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I've been thinking about why some people are terrified of Trump while others, like me, are more indifferent. I mostly tune out Trump news because I assume much of it involves scare tactics or misleading framing by his detractors. When my wife brings up concerns about his supposedly authoritarian actions, my general response is that if what he's doing is illegal, the governmental process will handle it - and if it's legal, then that's how the system is supposed to work. I have faith that our institutions have the checks and balances to deal with any presidential overreach appropriately.
This reminded me of a mirror situation during 2020-2021 with the BLM movement, where our positions were reversed. I was deeply concerned about social media mobs pressuring corporations, governments, and individuals to conform under threat of job loss, boycotts, and riots, while my wife thought these social pressures were justified and would naturally self-correct if they went too far. The key difference I see is that the government has built-in checks and balances designed to prevent abuse of power, while social movements and mob pressure operate without those same institutional restraints. It seems like we each trust different institutional mechanisms, but I can't help but think that formal governmental processes with built-in restraints are more reliable than grassroots social pressure that operates without those same safeguards. Furthermore, the media seems incentivized to amplify fear about Trump but not about grassroots social movements - Trump generates clicks and outrage regardless of which side you're on, while criticizing social movements risks alienating the platforms' own user base and advertiser-friendly demographics.
I don't like trump because he's made my situation materially worse and is likely to continue to do so. I don't like trump because he profits the outgroup at the expense of the ingroup. I don't like trump because I'm ideologically and morally opposed to his positions. I don't like trump because I think he is, personally, a very immoral individual.
In principle, you could convince me that any particular complaint is overblown. There are plenty of immoral, harmful, outgroup people I don't feel nearly the vitriol for. But Trump is the perfect storm; He's not just a villain, he's a villain that gratuitously kicks puppies. Sure, the media environment contributes to what you call "terror", but that's strictly adaptive. Everyone on my "side" would agree, sober-minded, that Trump is the single most important political figure to oppose. Adding a component of emotional motivation increases the time and pleasure in doing so. Consider any ideological cause leftists and liberals are interested in: creedal citizenship, wealth redistribution, climate change, alphabet people, etcetera. Assuming conflict theory, it's obvious that "Depose Donald Trump" is the first step in promoting any of them. The only reason to do anything else is if you believe in mistake theory instead-- but Donald Trump is congenitally incapable of admitting mistakes (except in the "fifty stalins" sense) which means any attempt to find common ground just gets ran over by his conflict theory instead.
If leftists and progressives were that interested in that cause they would have
freed their slaveslegalized their illegals when they had the power to do so. They have had it several times in the past.They did not, and because of that inaction- that inability to make a deal with the rest of the country and get it Done- now their cause suffers. Perhaps it was because they'd be destroyed as a party for making legible that flagrant and absurd violation of the laws and norms of the country? Perhaps it was because they believed that holding "they'll be deported otherwise" hostage would curry greater electoral success by driving turnout? Perhaps it was because they could do the county-level equivalent of court-packing by counting them in the census and redistricting accordingly? Perhaps it was because they were of a demographic that (socially, politically, economically) profited most from being able to undercut domestic labor, being of the class that most often buys it? It's difficult to say.
Now, we can talk about corruption in the sense that some slaves are getting rounded up faster than others, or who it's being done to first/who's getting exempted. And I have sympathy for your material conditions; economic instability is, naturally, bad for business as finance for it depends in large degree to a now-frustrated economic forecast (and of all the criticisms of Trump this is the greatest and most grounded, and affects both the capital of the Empire and all of its provinces).
But a side doesn't get to claim it's some unique badness because it [mistake theory] never made the sacrifices and compromises necessary to fix the issue and in so doing revealed that side didn't care, or [conflict theory] where it intentionally made the problem worse.
I mean, the next time they get power when the MAGA cult dies upon its leader's death, I expect them to just legalize them unilaterally. Also college debt should just be deleted and the papper work lost and deleted. If the next Democratic president listens to the Supreme Court a single time, I will consider them a failure.
The filibuster is a bad thing. I say that knowing perfectly well that trump is in office and he would pass things I hate. congress should be forced to make decisions, and face the consequences thereof, instead of endlessly grandstanding about how hypothetically they would be awesome if only they weren't getting filibustered.
Also, why not pack the supreme court? We should have a thousand justices. Maybe a hundred thousand. We should have so many justices they're actually a representative sample of the American population. Then the returns on lobbying justices would be basically nil; instead of being bound to support a political coalition, every justice could just vote their conscience.
Mob rule is preferable to minority rule. Plus, it's not like Trump's supreme court let anything like "norms" or "precedent" prevent them from overturning Roe vs. Wade. And that's a good thing! Both on the object level (abortion is bad) and on the meta level (people living today shouldn't be beholden to the whims of voters decades in the past.) Remember: the constitutional framers expected frequent amendments. Our ossified norms are the cause of our political dysfunction; they let disputes simmer instead of forcing action. They're a big part of why our political parties are so corrupt, and so entrenched.
Anyways, we would still have the senate.
(Also we should eliminate social security.)
How is Roe vs. Wade itself not a norm violation, and therefore it's repeal not a restoration of norms?
Actually, I'll go further. It seems the norm regarding Roe vs. Wade was that the Supreme Court can rule whatever the hell they want, no matter how absurd, and you have to respect the ruling, and if you don't like it, you have to win enough elections to appoint judges that will rule in your favor. This norm was followed by the Republicans followed it quite faithfully, even though they absolutely hated that court decision.
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