How nice it must be to be able to just dismiss these things.
I don't know anyone in the US in real life who is happy with the current situation, including people who voted for Trump. The cheer leaders are only visible online.
The people who voted for Harris are saying "we told you so," and the others are saying "he conned us."
If there's one thing you can't accuse Trump of, it's ever masking how utterly nonsensical he is.
However, the responsibility still arises as half of their fellow citizens were telling them that they were being conned. But rather than listening to the critics they actively remained ignorant while gloating about "liberal tears" and so on.
Outside that, what I've noticed in my area is a whole lot less trucks driving around with cartoonishly large American flags and pro-trump bumper stickers. Even homes that proudly flew the "Trump 2024" flags and flew the 2020 flags for a long time have taken those down.
Republicans here (Idaho) have been gleefully touching every 3rd rail (Medicaid, public school funding, public lands). I don't really have hope that the electorate will do anything about it, but who knows. I've never really seen such bold actions against the citizenry.
October 2025
"I believe Trumps gutting of institutions of learning, culture, democracy, law is punishment for the Branch Covidians. I believe this punishment must continue for some time until the lesson is learned about abuse of power"
Should we reconcile this great nation, not balkanize, not be in an antebellum period, not be a Weimar republic, and walk back the rubicon and cross into more quiet waters, we must turn our attention to what made this country great. What has made it unique? That our constitution is explicit about what freedoms and rights are reserved for the people and are not to be trampled, touched, or looked at by the government. State, Local, or Federal. Our founding fathers and great men who preceded us recognized government as a necessary evil, one that must be kept at bay, not used as a violent tool to achieve outcomes. All of these institutions must walk back their power, give the rights back to the people, to be truly afraid of the populace. Each tax collector must shiver when he goes to work, and each police officer be fully aware that a single parking ticket is an act of violence.
All said, I am afraid, we have lost that. And now we must face the future hoping that someday, another group of smart men can realize something so unique, so right, so innately just and moral was achieved by the signing of the constitution that it must be tried again.
Calvin - 2022
Less than half the states had stay at home orders with the force of law ("lockdowns"). The states with the most authoritarian overreactions were red states full of social-media-addled nutters rebelling against reality - when citizens actively work to help spread a pandemic, is it any wonder that the bureaucrats respond even stronger in the only way they know how?
What reconciliation actually requires is for the maggots to take some responsibility and realize this is exactly where reactionary media has been leading them by the nose for the past four decades - destruction of the Constitutionally-limited government in favor of rule by unaccountable corporations. Signed, a libertarian who actually believes in those lofty ideals you're fallaciously invoking.
Trust me, as sad as it is, those people still exist.