Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned that the Trump is deliberately overwhelming the public with chaotic news to induce passivity.
Citing Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone” strategy and historian Michiko Kakutani’s comparison of Trump to Mussolini and Hitler, she argued that Trump uses the internet to spread disinformation, much like past dictators used film and radio.
Urging people to stay engaged, she emphasized that collective resistance can slow harmful policies and that small acts of opposition make a difference.
The first thing she said is to take a breather. If you’re unfocused, tired and afraid you can’t do anything.
The second thing is to learn, educate yourself, figure out that Trump, Musk and billionaires are not stirring up chaos and havoc just because they feel like it. If these were 100 unconnected random actions, tackling them feels impossible. Once you understand that it’s all around the theme of Musk, Trump, media-owning billionaires want maximum money and minimum accountability, their actions simply fit within that and a strategy to tackle it is easier.
Third is to “lock in”, focus your energy on what you can do, big or small. Even if you are too afraid to talk to another soul, knowing your rights is still action. Knowledge is power. Talking to your friends and family is action. Calling and writing to your legislators is action. Joining a protest/rally/meeting is action. Organizing, volunteering leading is action. The point is do it to what level you are capable at the moment. There are far more non-billionaires than billionaires. Every bit of action counts.
Last, make them abuse their power, do not just allow them to or assume they will. They are going to do horrifying things, you don’t have to submit to it in advance. You can slow it down.
The thing the idiot billionaires didn’t realize is that they already had maximum money and minimum accountability.
Money. Which would you rather have, a million dollars or a million rubles? By grinding the US economy to a standstill, they may have more dollars, but they’ll be worth less.
When they complete turning us into a fascist oligarchy, they’ll have more accountability, not less. Nearly every single one of them will have to spend more time worrying about getting thrown out of a window by a “superior” or shot in front of a hotel on their way to a conference.
They’ll have to fear everyone above and below them. They discarded a set of rules that originated from general agreements to help us all get along, and have chosen power and blood as the deciding factor over laws. Well, that goes both ways. Democracy requires some good faith, and we’ve taken that for granted.
The founders understood this. It’s why they invented our system of democracy. It wasn’t just out of the goodness of their hearts. That all happened around 1776, as you know.
That sentiment didn’t arise out of the blue. It was around for decades before it got to that point. The founding fathers were very aware of what was happening there. The English civil war happened in the mid 1600s and the king was executed.
It turns out constant power struggles were often not great for those in power.
But we’ve forgotten that. So now, instead of learning from history, we’ll repeat it.