Ocasio-Cortez says if you feel burnt out by the news lately, that’s ‘exactly’ what Trump wants
Ocasio-Cortez says if you feel burnt out by the news lately, that’s ‘exactly’ what Trump wants
“The paralysis and shock that you feel right now is the point,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) said before calling out the tactic.
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.
Burnout isn’t a bug—it’s the feature. The 24/7 propaganda machinery wants you oscillating between outrage fatigue and performative panic. Bannon’s “flood the zone” isn’t some novel psyop—it’s Mussolini’s playbook photocopied by every regime that figured out chaos is the exhaust fume of control.
But let’s not pretend this is a red-hat exclusive. Blue checkmarks and algorithmic doomscroll peddlers profit from the same emotional hijacking. Your attention isn’t just monetized—it’s militarized.
The antidote? Stop mistaking retweets for resistance. Real defiance is logging off to build parallel systems that render their circus obsolete. Feed your community, not the timeline. Sovereignty begins when you stop letting their clowns dictate your cortisol levels.
I'm super glad that lemmy is here to help with this as much as possible
Donald Trump divides, Luigi Mangione unites, even in such tense times. Not because of violence, because of class war stuff.
Donald Trump, somehow, is the ultimate distraction from the class war. Every time he does something awful, he's reminding you about the class war he's trying to distract you from.
When Bernie Sanders brought forward another fervent request for free healthcare for all Americans, and the only retort the R he was addressing could come up with was a completely fabricated lie about Bernie taking money from pharmaceutical companies, I stopped believing anyone sensible could oppose it.
"Ew, Obamacare? I'd rather have the Affordable Care Act!!"
So my trick is to only care when people actually do something instead of dead catting.
Threatens Canada? That’s not a thing, let me know when they put a bill.
Praises Bibi? We all know how they feel, not news, let me know when more funding has been approved.
Threatens tariffs? Okay let me know when they start taking effect, cause last time it was a bluff.
Kind of same thing here, AOC (whom I’m a big fan of) isn’t proposing a bill or asking for people to show up on a certain date to protest, not really news.
It works cause news organizations’ whole purpose is to report news, actual events, but they haven’t been doing their job cause they are chasing clicks.
I've filtered out Elon and Trump from my news feed and it's a lot less stressful. I'm no longer jumping at every bloviation
You know why I'm burnt out? Because I don't see hardly any Democrats pushing the fuck back.
I see a bunch of Democrat voting for Republican bills knowing they're fucking horrible. I see and hear a bunch of Democrats voting for his unqualified nominees and then taking about bipartisanship. I see Fetterman slobbing all over Trump's toadstool supporting ethnic cleansing all fucking day long with not a single move to kick his stroked ass out. I don't see Democrats doing fuck all.
I can handle bad news, I can't stand the spinless, enabling Democrats.
And the media! When Musk did a Nazi salute they all fell all over each other to run cover for him and "both sides" the issue. When his obvious government wrecking DOGE agency torches important programs it's just presented as a "tough efficiency program". The whole mainstream media is trying to pretend everything is normal.
both sides
Make more sides with state level electoral reform.
Videos on Electoral Reform
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems we can try out.
Honestly, you can't go by news reporting alone if you want to actually see what democrats are doing, you need to actually look at they do to be transparent from their own sources, the news is avoiding covering anything negative about Trump to an absurd degree.
AOC talked about exactly this in her video (it's over an hour long, but when you have time, I'd say it's worth a watch). There was a specific effort to start this madness after Congress adjourned for the week, and there's been a scramble to get back for continued pushback.
And, even for democrats we presume to fight for these issues, there is complacency where people only whine on social media without making themselves known directly to their representatives. That's important both for people in Democrat, and Republican districts, to make it known their constituents are not blind to these problems.
Yeah, contacting your rep is always a great idea but come on, do you really think that it needs to take massive amounts of contact in order for Democrats to realize "don't vote for any Republican neo Nazi cabinet an member" is the right move?
Come on man, do you really think we have to tell them this? This is something that's just so blatantly obvious, such a low bar, one has to wonder how crappy are Democrats and their leadership.
I burnt out long ago when I saw Democrats being full rightwing and most Americans being "enlightened centrists" doing shit. For me the tipping point was the Supreme Court stealing the election from Al Gore.
But I think what was most frustrating of all was the years of being called am extremist by most when pointing out the Democrats weren't stopping fascism and later that Trump would be the end of democracy during his first term. I remember so many fucking people saying that taking out Trump by any means possible was "extreme", only to see some of those same people now wish for the exact same damn thing when it's much more difficult to do so.
I'm glad I left that country years ago. Ultimately the reason there's a lack of unions, justice, and more there is because it's a country full of broken people, ruled by broken people.
