Lol

That “lol” is quite unnecessary. There is no need to ridicule me. I would expect better from a mod of a community like this.

minimizes what fascism actually is

I didn’t say that is all fascism is, just that it is a tactic within fascism. It can be a part of it. But anyway I don’t want to argue what is and isn’t fascism, my point is just that political violence and murdering your political opponents does not work with democracy and shouldn’t ever be hoped for or wanted, even if it is your political opponent being targeted. I want Trump gone as much as the next guy on the fediverse but I don’t want him killed.

What a way to deliberately misread what I am saying. Obviously not and I won’t waste time on such a purposeful bad faith reading of what I said.

Murdering your political opponents is a fascist tactic.

The problem is not Trump, the problem is the people voting for him. Trump should be stopped through educated and informed voting, that’s how democracy works.

Unfortunately the US is not known for its education and good unbiased information. But that is the underlying problem that needs to be fixed, and shooting Trump does nothing to fix that and will only serve to replace Trump with someone equally bad (or even worse).

Violence is what people turn to when they can’t achieve what they need by merely talking and voting.

The fact that this is the state of things is the bigger problem. That’s the problem that needs to be fixed and sorry, but violence is not the solution to that, it only makes things even worse.

Yea honestly I usually just avoid these kind of threads because any debate just seems pointless when it comes to US politics. I’m just glad I don’t live there but it scares me how much their politics matter for the rest of the world when it is such a shit show.

And the solution to this problem is to murder him? That is not how democracy works. Besides, the problem is not Trump per se, but the people voting for him. That won’t change just because Trump is dead. They will find some other bigoted candidate that will be just as bad if not worse.

People need to be educated and informed and know why it’s a bad idea to vote for someone like Trump - that is the only sustainable way to fix things if you ask me. Murder and violence will only entrench people further on either side and drive people to even more extremes.

It is sad to see this state of the divide in the US. Even if you are against Trump, you’re not against him enough unless you want him dead. If you don’t want him dead, you must be a troll. What a sad state this debate has reached.

I’m not sure what you’re saying - since they are justifying violence, you should too? That doesn’t seem sustainable, unless your goal is a civil war.

EDIT for your edit: I am not from the US so I’m not sleeping through anything, I’m just watching from the sidelines. My form of democracy was actually introduced quite peacefully, all things considered. But that’s neither here nor there.

I don’t think that’s true. Obviously you need elections that can be trusted (and despite everything I don’t think elections results are being tampered with too significantly) but if there are bad faith actors (like Trump) then just… Get people not to vote for such an actor. Should be easy enough seeing as they’re a bad faith actor right?

Well no, because people are poorly educated or brainwashed or scared or bigoted or hateful or afraid or all the other reasons that people in the US might vote for Trump. The problem is not Trump, the problem is the people voting for him. That’s also why shooting him is a bad idea, it only entrenches his supporters even further (aside from the fact that shooting anyone is generally a bad idea).

Democracy requires nonviolence and an educated and informed population. The US fails on both accounts.

Being skeptical is healthy to a degree but preemptively speculating on stuff with no evidence has a tendency to be “rumor mongering” and do that enough and you get pseudo news like “Some People Think Rally Attack Was Staged” and then the whole “news based on nebulous facts” cycle begins.

Stooping to their low levels is not helping, rather it just creates a circle of going even lower. Take the moral high ground instead and be the better person.

Because if you start justifying these kinds of things, they will eventually be turned against you and next you know it, your own political representative is being shot at because their opponent’s supporters are feeling threatened just as you are (whether they are truly justified in feeling threatened or not, doesn’t matter).

Democracy does not work with violence.

EDIT: I’m really curious about the downvoters: do you really think murdering your political opponents is justified? The goal is to vote out the fascists, not become fascists.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all, not one little bit, that when they “find” the shooter…gasp…they’ll be a self proclaimed massive liberal.

Well again this is kind of jumping to conclusions. There’s really no need to speculate preemptively on such events the very minute they are covered in the news. I feel like it’s more responsible in general to wait and see more details and facts as the situation is investigated.

Is it possible that it could be a direct hit on the side of his head with something like a paintball gun or something stronger than that but not quite enough to do fatal damage? I have no experience with guns of any kind, genuinely wondering.

It could be but let’s not jump to conclusions.