Social media has tuned people to be unable to think in non-hyperbolic ways. To these constantly wound-up people, every problem, no matter how big or small, can only be solved by brutal violence and savagery.
I'm not advocating for those means, but I understand how people are feeling more helpless than ever to just "let the system work it out" when the system appears to be bought and paid for by a small concentration of corporations and people with an increasingly disproportionate share of wealth.
well, the idea of democracy was to offer a viable path for people's discontent to be heard and remediated.
Unfortunately in most Western countries, dysfunctionality and corporatism have taken it over, and that is why you're seeing authoritarians on the rise across the world. They paint democracy and "legacy" figures as the scapegoat and themselves (plus handing them allllllll the power) as the only solution - just look at Milei and the chainsaw.
-Thomas Jefferson
I personally think the tree of liberty is probably getting pretty thirsty.
And in retrospect, the French revolution is not considered a dark episode of modern history, on the contrary.