this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
443 points (97.8% liked)

politics

19107 readers
2746 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

“We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Donald Trump said this past November, in a campaign speech that was ostensibly honoring Veterans Day. “The real threat is not from the radical right; the real threat is from the radical left … The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”

What immediately leaps out here is the word vermin, with its echoes of Hitler and Mussolini. But Trump’s inflammatory language can overshadow and distract from the substance of what he’s saying—in this case, appearing to promise a purge or repression of those who disagree with him politically.

...

Trump himself has changed, too—the old Trump seemed to be running for office partly for fun and partly in service of his signature views, such as opposition to immigration and support for protectionism. Today’s Trump is different. His fury over his 2020 election defeat, the legal cases against him, and a desire for revenge against political opponents have come to eclipse everything else.

Non-paywall link

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Mr Canada Person, here is how Ok we are and how it has literally affected your country, in an example that should hopefully spell this out well.

The QAnon movement started essentially as a PsyOp on 4chan, but there amongst the most vile of internet users it took hold of their conspiracy addled and angry at everything minds, and took on a life of its own as it exploded in popularity astounding quickly for how absurd any of it is.

It was a conspiracy theorists wet dream, a meta conspiracy theory of nearly every other already existing American conspiracy theory all interwoven into a grand narrative that took root as essentially a comprehensive world view for those susceptible to suspending any need for actual evidence, later, for any even basic plausibility whatsoever.

Q's posts carried an aire of mystery, suspense, and gravitas amongst the early adherents. A huge part of why they were so effective is that they seemed plausible to some of those who do actually know some of the vernacular of classified information, which Q used more or less correctly in many instances, but when he made grandiose claims that defied reason or left open ended questions...

... the users of 4chan, having nothing better to do, debated as to what any of what he was saying could be referencing, what he could say and could not, what he was saying was disinfo and what was real.

This giant clusterfuck of speculation and debate grew and intensified to point thata Q Drop was viewed with essentially the same reverence as if God himself was depositing information for the faithful to decipher, and quite literally fairly soon there were already opposing camps of factions of Q adherents clustering around various Q Interpreters.

Eventually Trump realized he could win over this demographic, specifically of internet addicts, by merely referencing certain key phrases and signs and sayings the movement had adopted... and why not?

Much of the Q theories revolved around Trump working in secret, with secret evidence, vastly outwitting his rivals whom he would soon be unleashing a massive wave of arrests of for heinous and despicable crimes.

It did not matter that none of this was true, that nearly none of the crimes claimed had any evidence whatsoever to suggest their occurance, and the few that had even a sliver were vastly blown out of proportion as to their actual value as evidence.

You see Trump had all the info, but it was classified. He had secret emails from Hilary Clinton, he was working in all levels of the government to stop essentially a combination sci-fi political thriller movie plot from destroying the US government and society from the inside out.

Or, so was believed by the Q adherents.

When Trump engaged with this group by dog whistling to them ina few public speeches, photographs, tweets, the Q movement was emboldened, and everyone who was sitting on the fence about it became nearly total true believers.

All these theories reinforced and compounded and dovetailed with general right wing conservative fears, tropes, hatreds and desires in such a way that not long after, it became almost impossible to disentangle the two, to find a self professed conservative who did not believe in significant elements of Q Anon theories.

The popularity of all this grew faster and faster, spreading over Facebook, Terrestrial Radio, In Person, In Churches, On Podcasts, essentially all forms of media.

This all culminated in the Jan 6th Insurrection.

You see, Trump was supposed to have already called down the Storm, the mass arrests of somewhere from thousands to tens of millions of Americans, depending on which Q adherent you asked.

But he could not do that if he was not President.

So he decided he still was.

And personally directed his followers to make this so.

...

The coup attempt, the insurrection failed.

But its effects will be with us for a very, very long time.

Sorry to bury the lead but heres one stupendously stupid but serious and dangerous way this movement has directly affected Canada;

At some point, I think about 3 years back, a woman residing in Canada was taken hold by the Q Phenomena.

Romana Didulo.

Queen, Romana Didulo.

She believes, amongst many other things, that she has been appointed the rightful Queen of Canada by the 'White Hats', the Q name for those within the upper echelons of the US Military and other State Apparati that are working with Trump to arrest all the traitors.

She believes she has the right to make unilateral decrees that all Canadians must follow, including essentially the abolishment of all taxes, the death penalty for anyone who defies her will, and at one point demanded at jet aircraft be made available to her so that she personally could travel to Europe and negotiate peace in the Ukraine conflict... between the US and Russia.

She also believes she is a Reptillian alien, or descended from ones that long ago came to our world, intermixed with and subjugated humans, and that the traces of Reptillian Alien DNA are present in the humans that today comprise many of the ruling class of many societies, powerful and influential people.

But.. she... is a /good/ Reptillian. She knows their ways and has turned on them, for the good of humanity.

Herself and her followers at one point attempted to perform citizens arrests of ... all of the police present at the time in a police station in a city in Canada, cant remember which one. Violence ensued, though to the best of my knowledge no one was seriously injured or killed.

Her and her followers then spent about a year driving around Canada in an RV with accompanying caravan of other followers in cars.

At one point, in another town, a very small town, someone sympathetic to Queen Romana actually legitimately gifted her the deed to an abadoned school, I thinknit was.

Her and her followers set up shop in this old school, and the number of her ... movement... either approaches or exceeds the actual population of the town, who they began harassing, threatening, demanding the mayor and tiny city government step down amd hand formal control of the town to them.

Last I heard the RCMP has been dispatched to this town essentially for peacekeeping purposes.

...

I could not possibly make this up if I tried.

[–] diffusive@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I looked in queen Romana… always fascinated to see cult leaders and what make their followers believe. Facts don’t matter there, emotions do. The darker the better because only the leader can solve the issue triggering the dark emotions…

[–] Uglyhead@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Cult Leaders

**Qult Leaders

FTFY