notanecromancer:

qqueenofhades:

Okay all – few quick thoughts about the Elon Muskifying of the government, especially the takeover of the Treasury and associated financial data for every single US citizen and organization, that we are learning about in detail today.

• Don’t panic. This sounds bad, because it is bad. It’s really, really bad. It’s outrageously fascist bad. But we’ve still gotta take a deep breath and get through it.
• This is the kind of shock-and-awe exercise of untrammeled fascist power where they are absolutely counting on gleefully terrorizing, paralyzing, and stunning you into mounting no resistance, or just giving up and giving in. They are literally live-tweeting it in real time and boasting about all the access and influence they have right now. They want you to know about it and feel like you can’t do anything, so you might as well let it happen.
• We have to show them that’s not true.
• TIME TO MAKE SOME NOISE. Because it’s Sunday night, I’ve gone ahead and contacted my state Attorney General and both senators by email (but come Monday morning, we should all be calling). Here is the email that I wrote to my AG:

Dear Mr. [AG],

As you will be aware, today (February 2, 2025) the Trump administration has granted wide-ranging access to sensitive US Treasury data, including the personal and private information of [state] citizens, to Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency.” Musk is an unelected private citizen who has no legal right to access this data, and is engaging in extensive intimidation and coercion to fulfill his personal and harmful ideological agenda. The present and material harm that this causes to US citizens, [state] residents, and basic laws of government, privacy, and financial security is direct, unconscionable, and actionable. I strongly urge you, in your capacity as [state] Attorney General, to file direct suit against the Trump administration, Elon Musk, the “DOGE” office, and any identifiable individuals who have taken part in this action, in order to protect consumer data, citizen privacy, and basic faith and trust in government.

All the best,

[Qqueenofhades]

Short! To the point! Doesn’t waste time, tells him what I want him to do, how Elmo’s nonsense directly harms the residents of my state, and why he should take action to stop it! And frankly, given how on-the-ball blue-state AGs have been thus far, they’re probably already working on it. You are very welcome to copy-and-paste this message and fill in your AG’s last name and your state as appropriate. Super easy to do. Takes five minutes. Call tomorrow.

• If you are in a red state, your voice is particularly important right now. The Trumpsters are counting on and are even emboldened by blue state pushback, but you really need to make it start coming from Republican strongholds. Congressional Republicans will only feel the slightest amount of unease about docilely enabling this BS when it starts threatening their own personal power. Hit them where it hurts.
• Other lawsuits are coming. Marc Elias, Democratic lawyer extraordinaire, is well aware of this situation and has noted on Bluesky that more lawsuits are in the works. He often wins his cases. This does not mean that you shouldn’t loudly make noise elsewhere, but please remember that this is one of those 24-hour periods where, as noted, they are counting on demoralizing you with a nonstop blizzard of bullshit. It does not say anything about how this will play out long-term or the opposition that can and will be mobilized to stop it.
• Once again: courage. Take the small steps that you can do today. Then take a breath and get off social media for a little while. Try to take the long view. One step at a time, we will get through this.

Courage.

here’s some advice from a high-level staffer for a Senator.

There are two things that we should be doing all the time right now. You should NOT be bothering with online petitions or emailing.

1) The best thing you can do to be heard and get your congressperson to pay attention is to have face-to-face time — if they have town halls, go to them. Go to their local offices. If you’re in DC, try to find a way to go to an event of theirs. Go to the “mobile offices” that their staff hold periodically (all these times are located on each congressperson’s website). When you go, ask questions. A lot of them. And push for answers. The louder and more vocal and present you can be at those the better.

2) But those in-person events don’t happen every day. So, the absolute most important thing that people should be doing every day is calling.

YOU SHOULD MAKE 6 CALLS A DAY:

2 each (DC office and your local office) to your 2 Senators & your 1 Representative.

The staffer was very clear that any sort of online contact basically gets immediately ignored, and letters pretty much get thrown in the trash (unless you have a particularly strong emotional story — but even then it’s not worth the time it took you to craft that letter).

Calls are what all the congresspeople pay attention to. Every single day, the Senior Staff and the Senator get a report of the 3 most-called-about topics for that day at each of their offices (in DC and local offices), and exactly how many people said what about each of those topics. They’re also sorted by zip code and area code. She said that Republican callers generally outnumber Democrat callers 4-1, and when it’s a particular issue that single-issue-voters pay attention to (like gun control, or planned parenthood funding, etc…), it’s often closer to 11-1, and that’s recently pushed Republican congressmen on the fence to vote with the Republicans. In the last 8 years, Republicans have called, and Democrats haven’t.

So, when you call:

A) When calling the DC office, ask for the Staff member in charge of whatever you’re calling about (“Hi, I’d like to speak with the staffer in charge of Healthcare, please”) — local offices won’t always have specific ones, but they might. If you get transferred to that person, awesome. If you don’t, that’s ok — ask for that person’s name, and then just keep talking to whoever answered the phone. Don’t leave a message (unless the office doesn’t pick up at all — then you can — but it’s better to talk to the staffer who first answered than leave a message for the specific staffer in charge of your topic).

