this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
560 points (98.1% liked)

Political Memes

5383 readers
2539 users here now

Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

Be civilJokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

No misinformationDon’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

Posts should be memesRandom pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.

No bots, spam or self-promotionFollow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
top 44 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 58008@lemmy.world 27 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

It should be pointed out that had the Holocaust and WWII not happened, Nazi Germany was still an unmitigated nightmare that no one but the Nazis themselves were enjoying very much. There were and are plenty of authoritarian and fascist states where genocides don't happen, but which are nevertheless hell on earth for everyone who's not a functionary of the state.

So even if you think it's hyperbole to worry about extermination camps in the US, there's absolutely nothing hyperbolic about a dystopian state coming into existence in which dissent and difference are crimes. Donald Trump and his band of dead-eyed sadists like Stephen Miller will do whatever they can in a second Trump term to bring such a state to you.

Nazi comparisons are completely justified.

[–] CitizenKong@lemmy.world 6 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Also notable is the fact that Hitler managed to gain power with only about 35 percent of the popular vote. Because regular conservatives formed a coalition with him, convinced they would be able to control and use him. Instead he used them.

Also, he then needed a false flag operation to be able to declare martial law - gaining the same kind of absolute power that the US president now has automatically thanks to the Supreme Court.

[–] Birch@sh.itjust.works 45 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

“It happened, therefore it can happen again.” – Primo Levi

Saw this written on a plaque at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin and it really gave me pause, reflecting on what is happening all around the world right now.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 5 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

I would have put it as:

"It keeps happening, therefore it can happen again."

It covers so much bad shit we as (groups of) humans do.
Exterminating the next village over bcs they like to wear green instead of yellow hats is the easiest thing to spark amongst the common, easily manipulated folk.

And it keeps happening bcs it (mass manipulation for whatever irrelevant reason) can be monetised & power can be gained in the precess (beyond from just literal pillaging and enslavement).

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

I warned you about holocaust bro!!!!!
I told you dog!

[–] Dragonstaff@leminal.space -1 points 1 hour ago

This is exactly what America is and always has been.

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 10 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

and less than a week away from a 4th reich if all the tightass tankies vote 3rd parties

[–] Dragonstaff@leminal.space -1 points 1 hour ago

Typical Democrat: trying to blame every problem on people to your left.

You'd really rather Trump win than not support genocide.

[–] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 41 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

True. The Nazi concentration camps were not constructed for Jews, but political dissidents. They were created to detain people that did not succumb to gleichschaltung, coordination or alignment with the Nazi agenda.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 9 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

And iirc they reused them for Jews bcs of the gigantic cost of what ultimately led to the 'Final solution'.

But the primary goal was def people control & opposition subjugation - ie make people know what happens if you speak out against the regime.

[–] ThrowawayInTheYear23@lemmy.world 56 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

This is not what America is.

Is it though? After all the Nazis were inspired by the US.

[–] spamfajitas@lemmy.world 52 points 7 hours ago

There are really 2 Americas. The one that tries to do better and the other one that only exists because Sherman didn't go far enough.

[–] VubDapple@lemmy.world 19 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

USA has always been an ambivalent place, both committed to equality and liberty in an idealized manner and also committed to perpetuating inequality, particularly across racial, ethnic and religious lines. A child of the 1970s I like the version of America I was taught about in-between Saturday morning cartoons via School House Rock. No more kings!

Edit: before anyone else points it out, the video depicts racism against native americans and the colonists were crazy religious zealots. But it's also about rejection of the English king. So all the ambivalence seems to be there.

[–] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 6 points 7 hours ago

Well, the nazis weren't really big on monarchism either

[–] LibertyLizard -2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Cute, but also naive and highly revisionist. The ideals behind it are nice but they were never fully realized or even well thought out, particularly for certain groups or people seen as lesser.

In particular, the substitution of a president for a king was, I think, one of the most naive and dangerous mistakes in early US history. Did they really think calling him something different would change the dynamics? The entire existence of Trump can be traced back to this decision.

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

? Being able to elect your leader, criticize them, etc. is pretty vastly different from having a king and lineage of people who all think they’re special for no reason at all. Trump being treated like he should be a king by the dumbest people anyone knows is a failing by those people to have even the slightest sign of brain activity. Everyone else knows that the president/prime minister/whatever is just a temporary leader and one essentially hired to do a job.

Exactly, they couldn't possibly be anything like kings.

You see, the small group of ultra wealthy people in America who control the government and make the laws, due to their hereditary power and vast holdings, aren't from the Aristocrstic region of Europe or the Oligarchy region of Western Russia.

So, its a totally different thing. Although, I was a little confused when I first heard about Bush II or that something the Kennedy dynasty could exist. Luckily, I saw a play all about it in the Rockefeller Palace in new York, not far from Trump's.

