Here No Longer

@Dusknoir

My circumstances combined with being locked in a literal hillbilly town keep me from doing anything, but I would if I could for sure. 

Defenders of the status quo will always find a way to paint dissendents in a bad light,riot or no riot, especially when they control all the media outlets. Whatever helps bring us towards a better, free world is necessary in my eyes. I just wish more people knew what that was.

This whole thing is bigger than Trump though. He's a symptom of a much larger issue. Kind of like getting a pimple when you have bad skin. In this polarized culture combined with class inequality and the ever expanding presence of capitalism in our lives, people make irrational decisions, like trusting a flawed quasi-democratic process and think that this billionaire who says edgy things on Twitter will actually represent them well. Unless there is a sweeping change I think there will be many more Trumps, Erdogans and Bolsonaros to come. I'm not the smartest person to talk about this stuff but I'm below the poverty line I'm tired of being afraid for my life, wondering if I'll even have a place to live next year and being sick from not not eating well.

@Pastel Heart

I used to be in that situation, but now I thankfully live a 15 minute drive or so from Houston.

Yeah it almost seems like there's a lot of people, especially around this part of the country, who have no idea what actually is the status quo... They have this idea that the "far radical left" has "taken over" (pure nonsense) when in all actuality it's the center and the right defining the mainstream right now. But they get all angry about the liberals instead of actually paying attention to what's really going on. Which is why we have a president who's only goal seems to be, in the words of many a far right lunatic, "to trigger the libtards."

This is true, but Trump has not only made the problem significantly worse, he's gotten to the point of embracing actual authoritarianism. The mainstream hasn't quite gotten there yet. Sure we've had unconstitutional and downright authoritarian laws signed in to office, and there's the off-chance that a US president may be the real perpetrator of one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in not only US history but world history... But Trump has taken it to the level where if he doesn't win, it seems like he will at least try to manipulate the result so he actually is considered the winner, or possibly even try to overthrow the f***ing government if that doesn't work.. And if he wins, well, we'll have another four years of utter chaos, completely backwards policy, and likely authoritarianism and that is a guarantee.

@Dusknoir

I actually am what you'd call radical left so if the US has been taken over by us that's breaking news to me, lmao. If social democratic and liberal mentalities are what you call far left then we really are living in a land of confusion.

If I have any hope in all this I hope people start seeing that all of this is not okay, that not one person or a small minority deserves power like this and finally see how absolutely ridiculous all this is and that a better way to live is out there, without him and people like him lording over us and enforcing a system we're not okay with.

If Rojava can happen, I think we can do it too. But on the other hand, time and time again things have gotten even more insane in the sociopolitical landscape since the start of 2016 and I'm scared. I'm not gonna say I'll hope for the best or whatever happens happens, but I wanna do my best and hope everyone does their best no matter what kinda world we get going into 2021 and beyond. It'll either get a lot worse, or better. I hope for the sake of what's left of me that it's better.