Wild that this isn’t squarely in treason territory
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/23/464129029...
Using the DoJ to go after his perceived enemies. Mob boss protection rackets against universities and law firms. Revoking visas for traffic violations...or nothing at all. Putting people into a foreign prison camp without a chance for due process, and refusing to do anything about the inevitable errors and rights violations that result. Eliminating oversight roles and agencies, enabling grift, theft, and fraud for himself and his friends. Selling cars on the White House lawn. Hiring incompetent people and not firing them when they inevitably do incompetent things (looking at you, Hegseth and RFK Jr). Refusal to admit failure or error regardless of how obvious it is. Constant lies about what he has accomplished. Destroying the US economy with erratic and unstable tariff policies. And so much more...
And they eat it up.
One of my friends posts almost daily impassioned screeds against Trump. One, yesterday, was about him "handing our country to DOGE on a silver platter, to privatize for the benefit of his friends".
Someone replied:
> Once the systems are torn to shreds, we will need to build new systems that serve ALL of us. We may not like or agree with what is happening, but it’s more effective to come together and work toward building what you want, than it is to fight against what you don’t want.
They completely misunderstand or are in denial or have been deceived (or some combination of the above) into thinking this is the tear down, and Trump will build back something for everyone.
They are completely ignorant to the fact that there is no WE in Trump's plans, just "ME".
Most Americans on the right live in a protected information market. I am not talking about media bias — both sides have that. The issue is deeper: on the right, the marketplace of ideas has been captured. There's no free trade between ideas, only ‘subsidized’ narratives and ‘tariffs’ on dissent. That’s how Trump — or anyone like him — thrives. Realists, by contrast, get priced out.
This isn’t culture war stuff, this is structural failure. The traditional metaphor of American free speech — the Holmesian "marketplace of ideas" — breaks down when one side captures the market.
There is no competition of ideas when there is no fair fight.
If you’ve got a couple of million bucks to spend, my guess is start buying up and supporting local news channels in the rust belt, and then let them work on whatever they want to work, as long as they can show actual independence.
Or perhaps gift people subscriptions to things like groundnews or something. I don’t know if theres any science that shows it effectively diversifies information consumption of its users.
I don’t know what the napkin math is for a tipping point, but I suspect its not as expensive as litigating an entire administration.
To argue the case - while there is definitely an aspect of choice, opt-in matters less if your options are limited.
1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...
The checks and balances have all been used up and failed.