Many immigrants thought it was great simply because they weren't being actively hunted to be killed or no longer dealt with unaffordable food (like my parents). They came from even worse countries at the time and when the USA wasn't that bad, so they keep quiet and just try to live on, and just accept injustice because it's all they've ever known. And the natively born there either are deluged with propaganda so they never pull the wool out of their eyes and never taught to think critically or are systematically broken down into poverty, injustice, and violence so they lose hope.
I don't think Americans will do what's right, even when only one path is now left open. But maybe I'm wrong, and like the old quote they'll do the right thing at the last moment when they realize they have no more choices.
Either way, it doesn't directly affect me anymore. I tried fighting back, but a small group can't fix a broken people. Maybe completely shattering them is what's needed instead.
In the meantime, I'll keep helping those seeking help where I can, especially the 🟦🌸⬜🌸🟦 seeking to leave to safety.
Ugh i thought leaving would save me... more work to do to cut ties ..fuck!
controlled opposition, always has been.
the us was never a democracy, and elections are theater.
The problem is believing that these "parties" are meaningfully different.
Great, now I'm burnt out and feeling guilty about it.
“Do what you can. And what you can do is enough,” she said. …Ocasio-Cortez reminded her followers several times that no deed of resistance is too small.
Honestly, continuing to exist/taking a moment to be nice to yourself in an administration that hates you counts. Keep existing.
A lot of these click-baity titles and over-simplified summaries seem to be adding to this very problem of guilting people for being overwhelmed.
Unfortunately that’s the system but please don’t feel guilty for being human. Kindness and compassion is resistance, and starting with yourself is a valid step.
Fuck the forces who are selling a solution to a problem they created but are trying to say is your fault. /endrant
In a world of cruelty, kindness is an act of rebellion.
thank you
Yes. Together we are a non-neutonian liquid. Do what you can, and what you can do is enough.
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.
Between June 14 and July 27, 1794, hundreds of nobles, shopkeepers, clergy, corset makers, vintners, and other “suspicious” citizens were executed by guillotine at Place de la Nation in Paris.
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.
The key is to tune out and organize your resistance with your peers. Find energy in love for others
Yeah. But I've felt burned out by the news for a while already. So this is nothing!
So did these shitheads forget how many legal shitstorms they were in during the past four years after they were voted out last time after all those shits? Yeah fuck around now and find out later.
I just saw someone on Lemmy say the other day something along the lines of "he's only been in there a month"
Hell, at that point it was barely 2 WEEKS.
Wouldn't say I'm burnt out but sure as shit I'm struggling to keep up.
but sure as shit I’m struggling to keep up
You don't have to keep up with all of it. That's a sure road to being overwhelmed. Follow the topics most important to you from multiple sources in hopes of getting the largest view as possible.
Spend time on new sites not based in the US, it helps to know the rest of the world sees what is going on for what it is.
Make sure to keep at your hobbies and interests that aren't politically related so you get some downtime and recuperation.
2020: 2 - again: 2: the 2nd 2020: the sequel
Here is an interview with PBS Frontline where Bannon describes the strategy of overwhelming the media: (at 1:26:19) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5xxlajTW0&t=5179s
There's a place past burnt out... Waaaay past becoming the homeless vagrant that shouts "answer your telephone!" at migrating birds... Past hearing rushing water in your ears that is actually your blood pressure as you have a full blown meltdown because despite over a decade of hard work in a field you still struggled to make rent, car payment, insurance, and food, let alone a social life... There's a place past the fight or flight of an extreme anxiety attack... It's peaceful, bland, and frankly just existing in it fills you with an unspeakable rage. I live there, I have 1 thing, and 1 thing only to lose. My dogs. Anyone dares lay a finger on them and all hell breaks loose. I refuse to stay here. I'm making a cells for all those I will drag here by their short pube hairs. Burnt out is just a stage, if you want to keep living, it gets worse from here.
It's constant dead cats on the table.
Exactly. People need to stay focused. Trump and his henchmen are going to do everything they can to keep the masses fighting amongst each other while they rob us blind. This is what "class war, not culture war" means.
That's both party's strategy since Reagan got his former opposition on the take.
Thats what both parties are bribed for.
Stoke social issue wedges and protect our oligarchs grift economy from us.
You can have scapegoating and oligarchal exploitation or affirmation ribbons and oligarchal exploitation. That has been the extent of our voter's power for half a century.
Im glad the Dems support trans rights, and vote for them as harm reduction, but don't pretend DNC neoliberal democrats give a shit about a poor Trans person's right not to die in an underpass of exposure for the crime of being poor as a warning to the other poors.
