i feel like you gotta go back to Erich Fromm for this they genuinely find living in a free society with pluralism severely distressing
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They've been secretly longing to restructure society away from liberal pluralism for so long, and they finally got a moment to do it, and they cannot allow their one chance to slip away.
aug 10, 2025, 4:21 pm • 5 3 • view
I think the simpler explanation is that Trump and his supporters never won a majority of the votes in 2016 or 2020, so institutional actors believed resisting his whims would be more popular and, therefore, more legitimate than giving him what he wants. After 2024, nobody could^ say that anymore.
aug 10, 2025, 5:32 pm • 7 1 • view
^ Unless voters — if they voted for anything halfway coherent in the first place, which is debatable — actually voted for a return to 2019 Trump, where he could run his mouth while being surrounded by institutions that don't let him do much more than that. But what are the odds of that?
aug 10, 2025, 5:32 pm • 4 0 • view
i think many institutions like a free, pluralistic society, as long as their place in its implicit hierarchy is secure, but if they feel that their power is threatened they absolutely lose their minds. all the moreso because their power is de facto rather than de jure.
aug 10, 2025, 4:19 pm • 13 1 • view
If they live in an "authoritarian" world, they have no choice but to do what they REALLY want to do - gouge, rip off, steal, deliver nothing and charge for it. They HATE customers but LOVE money. If they are forced to be what they want, it's not their fault. So they support the Orange Weirdo cause
aug 10, 2025, 4:25 pm • 0 1 • view
The peasants shouldn't be allowed to talk back.
aug 11, 2025, 3:25 am • 3 0 • view
That makes 'Russia v. Ukraine' an easy choice for them. As we will see in Alaska. That there are people struggling to build and save a free society with pluralism is an open reproach to them.
aug 10, 2025, 4:32 pm • 1 0 • view