,760 posts)
10. That is exactly what's going on...
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 03:49 PM
Friday

never thought I’d live to see the day when fascism would take hold in this country, but here we are and this is where we stand.

Justice matters.

(9,423 posts)
11. Every accusation is a confession (re: "domestic terrorists").
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 03:57 PM
Friday

Even more accurately:

Every lie is a projection (unconscious "hate" of themselves about what they are and what they do).

BeneteauBum

(332 posts)
12. I've said the same repeatedly
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 04:24 PM
Friday

We are now the enemy. As Colbert said in his monologue, obey or die. I will not submit. Rallies tomorrow and Monday.
Peace ☮️

Eko

(9,825 posts)
13. I agree but I would further that is is a war on our democratic form of government and the people who support that.
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 06:39 PM
Friday

The cities and states with Democratic party leadership are just the biggest, easiest targets.

EarthFirst

(3,959 posts)
14. What we need is more highway banners!
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 06:50 PM
Friday

That’ll learn ‘em!

Eventually the machine is going to need a few broken teeth in the gears of said war machine…

70sEraVet

(5,252 posts)
15. With an eye toward denying voting rights to radical citizens of hellhole cities?
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 07:55 PM
Friday

No need to worry about 'blue waves', when you've removed the water from the sea!

popsdenver

(1,571 posts)
18. The people in Red Cities and States
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 09:38 PM
Friday

Don't care.......they keep getting THEIR money which is more than they send to the Fed Govt.......

Trump's CABAL and his entire government keep provoking, until they seemingly can justify Militarizing the U.S. Military across the nation, declare martial law, and call off future elections......

Every day, the Republicans get closer and closer to their future dictatorship/tyranny

Farmer-Rick

(12,490 posts)
24. We do care
Sat Jan 10, 2026, 01:30 AM
Saturday

While TN governor cheered on, pedo Trump's goon squads cleared out, arrested and disappeared entire apartment complexes of people in Memphis.

The difference is our Governors and mayors in red states don't care. They don't fight back. The rich Republicans, not the people who live here, are glad to see the poor harassed and murdered. The rest of us are just watching in horror.

What's happening is bullies are being bullies and the victims are saying ignore them, they'll go away. Bullies never go away with out a fight. We have to fight.

A giant March to DC would be a good start. Start in Minneapolis. Just gather as many people as you can and start walking to DC. Make it public, ask for anti fascists everywhere to march with you. Can you imagine what will happen? Say you are marching to get pedo Trump out of office.

As the march gets closer and closer, pedo Trump and his henchmen will get more and more nervous. No need for violence. No need for threats of violence. Just keep marching. Taking turns as some get tired, others can come to replace them. Just say you are practicing your civil rights to petition your government to get rid of pedo Trump.

ReRe

(12,179 posts)
25. Damn right, malaise.
Sat Jan 10, 2026, 03:04 AM
Saturday

Call it what it is: A fascist police state. Period.
Some of the darkest History in modern time is repeating itself right here in America.
It IS happening here.

jaymac

(253 posts)
27. So, in 2026 midterms
Sat Jan 10, 2026, 06:39 AM
Saturday

if dems sweep the elections.......what if mike Johnson refuses to swear them in? this regime has pretty much destroyed any sense of normalcy or regularity, only chaos and destruction. what then?

FakeNoose

(40,238 posts)
28. I've seen no proof that there are illegal immigrants in Minneapolis
Sat Jan 10, 2026, 07:32 AM
Saturday

Why the hell are ICE-goons invading Minnesota, anyway?

The immigrant problem - such as it is - is down in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, maybe some in California. That's where ICE should be, defending our border. Their job is to make sure the immigrants come in peacefully and legally. That's all ICE is needed for. Those who can't do their jobs should be fired immediately.

Magoo48

(6,691 posts)
29. Yes, wake up and swim down in unison
Sat Jan 10, 2026, 07:43 AM
Saturday

Until we have the collective mass to breakthrough the fascist net closing around us. Midterms are critical, of course, but, Americans must organize and put forth the effort across all social and cultural fronts, both individually, and in groups, to effectively achieve change.. In my opinion, if the extent of my actions is voting in the midterms, if I think the midterms alone will save us, then I’m simply bullshitting myself.

OldBaldy1701E

(10,225 posts)
30. "... if I think the midterms alone will save us, then I'm simply bullshitting myself."
Sat Jan 10, 2026, 08:45 AM
Saturday

HEAR FUCKING HEAR!

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