I have started to want this to become an extension of hate speech laws - if a lawmaker makes remarks or policy advances that target a specific marginalized protected class (eg, race, sexuality) while also engaged in other policy decisions, they must provide EXTREMELY compelling evidence of those policy advances (just about always impossible) or face extended criminal prosecution for attempting to use the threats as a distraction.
I'm glad to hear it coming from her.
Because it is burning me out fast. I need to take a break, especially right now because of so much on my plate. But then I can re engage.
Who are you talking to? Who talks like this? Is this some "familiar AI bot" thing m
Oh look. A bot accusing someone of being a bot. How cute.
I'm running off of spite at this point.
It's the only thing that keeps me going.
Don’t forget two to four daily servings of revenge, for emotional health! Consult your emotional health pyramid for feelings details.
I've started only reacting to the latest shit he does if it isn't blocked by a court order within 5 days
Yeah, we had a class of independent professionals that delivered verified news directly from sauce to the pleb, all on a fixed wage as not to have financial stimulation that would affect the quality or contents of said reporting.
As a non American I'm burnt out. Wish something decisive would happen (hopefully something good too)
Americans are too dumb to have this much power. It's all size and no substance. We need to find a better way to distribute power in this world.
decisive thing happened last november
More like a branch in the road that started going in a different direction
I'm usually pretty good at being able to follow multiple threads of events at once, and even I'm getting overwhelmed. I've had to step away from the news somewhat, simply because I know there's only so much I can do at this point. Trump, Elon, and their minions are going on their romp around the federal government and the best anyone else can do is throw a few lawsuits at them.
This is where I'm at. I'm already burnt out, and this shitberg we're sliding down has just started.
I'm doing what I can control. Making sure I'm armed (I fucking hate how nuts that makes me sound), trying to set some money aside and making sure I have my garden up and running so I can grow at least some of our own food.
I've got a wife and kids. I can't work due to what military service did to my body. So I can't see myself being able to leave the country if it comes to it. I'm not sure I'd want to leave it in control of these madmen anyway. My hope at this point is that we can just get to mid terms and have a legit election there. It'll be a shit show. There will be violence at polling places and ballot drop areas. There will be screaming of rigged election if the right loses (and I see that happening in a legit election due to their fuckery).
This has been the longest couple weeks ever. Longer than waiting on summer vacation out of school. Longer than the first day back to work after a month vacation.
I'm gonna go paint some minis and play some ark now. This was my 1 foray into social media for the day.
It's weird, as someone who's been nurturing a few pet hates and trying to bring them all together since Brexit, this election campaign finally revealed the final nexus of the originally separate threads crypto-elon-maga-putin and brought it into focus, less stuff to track somehow.
Trump's first term was like this for me. Every day was like watching a car crash and waiting, praying for someone to do something.
I told myself I wasn't going to do it this time, but we've gone from the slow-moving car crash of the first term to a full-on NASCAR accident happening every day. Not paying attention feels like they're winning, but there's only so much I can take
I'm just holding out until we start taking to the streets at this point.
Libs are already taking to the streets, getting in their cars, and going about their business as usual.
I just now found out Peanut Butter glows in the dark....I don't have time for this shit!
It's OK to feel burnt out already. Take a break from the news and doomscrolling social media if you need to.
Then come back, and focus on one thing that can help make things better. Doesn't have to be the most pressing issue. I'm not even sure what the most pressing issue is right now. But pick something and focus on that.
I have found with admittedly sometimes-annoying tools like "Resistbot" it's a bit easier to write my opinions to representatives. That matters quite a bit more if you're in a redder state than mine, but it still helps to send words of encouragement/reminders to reps that are working their asses off as a minority.
Urging people to stay enraged
ftfy
Do you guys ever sit there and kinda feel numb?
You know eventually things may escalate and things feel like if that happens, it'll start a very bloody and horrific result. And when that happens a lot of things will drastically change.
A beginning of horror - Just because humans do always what they do in history - especially leaders.
They've known for so long what they could have done to make things better. But they choose not to everyday. Why do a lot of them go bad? Why does this always happen? Are we all doomed to repeat a cycle until the Earth dies?
Just a cycle of greedy humans making others suffer.
Are we all doomed to repeat a cycle until the Earth dies?
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. It seems like everyone has something or someone they want to blame for all this. "The problem is the internet, the problem is social media, etc.." when honestly I think it is really just a humanity problem. Watching documentaries or reading stuff on history also helps me cope because it becomes very apparent none of this is new. The people who lived during the crusades or "witch" burnings or any other horrific time.. they had to deal with constant injustice. Why should it be any different for us just because we are a few more centuries ahead?
I haven't slept decently since the election night. 90% of my nights is waking up in the middle of the night.