[–] CodexArcanum@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

The idea that a country needs (~~to exist~~) to be ruled by a single individual is completely unfounded, and perpetuated by people who are either fools or foolish enough to think they have a shot at the throne. Early on, there were proposals for the USA to have a king, a president, and many other ideas including no executive branch or having a tribunal. I could see a good case for splitting the executive across 3 persons with equal and asymmetrical powers.

Assuming you do a ranked choice vote for all 3 at once (or 1 at a time in rotation, like Senators) it should be extremely difficult to compromise the office by, say, buying one deeply indebted former TV host and running them for president.

[–] LibertyLizard 0 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

This comment is exactly the lack of imagination and critical thinking I am criticizing. There are some structures and norms around the president that make its office less dangerous than a king. But not much less dangerous. He has much of the same powers. The ability to command the military and execute the law are the two most important, and we already saw how trump tried to abuse these powers in his first term. We were just lucky that many of his followers resisted. But will they next time? I think not. His new cadre has been selected with that in mind, and he’s made it clear he will dispose of or punish anyone who resists him.

What “everyone knows” is not what everyone knows if not everyone knows it. The office of the presidency is inherently vulnerable to the type of attempted power grab that Trump is currently enacting. There is nothing unusual or particularly stupid about his followers. They are just people who have been indoctrinated into an authoritarian cult.

Many people don’t know, but the earliest British kings were elected. But over time, the king gained more and more power until it became the tyrannical institution in our current imagination. The same happened in Rome with the rise of the emperor. And Hitler, and the Bolsheviks, and many many others. Most tyrants arise within systems that purport to be democratic.

A truly just and benevolent system of government must resist these attacks on it far more strongly. I believe we are seeing the gradual failure of the American system today. With luck we will fight off this attack and the system may limp on for a few more years. But without reforms to more substantially limit executive power, the system remains vulnerable. The office of the president is clearly the weak point, and if we’re smart we’ll think on how the powers of that office can be deconstructed and distributed more widely.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 7 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Came to make this comment, 'cuz America is the political prison and slavery capital of the world.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

We're all humans, nationality aside. Good ideas. Bad ideas. Such ideology can and has propagated in pretty much every corner of the world and at varying times in history in some respect.

[–] trek32@lemmy.world 25 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Insightful interview https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-trumps-rhetoric-compares-to-historic-fascist-language

"I think Trump has been conditioning Americans since 2015 to see violence as something justified in certain cases and even patriotic.

He's been conditioning them to see other Americans as enemies, as diseased, as dirty. And what we have to remember is that authoritarians might initially target one group, and he's been talking mostly about immigrants. But he's also calling the enemy within the political opposition.

[...]

And this is part of an authoritarian projection mechanism. I call it the upside-down world of authoritarianism, where, ever since Mussolini, he was the first to call democrats the real tyrants and fascism was going to be freedom. Fascism was going to make Italy great again. That was a slogan, as was drain the swamp. Trump took that from Mussolini as well."

[–] cybervseas@lemmy.world 15 points 8 hours ago

You're right. He came to speak to the police in my county, which has a bad reputation already, and

Trump said the administration is removing these gang members from the United States "but we'd like to get them out a lot faster and when you see ... these thugs being thrown into the back of the paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in rough, I said, 'Please don't be too nice.'"

To which the police and cadets all started to laugh. Of course later the department said of course they wouldn't be rough 🤔: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/suffolk-county-police-speak-up-after-trump-dont-be-too-nice-quip/227929/

Here's another story from my county 🙁 the "embarrassing items" in the SUV were sex toys btw:

https://abc7ny.com/james-burke-suffolk-county-police-chief-long-island/1585285/

No surprise that our county's PBA has enthusiastically endorsed Trump. As a brown family here it has us concerned.

[–] Neon@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I mean yeah.

The very first killed were the disabled. And not in prisons but instead in an improvised shed in the asylum they were in.

But the Sentiment is right.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world -2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

That's too much, even for Jehovah's witnesses. JW's deserve their freedom just as anyone else. But I should add, there should be a law that allows one to legally hose them down with cold garden water if they come to your house to bother you. If they come and you like it, all good. But if they come and I specifically tell them never to bother me again, they better write that somewhere cuz next time they get a legal watering. It would make a lot of people get a renewed sense of home ownership lol. But I mean, the JW's could just stop pestering people.

[–] ddplf@szmer.info 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

While I share with you the sentiment, that is an odd place for such confession

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago

Just asking for my pace to not be invaded. That's all. Also making light of something awful 😉. But that's what comedians do. I'm not a comedian but sometimes I wish I was. Then things would make more sense. Like why would the US help Israel basically pulverize Palestine? Why didn't the US instead help Ukraine by eliminating putin yet? So I can't change any of this. I can vote Democrat and I did, but there wasn't an entry on there that specifically asked "would you want us to stop arming Israel?". We got no voice in the matter.....but we got sarcasm, parody, and comedy! Neither thing is illegal yet.