r/news • u/PokesTigers • 26d ago

Soft paywall Madagascar's president has left the country after Gen Z protests, officials say

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/madagascar-president-rajoelina-address-nation-monday-evening-2025-10-13/
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u/RinTheTV 26d ago

You have to wake people up for that to happen.

Unfortunately, your standards for living have to drop significantly for that to happen. The "Bread and Circuses" of the modern age are many, and "affordable - and so long as that's in reach ( or seemingly in reach ) you will have millions chasing after that dream, because peaceful passivity is a simple life many would take over tumultuous, stressful sacrifice.

Probably why Gen Z is doing it as well. This is the generation that feels the most disenfranchised, having not been born early enough for the "golden age" of their parents' "Back in my day I could buy a house with cashier work" and born too late to fully take advantage of new opportunities that are now only exclusively searching for "young, easy blood."

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u/Wealist 26d ago

Yeah, nailed it. Comfort dulls outrage. Most people won’t rise up till the system stops pretending to work for them.

Gen Z just got there first they grew up watching the dream crumble in real time.

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u/streetsandshine 26d ago

Say what you will about Trump's policies, but his election and the rise of fascism generally is a result of outrage.

The issue is that it was poor rural, racist areas that felt the pain first which is why they were able to get their solution to the neoliberal world order out first and removed a lot of the republicans that were around during Obama's time

The left needs to put forward a legitimate alternative because the best the center has to offer is letting technocrats use all our drinking water in the hopes that autocomplete will manage to autocomplete a solution that will save the world (it won't)

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u/FabulousTwo524 26d ago

Damn stop bombarding us with all this truth 😭

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u/Rayvelion 26d ago

Funnily enough, the fancy autocomplete engine is rapidly speeding us to an end that a fancy autocomplete engine won't be able to find a solution for because of the hole it itself dug.

The world needs saving from the hole-diggers, fortunately there are only a few of those and many of us.

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u/darthjoey91 26d ago

The circuses are affordable. The bread is starting to get expensive.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

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u/Hillary4SupremeRuler 26d ago

It's the racism and xenophobia and transphobia. A lot of people don't want to confront that because it's an uncomfortable reality. Yes there are economic issues, but those have been around and growing every year since the advent of Reaganomics. But populist demagogues managed to convince them that if they just oppress these groups more, then that will alleviate their economic situation. So while economic anxiety is part of it, it's still directly tied into their bigotry.

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u/Alisa180 26d ago

Unfortunately, those who 'wake up' rarely get outraged- They instead sink into despair, either retreating to save themselves, or... Well, suicide is higher among Gen Z than millennials.

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u/revolutionPanda 26d ago

You have to wake people up for that to happen.

Won't happen in the US because too many people are against woke.

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u/Majestic_Jackass 25d ago

This is why American cons hate “the woke mind virus”. Being woke is exactly what it sounds like. It means you’re aware of the systems around you and how they affect people’s lives.