Remember at the end of summer 2022 when the liberal-media complex re-convinced itself that the authorities would finally arrest Trump? This was on account of the top-secret documents he took to Mar-a-Lago. I especially recall the "Mueller She Wrote" podcast running a victory lap on Twitter. At home for the holidays, I also caught prime-time MSNBC for the first time in forever. They had moved on to 24/7 coverage of Trump's failure to release his 2015-2020 tax returns. I feel like I need a background in anthropology to fully grasp what's happening with the confidence in Trump's arrest. Something is being activated in the liberal brain that approximates a diehard faith, not unlike a teleological belief in the Rapture. How do MSNBC viewers continue to feel satisfied and confident in Trump's arrest despite an endless deferral of the act? It's like Bart losing his mind at Kamp Krusty when he learns his hero isn't there. Rocking back and forth, he tells himself: "Krusty is coming. Krusty is coming. Krusty is coming." Is this not also making liberals insane?
It's QAnon for liberals
It's different in the sense that many of the specific events libs think are happening are in fact happening; they just are missing how few rules actually apply to powerful people. That's a tough pill to swallow when there is zero mainstream media coverage of the idea, and when any coverage by legitimate deep politics analysts looks the same as lizardmen conspiracy crank stuff from 10,000 feet.
QAnon nuts belive stuff like secret assassinations and body double replacements. Libs are considerably more grounded than that.
You say that as if a 'liberal rules based order' isn't as fictional as a body double. One just has the pretentions of political philosophy in it's fiction, the other draws from a Tom Clancy novel, and in many cases the 'deep state' analysis of a Tom Clancy outlook is more correct than the alternative, just with different implications than the QAnon people would imagine.
The only difference in their fantasies are the whipping marks of the academy.
I mean one is "can you clone Hillary Clinton and replace her after a secret execution" and the other is "how does law and accountability really work for the powerful." These aren't the same.
I'm not going to hammer on this point anymore, but you are mistaking a question for an answer. It goes like this.
Q: How does law and accountability really work for the powerful?
A: They are cloned and replaced by the deep state cabal. (QAnon)
A: They are held to account by the meritocracy and rules-based order. (Liberals)