I used to get a lot of news off Instagram, but lately I've noticed that a lot of radical stuff like protests have basically disappeared off my feed, and other people I've talked to have said that this is happening with Twitter as well. Now it's mostly just fear-mongering headlines with no reporting on defensive actions, despite there being tons of protests all over the place in the past few days. The 50501 protests were a lot bigger than I thought they'd be, and the fact that there's barely any reporting on them is extremely concerning and I think is intentional. Meanwhile I've seen an increasing amount of radical stuff pop up on RedNote, like protests and pro-Luigi stuff, while at the same time somehow maintaining a calmer and more unifying vibe (also no ads), so it definitely seems like a better platform (compared to other options that are algorithm-driven) and I've been browsing it more instead of Instagram lately. Also, I'm trying to look for ways to connect with more people IRL, which I think is one of the most important things people can do right now to fight the isolating and divisive design of capitalism.
Well, fucking stop him or something. It's been 8 years, I think we showed we can hold the fuck out. Show you can dominate the media narrative, maybe.
I've been burned out on the news since it went 24/7.
You know exactly what AOC wants? For the rail corporation to not have to worry about any union strikes.
I'm sure they appreciated your enthusiastic support AOC.
I spent his first 4 years hyper tuned in and stressing, and I called 0 Senators, wrote 0 letters, made 0 impact. THAT is the wrong call.
Either stop paying attention or take the time to actually contribute to the political process. Call your local political party and ask what you can do.
It's a long video, but worth it. "Do not consent in advance."
I'm burnt out on this person suddenly resisting after being mostly silent for a year of genocide joe.
Obligatory downvote for turncoat AOC. Two party narrative reinforcement in full effect.
Hey look who decided to pretend to give a shit about anything now that the head of her party isn't in office anymore. Gonna dust off your shoes and go find a 20 year old concentration camp to cry outside of again? Mustn't be passive!
Genuinely depressing watching this Pelosi 2.0 completely fail to induce any scrutiny at all from these feckless liberals (you reading this)
Homie, the news never reported even once that Trump openly started he wanted to reenact Operation Wetback. He explicitly referenced it multiple times. Not a peep from news media. Do you think they covered anything AOC did at that time? Also, your getting into the same kind of logic used to attack Trump opponents ''Hillary has been in politics since the 80s why didn't she destroy ISIS YET! Why didn't she entirely fix the federal taxation system!!''
She didn't because the first lady of Arkansas has just about zero political abilities to effect anything on a federal level, same with the president's wife, and a senator from NY also. No power to dictate national policy on every subject, there actually are a lot of limitations of power in the legislator and for the Secretary of State. These aren't free for all positions where you wake up and go ''hay let's make it illegal to burn trash nation wide'' and you just get that law passed with no issues.
AOC is a legislator. Not the president. Not a cabinet member, and not The Glorious Queen of America. She also isn't in the leadership of the DNC, and she butts heads with them constantly, she's easily the most vocal Democrat that comes out and pressures the party to actually put their money where their mouth is. She is literally the person that made Pelosi commit to relinquishing power to younger members of the party. You want to jump up her ass for not fixing everything? That's not how any of this works.
Shut up. You're doing harm with this bullshit. Stop.
She ran on abolishing ICE when she first won her seat.
Her first act as a congresswoman was during the government shutdown. It was a standalone bill to restore funding to ICE without touching any social services. She voted in favor of it.
Putting aside the utter foolishness of your belief that posting comments on a message board can either do harm or help, if it were true, you'd be on the wrong side of this. You're doing harm by carrying water for her. YOU shut up. You very literally don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
I knew it was worthless bullshit when i read Ocasio-Cortez said....
The stunlock intensifies
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Turns out the party of "nothing will fundamentally change" didn't need to do anything to keep their promise. Even when they tried, Republicans masquerading as Democrats stopped them until Republicans won the house and stopped everything.
Then this chucklefuck wins and says "fuck norms, fuck the law, fuck everyone who isn't rich. I do what I want." and Republicans just nod while fox news chants about how he's "killing it." Real defenders of the Constitution, those folks...
The sad thing is that no Democrat will say fuck the norms to undo corporate fuckery, or to fix serious problems of inequality, or to slash the military budget, or to save the precious planet we live on from climate doom. They'll insist on doing things the right way but get 1% of their agenda done before the other team takes over and rolls all progress back 50 years
Well it is faster to burn a forest than grow one.
Cutting government waste and increase efficiency is almost always popular to most Americans. In the past politicians often talk the talk but never walk the walk. I disagree that cutting government waste and increase efficiency is easy at all. It is actually the hardest thing in government.
Too bad he isn't more like Biden in that case.
Dude never gets tired of collecting W's