Part 1: America's Failing Political Systems
Some protocols were put in place to prevent spread of COVID-19 last year. A lot of the US population didn't fully follow them, but we did manage to lower the transmission rate of the common Flu! Coronavirus deaths probably could've been much higher.
Of course, they also could've been lower. Other countries destroyed the virus and were able to largely go back to living their lives months ago. Now, maybe things will look up, just a little.
The new administration has done at least a couple of significant things...
Halted the Keystone pipeline which posed a threat to Native water supplies. It would've violated the wishes of people living on the land they were going to build across. Unfortunately, many people are now under the impression that Biden is somehow responsible for seasonal gas price changes. They also ironically think this action 'destroyed jobs', when the pipeline's whole purpose was to replace thousands of oil truck drivers and the support network of service people across the country who make their journeys possible.
Took meaningful action on COVID with vaccination rollout (opposed by propaganda networks like Fox News putting conspiracy theories up on a pedistal) and other mandates and restrictions largely ignored by red states, who think the big guberment wants to take their freedom by making them wear a piece of cloth.
Began the "phase out" of private prison contracts. Unfortunately it doesn't really mean anything RIGHT NOW, like, at all. I don't know how long prison contracts last, but this action basically just means when those expire with private prisons, the DOJ won't renew them, and will instead go for publically funded prisons. This is good, because it would put a crack in the profit incentive for the justice system to over-police and over-criminalize. But if someone else gets into power and reverses it, zero private prisons may actually close or transition as a result of this action.
Right now, with Democrats controlling exactly half of the Senate vote and Kamala's tie-breaker, the balance still leans conservative, because of a few dinosaur establishment Democrats like Joe Manchin. If Biden manages not to be a complete screw-up, with remarkable campaigning, maybe we can change the makeup of congress in 2022 enough to do serious problem-solving.
I literally can't imagine a good candidate for President in 2024, though. Bernie isn't a viable option anymore. If we're lucky and Biden does well pulling America out of this tailspin, Kamala Harris will likely win the nomination, and the presidency. If we're not so lucky, well... I wonder what fascist Republican will run against her.
**Ah... the dysfunctional US political system.
**
We pick between a broken clock (The Democratic Party - a normally useful but currently dysfunctional tool) and a pistol aimed at our face (The Republican Party - an imminent threat to human life). Everyone complains so much about the clock being wrong all but two times a day, and they wonder, "at least the gun might be functional, right?" But it's still an armed weapon aimed at your face! Why not fix the clock instead?
Dropping the silly analogy, we should vote for working class senators. There certainly must be a few decent people running for local office as Republicans, but of the small portion of politicians with ethical, principled political positions, the majority run as Democrats. As we manage to push the establishment Democrats out of office and get more radical working class people into congress, we will likely see even more corporate money and institutional power going behind the GOP.
We can see this pattern in every historical state where revolutionaries gain some prominence. Political and economic establishment will back anyone - like the Nazis, for example - when the other side is threatening their power. Some working class people will believe that certain members of the elite are an oppressed minority using their rightful positions at the top of a corporate hierarchy to fight back against the government.
Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump are two prime examples of this narrative working to bring people to great power. In reality, these people were born with silver spoons in their mouths, they had every opportunity to succeed, and they still had massive failures throughout their lives.
Like everyone, all they could do was stand up and keep trying after they failed. Unlike all of us, they had rich parents to give them more money with which to further screw up until they eventually made it. That's the primary difference, but the resulting lifestyles they are able to lead make us feel like we're worlds apart.
**Because we are worlds apart.
**
Tucker Carlson lives a rich easy life. At an internship his daddy got him, he literally stumbled into a recording shoot when nobody else was available and began a career of propagandizing to millions.
He brings up a vaccine conspiracy theorist as if they're a legitimate scientist. Then, he calls the consensus of actual researchers a communist plot to take over America.
Tucker just has to spew hateful propaganda in the hopes that it will maintain his place in the power structure, at least until he dies. He likely doesn't care how terrible a state he leaves the world in.
Part 2: Nazi Misinformation Campaigns
If you see a meme that makes some kind of political statement, try googling the statement. Find out just how accurate it is. Every political meme is going to dumb down the issue a great deal, because you can't express nuance in a few words over an image.
Some are going to be much less accurate than others, though. Many of the "memes" my extended family shares today on Facebook are just blatant propagandistic lies. They don't know that. They might just think the little quips are funny, or at most, they see the posts as genuine political views.
Neo-Nazis on 4chan pump out racism, vague references to the 'Jewish question' which implies that the elite ruling class controlling our lives is actually a lineage of ethnic Jews (hence why we call them Nazis - this garbage is exactly what Hitler believed) and general misinformation. These things have a way of filtering out, depending on the severity of the content, to find prominence on different social media through sharing.
When you share something like that, you aren't some kind of spy or propagandist. You're just posting something you found funny or interesting. But someone had to create the meme. I wonder, did that person know they were making a lie?
No wonder Facebook had to start "fact checking" everything and banning more radical politics. They were feeling huge social AND legal pressure to act on the constant misinformation which was contributing to physical violence in the real world. Everyone wants to hate the reaction to the problem without talking about the actual root of it.
If the only people using Facebook were a bunch of regular conservatives, regular liberals, and some leftists posting more radical economic views, it would be very hard for Facebook to justify banning the leftists. We can operate pretty nicely in a system where common decency and free speech are commonly accepted.
Fascists often lie to hide their racist intent and use populist language, so they basically sound identical to socialists critiquing capitalism. Conveniently for the people in power, these restrictions can therefor hit everyone inconvenient to the establishment, and they can claim they were just banning racists, conspiracy theorists and liars.
I'm in a few leftist groups on Facebook where users are warned not to say things like "America Sucks". Leftists have been part of blanket suspensions because of their posts on topics like the Uyghur genocide and their advocacy for human rights of Palestinian people.
Every Facebook group I'm in discourages use of the 'report' button, instead prioritizing extremely stringent internal moderation, because consequences for one extremist posting hateful content could extend to other members or deletion of the entire group.
This situation, which, might I remind you, is largely due to the existence of Nazis, gives those Nazis justification to continue feeling oppressed themselves, and it feeds right back into their civilization war narrative.
To a socialist, Mark Zuckerberg is a capitalist acting in his own best interest and censoring radical views.
To a Nazi, Mark Zuckerberg is a Jew trying to replace White people with immigrants and, like, make everyone trans or something. I can usually tell these people from actual populists fairly quickly, because every time they expand upon their positions, it will sound like conspiratorial nonsense. Despite their complete irrationality, several people like this won Republican congressional seats in 2020.
Nobody is owning up to the fact that unjust suppression is happening, because they have a justification for their actions. It's like supporting the death penalty in spite of hard evidence that innocent people have been executed by the state, because you really hate murder and want to prevent it by punishing murderers.
I absolutely agree with liberals that these conspiracy theorists and liars are a problem, but they are constantly falsely compared to leftist populists like Bernie Sanders. The suppression of free speech materially leads to negative consequences for the kinds of people we should be supporting, the kind of people who oppose fascists and support the working class.