What does “get on board” mean in this context? Opinion polls, voting, or something else? In other words, how will republican office-holders (as I presume you mean) know when support is moving away from Trump?
I ask because I tend to agree that at least regular protesting doesn’t seem to move the needle, but I’m not sure what else to look for.
It’s got to be something a lot more than that, because opinion polls already don’t matter to Trump et al. Trump’s policies are hugely unpopular, with even a large segment of Republican voters opposing a lot of what he’s doing, and yet, none of that has had any effect on the trajectory of their program. The leaders of MAGA know they’re unpopular, even if they won’t admit that publicly, and instead insist that they have a huge mandate from the masses, but they also know that doesn’t matter. They finally have the power to implement their plans, and no opinion poll is going to stop them.
I think there is a difference between the groups, but I also think you’re mischaracterizing the “better” group as simply willing themselves to believe it’s not that bad.
Recently, the government has become fond of the “FAFO” language, and this is really what that group is looking for. They may not love every single policy thing that Trump is doing, but they do love the way he’s doing it. Because they feel like we are where we are now (wherever that is) because too many people (liberals) are breaking rules and cheating, and we give them too much leniency.
In earlier years, these are the folks advocating for harsher criminal sentences. They wonder why we let bad people “get away” with being bad all the time. They are happy to see disorderly people receive the maximum possible suffering. They believe that hordes of criminals and gangs are the primary reason the country has fallen from the relatively tranquil and economically easy era of the 90s. They believe that the government has been prevented from keeping us safe by a small group of corrupt liberal politicians and intellectuals who think they know better than normal folk if someone just needs killin’.
And every violent outcome of an interaction with an ever-more-violent government enforcement class just proves that there are dangerous people out there who need to be stopped.
My colleague who posted a FAFO meme yesterday is just as much a supporter of the current government path than someone who is talking about evil dems getting their comeuppance. Because at it’s core they are both the same belief.
With a special carve out for the January 6 “patriots”.
Well argued.
A favorite quote I am reminded of:
Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than ‘politics’. They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.
– Naomi Shulman
I’ve been asking myself when enough is enough since 2016. In 2021, I discovered whatever enough might be, it was apparently a lot more than I could ever believe. I cannot answer when enough is enough. Enough is simply a theoretical limit that I’m no longer sure exists. A significant percentage of Americans are perfectly fine with an unarmed woman being shot in the face three times.
I’d really like for this to start a fire under the butts of many Americans. But I have little hope these days.
A significant percentage of Americans think shooting one unarmed woman in the face three times is a slow start.
I agree. I hope that it lights a fire under the rest of the world. Someone needs to stop this and it clearly won’t be Americans.
I think “enough” could possibly be reached after the USA does something heinous enough on the world stage that other countries impose sanctions. Cut off food, power, stuff and then, maybe, enough Americans will understand that they don’t have the government they want. But it won’t be because of a new moral awakening, it’ll be because enough of them are cold and hungry and personally affected.
I don’t know if attacking Greenland would cross that threshold. In theory, it should, but I worry that the world/NATO will hold back from imposing severe enough sanctions.
I don’t want America to hurt, but I think it can only learn when it does, sadly.
No, America never learns.
See: Vietnam and post Vietnam military adventurism.
It can only be Americans. No one else has the physical power to stop MAGA, and they won’t stop themselves. Until enough Americans stand up to make them stop, they’ll just keep wallowing in their own crapulence.
Americans have no capacity to fix this. Half of them are fascists, half of the remainder refuse to see the existential threat that Trumpism presents. Collapse of the US is the best outcome for humanity.
Then who do you imagine will fix it? Which country will try sending troops, knowing that the largest Navy in the world will be shooting at them the entire way? Who will recruit volunteers to sneak into the US to start a civil war?
Best you can hope for are sanctions, which are never enough. If North Korea can live with sanctions for 70 plus years now, the US can survive them.
You fight America through asymmetrical warfare. We’ve been at war most of my life and lose a lot of them. The Taliban beat us, Iraq beat us, Vietnam beat us and Reagan turned tail and ran from Lebanon after one bombing. Asymmetrical warfare targeting red state America while fostering separatists movements in both red and blue America could have a destabilizing impact. The goal isn’t to beat the US on a battlefield, but help it continue to destroy itself by encouraging implosion.
And when the US finds agents from Canuckistan, or wherever, fomenting rebellion in various US states, Canuckistan will be bombed off the face of the Earth. Who will take that risk on behalf of Americans who can’t be arsed to fight for their own interests?
I’m not suggesting that the world fight America on our behalf, I’m suggesting the world will have to fight us because we are a global threat akin to Nazi Germany.