Here is a link to another post, but this is still harmless news compared to others, although I'm not sure -- https://lemmy.world/post/37101088
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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I'll confess this was me and now is me. Trump got elected when I was middle school-aged. I really, really believed that was the low point, and for the rest of my life, the USA would get better. I believed the USA population was just ill-informed, and I did not expect this global rise of fascism and digital surveillance. I assumed people would never vote to strip away freedoms if they knew that was going to happen. I assumed the internet would always stay anonymous, and always be a free space.
Obviously there was an immense amount I did not know about. I had heard of the Trail of Tears and Slavery and the Civil War, but I didn't grasp institutionalized racism beyond police brutality; didn't realize the Left was losing the internet, didn't recognize the danger of the manosphere; didn't understand how wide-spread the propaganda campaigns were, didn't grasp that billionaires and centi-millionaires would want fascism, and would enact it across the Western world.
When Kamala announced her campaign, I deemed her president. Every step of that campaign, as the Republicans careened more extremist-right I became more certain that even their party members would deem them insane. I knew people were struggling financially under Biden, but, that guy's holding signs reading "MASS DEPORTATIONS", has two moronic side-kicks (Musk and Vance), and his term was filled with economic hardship. Also, Jan 6th, 2021.
In hindsight I'm ashamed of my naive optimism. I'd beat myself up for it more, if I wasn't living in the middle of my personalized hell.
I feel ya. For me the eye opening moment was the full scale invasion of Ukraine. I grew up with the ideas of the unprecedented era of peace and human rights as a given hammered into my head, so I made it a moral duty to follow the war semi daily once it escalated. I live only one country over, so we’re next on putin’s campaign. And yet half the people here feel just fine with this arrangement. Our lackluster response, our bickering over the smallest things while this future defining horror show unfolds at our doorstep, it’s all quite sad.
Anyways, since then I’ve been doing my best to understand people, to go out of my way and educate my self on what people are going through. I still have a lot to learn, but I refuse to stay ignorant, because it only leads to more pain.
Absolutely agree on refusing to stay ignorant. I do not ever want to forget this time or let myself slip into that willful naivety.
For me one moment that shocked me was the overturning of Roe v. Wade (USA abortion protections) by Dobbs. When that decision leaked early, I was nauseous, and kept checking the internet to see it debunked, only to see more proofs of authenticity. Then, watching as the protests stopped, energy trickled down, and life just.. continued. Afterwards, I retreated into being a hikikomori for several years. That core right had been given, then taken away, and the people around me just moved on.