BlueMacaw

If you don't believe that there will be death squads (I'm not trying to convince you there will be), you are not the target of my question. Many people around Lemmy today are saying things like "you've just killed all trans people" or "I'm going to be hunted for sport now," very much believing that they are part of an "isolated minority sect or fantasy guild or some wack shit like that." These people do believe that there will be death squads.

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Your community in this case doesn't mean your neighborhood. Your community means the people who you identify with and/or care about. If you truly believe that your neighbors are on the cusp of becoming death squads who are ready to gun down all the [insert your people] in town, it might be a good idea to have your friends know that the plan is to meet up at someone's place that is more defensible. Or to get to the least mobile person. Or to get in a car with a particular destination in mind. Whatever your plan is, if the enemy is armed, it might be a good idea to also be armed.

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While I personally do like Stein, I agree that others would be better. Stein didn't even want to run, but the Green Party loses all the electoral benefits I mentioned if they DON'T run. Stein basically recruited Cornell West to run for the Green Party nomination, and there was a time when it looked like he would be the nominee. However, he dropped out because he didn't want to do the campaigning work within the party to become the nominee. If he had actually been serious about running, he could have clinched it and I think would have gotten a ton more traction. From what I've heard, it seemed like he was scared to gain too much traction and potentially be a real spoiler. When he left the Green Party, someone had to run to preserve their electoral benefits, so Stein stepped in.

When you say wait for the enemy to attack, how will you defend your community in that eventuality if you haven't trained to do so?

Depends on what you consider expensive. For general purpose training, 9mm rounds (pistol) are easily found at about 25c each and 5.56 (rifle) are found at about 40c each.

It's exactly what I did the last time orange man was in office, so yes, me first. Now you. Let's hit the range together.

Many believe they are saving the country by voting for Trump. Everyone sees that America is going downhill. Everything is more expensive, more uncertain, more precarious. Leftists blame corporations and corporate capture of government agencies. Right wingers think that more corporate power is good and if left unchecked, the "free market" (aka government rules that favor unchecked corporate malfeasance) will be better for America.

People vote for their economic interests, as best as they can understand them. Most on the right think that their economic interests are served by corporate deregulation and scapegoating of immigrants. However, within that context, this is also why removing social security is not realistic. That's a direct attack on people's benefits, which they are not in favor of. Right wing corporate types want to cut social security so they don't have to pay taxes, or there will be more money in the government coffers to give back to the corporations. But the majority of right wing people that the corporate types rely on for votes will never vote to repeal social security.

To everyone in here saying that this is the end of democracy and this is the end times, what is stopping you from buying a gun and training with other liberals/leftists? Or are you just going to keel over and die?

Unfortunately I would think very few would care. For example, the Green party is very progressive, and comes with a TON of advantages electorally. They're on the ballot in almost every state, run in local and national elections, and have a system all set up for nominating people, etc. When you look at the Green party's platform, it's very close to what the progressives claim to actually want. Yet most democrats just shit on them at every opportunity instead of voting for the platform they ostensibly believe in.

Another headache is that everything dems do is means tested, so you've got to jump through a bunch of hoops to figure out if you're even eligible for any new program. Even if the programs do give relief to people, it's much harder to message on a complicated program with layers of bureaucracy rather than "everyone gets 3k per child no matter what."