Give them your zip code. They won’t always ask for it, but make sure you give it to them, so they can mark it down. Extra points if you live in a zip code that traditionally votes for them, since they’ll want to make sure they get/keep your vote.

C) If you can make it personal, make it personal. “I voted for you in the last election and I’m worried/happy/whatever” or “I’m a teacher, and I am appalled by ——-,” or “as a single mother” or “as a white, middle class woman,” or whatever.

D) Pick 1-2 specific things per day to focus on. Don’t rattle off everything you’re concerned about — they’re figuring out what 1-2 topics to mark you down for on their lists. So, focus on 1-2 per day. Ideally something that will be voted on/taken up in the next few days, but it doesn’t really matter — even if there’s not a vote coming up in the next week, call anyway. It’s important that they just keep getting calls.

E) Be clear on what you want — “I’m disappointed that the Senator…” or “I want to thank the Senator for their vote on… ” or “I want the Senator to know that voting in _____ way is the wrong decision for our state because… ” Don’t leave any ambiguity.

F) They may get to know your voice/get sick of you — it doesn’t matter. The people answering the phones generally turn over every 6 weeks anyway, so even if they’re really sick of you, they’ll be gone in 6 weeks.

From experience since the election: If you hate being on the phone & feel awkward (which is a lot of people) don’t worry about it — there are a bunch of scripts (Indivisible has some, there are lots of others floating around these day). After a few days of calling, it starts to feel a lot more natural.

astrxchoi:

AAAAAARG I LOVE THEM

validwarriorcatsnames:

pastacrylic:

“Amber Alert” is a valid pony name

So great news,

neopets-smash-or-pass:

onemillionwordsofcrap:

mariacallous:

Fascism Expert Timothy Snyder Says Trump's Oligarchical Coup Is Fading

Professor Timothy Snyder posted that people are waking up and Trump's attempted oligarchical coup is fading.

politicususa.com

If you have read about fascism and tyranny or watched cable news, you have probably seen Professor Timothy Snyder, who has been warning about Trump and tyranny for a few years now.

Snyder’s book On Tyranny is one of the go-to modern works for people who want to understand tyranny and how to fight it, so what Professor Snyder posted on his X account on Saturday merits attention.

Snyder posted:

Something is shifting. They are still breaking things and stealing things. And they will keep trying to break and to steal. But the propaganda magic around the oligarchical coup is fading. Nervous Musk, Trump, Vance have all been outclassed in public arguments these last few days. Government failure, stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances are not popular. People are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for personal wealth and power.

Professor Snyder’s perception is backed up by a mountain of polling that shows the country turning against Donald Trump in increasing numbers. If polling isn’t convincing, consider the large and growing number of almost daily protests directed at what Trump and Musk are doing.

There are also results. When the public gets angry and speaks out, the Trump administration has caved.

Actual fascists don’t allow their opposition to speak out. A real authoritarian doesn’t cave. When pressure is applied to the Trump administration, it breaks. The reason why it breaks is successful authoritarian movements have a majority of the population behind them.

Trump’s support is sinking like a stone.

None of this means that the country is out of the woods yet. As Professor Snyder wrote, Trump and his billionaires are going to try and try again, which means that it is going to take constant resistance from the American people to defeat them.

Things will get much easier for pro-democracy Americans if Democrats win control of the House in special elections this year or next year’s midterm election.

Until then, it will be a grassroots battle.

The good news is that Trump is losing, and so far, Americans are fighting for their democracy.

Think I might just… leave this here and then take a hiatus from social media for a while. My brain’s in too deep and I’ve only been able to see the negative. I gotta remember people are fighting it. People will always fight it.

Will be back at some point probably

Reblogging from my main. Hiatus time. You can still find me on my pillowfort

firelise:

firelise:

the fact that a mexican trans girl saw emilia perez and was like “wtf is this dogshit - I could make this movie funnier better more queer and less than 30 min long” and then just wrote a script, bought a bunch of ratatuilles and berets, and rounded up some friends and legbooties to help her drag france into the mud???

this is sending me so hard. what an icon and a legend. now cmon now

when it becomes a silent film for no reason lmao

[translation-

frame 1: “You have a rat on your head!”

frame 2: “This cooking/chef rat has shown me your secrets and I’ve used them for evil.”]

charl0ttan:

only-cat-memes:

memeuplift:

boxheadpaint:

oleander-teacup:

and with your help it can rack up 700k notes on tumblr in 2024

no tumblr this doesnt need tags im releasing it into the wild as god intended

earthmoveryuri:

[about my own oc, who i created] in theory its possible she would say that, but we just dont know for sure