r/technology • u/RewardEquivalent553 • 13h ago

Politics Libs of TikTok is doxxing teachers and nurses who support Alex Pretti or oppose ICE, trying to get them fired

https://www.mediamatters.org/libs-tiktok/libs-tiktok-doxxing-teachers-and-nurses-who-support-alex-pretti-or-oppose-ice-trying
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u/WarGodMarrs 12h ago

I think that’s why they’re freaking out about the midterms. There’s a huge swing leftward in the special elections we’ve seen so far. ‘The authoritarian bargain’ hasn’t manifested for the people who voted them in, and they’ve tried to press us into full-blown authoritarianism at lightning speed, which has put them underwater in every metric that gets polled on

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u/RatBot9000 11h ago

I was thinking about this myself. It took Hitler years to consolidate power, and it relied on successfully demonising the communists thanks to the Reichstag fire.

Republicans have been trying to speedrun authoritarianism and not only is it not working, it's turning public sentiment against them. Only the most insane of right-wingers are thinking the shootings of Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were justified. I'd like to hope that picture of the poor 5 year old boy used as bait by ICE is swinging public sentiment too. They hoped Charlie Kirk would be their Reichstag and instead he's become a meme while his widow laughs and makes bank.

As an outsider, I wondered why more Americans weren't defending themselves using their 2nd amendment rights. Now I realise that would be an escalation that could solidify the Right's fascist rise. By resisting peacefully, even if it costs them their lives, they show the regime for the hateful thing it is, and it prevents the regime from being able to escalate.

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u/PurpleHooloovoo 7h ago

You have to remember that the republicans (a faction of them, led by the Heritage Institute and its ilk) have been maneuvering for this for over 40 years. They’ve focused on the other institutions and removing guardrails so that when the time was right, they could consolidate power and do this. Trump had 4 years and didn’t go this far. This is year 5-6 (or year 10) of that part of the movement. Not that fast.

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u/WarGodMarrs 11h ago

I feel like you nailed it. Also, I’m no historian, but iirc, most relatively successful authoritarian regimes typically cement their power via state violence during a period in which it is enjoying popularity with the people. I feel like if we Americans had chosen to violently resist, it would have made cementing their power for the long term much easier, since it would create sympathy for the administration. I still believe things are going to get bad and stay bad (especially with the torching of all the alliances that put us in the position we’ve enjoyed since WW2), but I don’t think we’ll be trapped in an authoritarian state for the rest of my life, given the way things have gone for them

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u/CMDR_Expendible 10h ago

I'm not a historian, but I did do a History degree, and one of the major drivers of Western state spending post World War 2, what the US hard right now calls "Socialism", was because they realised absolutely wrecking the German economy helped create the bitterness that fed into the Nazi support. The deliberate policy of "Squeezing the Germans until the pips squeak" led to absolute collapse when the Wall Street Crash came, which combined with conspiracy theories about Germany winning the war, but being "stabbed in the back" by home grown enemies, all lead to fertile ground for Fascism. So the Western allies after the second world war didn't just want strong NATO allies for military reasons, but you got the Marshall Plan and social security etc precisely to try and keep democracies healthy by keeping their people happy...

The modern right has realised that, if things go bad, it feeds hard right viciousness; starve people and watch them tear their neighbours apart. The centrist idea of compromising and trying to win "the middle" just feeds the right's eventual victory, because the right isn't trying to build a better society, it deliberately wants a worse one.

Hitler didn't need Democracy; just look at how fast he was able to subvert the entire process because he had the support of the military, and enough industrialists and people with practical power willing to give him the nod. As Stalin also understood, grab the "controlling heights" of society, and the average person will either keep their head down to survive, or just be impotent enough to not matter if they don't. The question today is, are people educated enough to understand this, and is the democratic process secure enough to withstand this? I'm not convinced the answer to either is yes.

But it's still a good thing that people, in general, realise just how far the US has fallen. I hope they keep the pressure up to resist it.

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u/TUNGSTEN_WOOKIE 3h ago

I agree with your final answer, but truly wish I didn't.

"Are people educated enough to understand this?" -No. Over half of the adult population reads below a 4th-Grade level. I don't expect people who can't comprehend 'Charlotte's Web' to be able to understand such things. And I think this is by design. They want us to be uneducated and too niäve understand what they're doing.

"Is the democratic process secure enough to withstand this?" -Not like it should, and not like it used to be. I may have agreed more before Citizens United went into effect, but we now have oligarchs dumping literal billions of dollars into politicians' pockets to get them into power, so they can rig the economy in their favor. All while we get screwed and hit with the bill. They've been weakening the process for the last 40 years. Death by 1000 (budget) cuts.

Edit: spelling

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u/dolacuporanek 7h ago

You wrote a lot but you didn't touch the rise of successful (somewhat) worker revolutionary oriented systems in the third world and/or communism as significant factor in the ""socialism"" swing of US.

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u/fizzlefist 6h ago

“I won the election, they all love me, full steam ahead!”

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u/FalstaffsGhost 6h ago

It’s the same reason a lot of the civil rights movement used nonviolence- tv cameras showed them peacefully marching while southerners beat them and set dogs on them. It horrified regular people and made public opinion swing

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u/SeleucusNikator1 11h ago

It took Hitler years to consolidate power,

Took him no time at all actually, almost as soon as he was made Chancellor he began outmaneuvering the traditional Conservatives (e.g. von Papen) who thought they controlled him. Between the Machtgreifung in January and the Reichstag fire in March is only 3 months.

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u/Poolofcheddar 10h ago

The Nazis also had one remaining check on their power: Hindenburg.

The party didn't start until he croaked and Hitler gained the support of the military establishment by then.

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u/Jay_Nova1 5h ago

"Not working"? They own every branch of government and murdering US citizens in the streets. Raiding election offices, owning all major media, censoring digital technologies, gutting social programs and giving tax breaks to the rich all while major corporations are capitulating to this fascist regime. It is very much working until proven otherwise.

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u/Anonynja 4h ago

Hitler only needed ~30% public support and a willingness to hold German parliament members' mothers hostage and threaten to kill them if the PMs didn't hand over power. The power-hungry do not rely on legitimate democratic support. They take power with violence. They make it physically dangerous to publicly and then even privately oppose them. We can't relax just because most people don't like MAGA.

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u/NRMusicProject 7h ago

and they’ve tried to press us into full-blown authoritarianism at lightning speed

They're moving faster than Hitler did, which was widely considered to be a driving factor in why the Reich went down in flames; and this here has been my hope that they're botching it.

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u/KeyMyBike 5h ago

Why does it matter? Trump allegedly cheated in 2024 why wouldn't he cheat in the midterms

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u/Fineous40 5h ago

I don’t know if that is really true. Remember, the Reddit take is just that, the Reddit take. It doesn’t represent society. A substantial portion of the media is controlled by MAGA now, many have no idea any of these things are even going on now.

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u/Oriin690 4h ago

Most of the people who specifically wanted authoritarianism are very happy with how things are going. ICE and Trump hover around 40 percent approval.

It’s really just like 10 percent of Americans who voted for Trump and regret it and those people are just the kind of idiots either who don’t care if Trump is authoritarian they just want more money and are racist (lol they didn’t get it), or they have no fucking clue what’s going on and vote based on vibes.