Yeah, I only see two ways off this train at this point.
1- they fail to rig the next election and get voted out so overwhelmingly that they fail to fight it…
2- military coup. If some number of military officials take their paths to the Constitution seriously and decide to act to defend it.
If not one of those, then hopefully the regime doesn’t last long and we collapse like the USSR did.
Because after Trump’s first term, including the failed coup, when nothing happened to them, the republicans came to a startling realization: no matter what they do there are no consequences, because the democrats refuse to enforce any.
For decades they’ve worked to be either technically within the law, or carefully over the line in ways that are both deniable and difficult to prosecute. But during Trump’s first term, it became apparent they don’t need to do that anymore. They can do whatever the fuck they want and no one will impose any consequences. Even if someone stops them in the moment, they just get to try again.
And it’s all because democrats are too concerned with decorum and looking polite.
So why can’t democrats do the same? Cause you bet your britches the republicans will hold them to account if they start doing whatever they want. Republicans would love that. They would be thrilled to lock up most of the democrats. But given the opportunity and very real justification for doing so, the democrats just…didn’t do it to the republicans.
If those guys, especially Trump, could personally launch with no chain of command or chance for a sanity check in between, I think I really might rather have nothing more than an LLM in charge.
…you know, I never thought of it that way before but yeah, the way our economic system is designed, money is like gravity. Once it passes a certain threshold, it just…accretes.
And much like gravity it would take a rare and exceptionally violent event to break that hold and scatter it again in a way it won’t just pull back together.
Interesting thought though: in a world where it is normal to own weapons, to protect yourself during purge, and where it is normal for people to talk about plans for getting together in heavily armed groups to protect themselves during purge…it suddenly becomes a lot easier to coordinate in order to overthrow oppressive and evil governments.
Why do you have an arsenal of weapons? Purge. Why are you talking to people about getting together with weapons and supplies? Purge. Why are you discussing meeting places for your group? Purge.
I haven’t seen much of those movies myself, but I got the impression it’s even considered reasonable to discuss plans about who you’re gonna kill during purge.
At 77 I think it’s gone past normal and into a completely different weird niche.
There are objectively good games. There are not objectively fun games.
Half-Life 2 is objectively good, and if you say it’s a bad game you’re simply wrong. However if you say it’s a game you do not enjoy and isn’t fun for you, that’s not wrong.
A game can be both good and not enjoyable to you.
Conversely, a game can also be objectively bad and yet fun for some people.