2024'll tell if you're right. I'm not optimistic, don't have much reason to be if last 60 years of history tells anything.
On the one hand, I hear ya…on the other, a LOT has changed, and it doesn’t take a boatload of optimism to see things play out very differently
One of the biggest changes of the Age of Chump was wrought on democrats & liberals in general, who had long soaked in the complacent view that vestiges of civil-war holdovers of the so-called ‘patriotic right’ were honestly ignorant & mostly performative.
This led to much ‘right-wing’ humor about liberals being too stupid to know when they’re in a fight (late 80s-mid 90s), and “pwning the libs” became a popular pastime.
The overthrow crowd has been overreaching since Obama took office, and with Chump’s installation in office, GOOP seems to have forgotten that they’re doing & saying all the secret stuff in front of everybody. Carefully not noticed during this same time was the fact that the GOP - and the NRA - had started bleeding members. The squeakier any given wheel, the more could be obscured behind it, so the volume went up and the web-rodent-sphere went into overdrive, but the actual conservative party content has been draining away.
SINCE Jan6, that drain has been flowing. Accompanying that has been the clarifying effect of the coup attempt itself & ALL the toxic gabble that’s poured out since. The Republican Party has never been weaker in my lifetime.
This doesn’t mean they’re toothless, but they *are* used to overreaching by now, so they’ll continue to make some mistakes, and they come up with some new ones (Thomas + Crow?).
They also have a sold grip on county-level government in many states, an unknown number of billionaires committed to taking the USA away from the voters, and have shown they’re willing to try just about anything to fake their way into victory… they also have some loose judiciary cannons currently being used to take the legs off a lot of ordinary citizens, so no - not helpless.
We’ve had a series of clarifying elections in the last dozen or so years; they have shown the republicans struggling nationally - so much so that I’ll be surprised if The Republican Nominee in ‘24 gets more than 60 million votes. Down 14 million from ‘20.
That doesn’t mean easing off, doesn’t mean it’s in the bag: these characters are as false and duplicitous as you can imagine..and it’ll be make or break for them: one last chance to win it all & undo the American Experiment itself - or failure, disgrace, prison - perhaps exile in Russia or Hungary or Saudi Arabia.
We need to hit them with EVERYTHING, again and again, we need to call them liars when they lie, cheaters when they cheat, traitors when they betray their oaths of office. Every bit of pressure available.
And, just maybe, have a little faith that the “better angels of our nature” are coming home to roost.