this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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Once again, political violence stems from Republican ideology.

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[–] moonshadow@slrpnk.net 87 points 2 days ago (4 children)

"Why aren't Americans doing anything?" then y'all shit on the Florida Man creeping into the presidential palace with a shotgun and gas can

[–] WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca 6 points 21 hours ago

I’ve got more respect for this dipshit than I do for any American sitting at home picking their battles in 2026.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 37 points 1 day ago (2 children)

“Why aren’t Americans doing anything?”

Those are trolls trying to cause chaos. It's obviously suicide if anyone does what the trolls are telling them to do.

  • Alex Pretti, did nothing wrong and was executed after they took his gun
  • This guy
[–] RainbowHedgehog@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

What gets me is that Americans are constantly doing stuff. I remember during March of last year people kept going on about how the French burned Tesla cars but Americans were “doing nothing.”

They kept saying this while there was constant vandalism all across the country. Reddit wouldn’t allow posts on the topic, so many didn’t know it was happening.

Even with the vandalism, that isn’t what took down DOGE. The biggest hit was simply the boycott and divestment from Tesla stocks.

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It's sort of why I'm vocal when I see those comments pop up. Remind them that it's a stupid position to have to start with, anyone actually planning to do something knows what OPSEC is, and they know any action has to be extraordinarily precise, not just shooting at feds.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It’s sort of why I’m vocal when I see those comments pop up. Remind them that it’s a stupid position to have to start with

More people need to do this, anybody calling for violence on social media is either a provocateur/non-US National or a dangerously naive American who will cause more harm than good.

There are many roads to a good outcome through peaceful means, once someone starts to resort to violence the options rapidly become limited. Anyone who thinks that we should move into that second world is actively dangerous to everyone that lives in the US.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 3 points 20 hours ago

Minnesota is the perfect example of this.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But it is a valid counter-argument to the validity of the second amendment. Even if you got a thousand or two of your well-armed friends together to topple the tyranny, you would likely only win the battle and not the war.

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't think we were talking about that?

[–] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 2 points 1 day ago

No, it's tangential to this, but still related.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago

He was just exercising his Second Amendment rights! And apparently the right to bear fuel as well. Maybe he just wanted to talk with his hero about the pizzagate evidence he's sure must be in those files someplace. I'm pretty sure we only have the officers' word he brandished the gun.

[–] butwhyishischinabook@piefed.social 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Euro-Lemmings believe both that Americans are recklessly married to vigilante political violence and also that they don't do anything ever, it just depends on whatever belief, at any given point in time, allows them to whine about the US.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh no. Not whining about the openly fascist government of America, those damn euros how dare they complain!

[–] butwhyishischinabook@piefed.social 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Yeah I whine about it a lot too, the point is that there is literally no action an American can take that's correct. Do something? Rash, juvenile, doomed to fail, too violent, they should have large protests and walkouts instead. Protest in the street? Too civil, pointless, also doomed to fail, why aren't Americans taking up arms by the millions to kill the government. Every action is the wrong one.

[–] BenevolentOne@infosec.pub 5 points 1 day ago

It's your stupid monkey brain thinking that you are talking to 'that one guy called internet' instead of thousands of tens of thousands of different people.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm glad I wasn't the only person to notice.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

What you both are noticing is a tactic of propaganda called FUD. It stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

The goal of this propaganda is to promote a feeling of hopelessness, on a large scale this will decrease political participation ("why vote, it doesn't matter anyway, laws don't matter they'll just ignore them, the idea in the OP is dumb and anyone who thinks this will work is too"). By targeting the social spaces of the opposing party (or all parties in the cases of some nation-states) the adversary can attack the morale of the population, disrupting or delaying a cohesive response.

It doesn't take too much creativity (and now, with LLMs, absolutely none) to make posts that say some variation of 'that won't work and you are dumb' on every topic. This is why you have this perception of a mass amount of criticism, it's being fabricated at scale across all of social media (Fediverse spaces had a brief period of obscurity but are now part of the propaganda campaigns).

That isn't to say that there are not legit criticisms, but they are being signal boosted significantly as part of these FUD campaigns.

[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I've been calling it the "Reddit Defeatist Brigade". As your comment states it isn't confined to reddit. I wondered if it was some sort of propaganda because it's so prevalent. Now I know.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au -1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Maybe, just maybe that’s different people with different opinions and you’re lumping them all under one umbrella?

Hmmm, almost like that should be the approach with large, continental polities with a plethora of regional political subcultures in it.

[–] Sculptor9157@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Strawmericans, if you will.