I feel like you're asking people to believe these things simultaneously.
- killing 180,000 people with political violence and counting is fine
- Trump is evil and will kill everyone with political violence end democracy, elections etc.
- Don't use political violence to stop this one guy though that's wrong.
- losing based on rules and norms we want to uphold is the point even if it ends the rules and norms.
They are asking you to have mandatory operating assumptions that you can't even say out loud.
I don't think there's ever been a time where more voters have had to feel in their gut that the things that Democratic party says they want are completely incompatible all the actions they are willing to consider taking.
does the shooting disengage libs?
Seeing how Biden has pulled all ads and all the dems have circled the wagons around Trump [shakes 8 ball] "YES".
There's no real way for liberal actors in our political system to talk about political violence in a way that makes any sense, since they're all theoretically targets. So they have to say bad. Impeachment (and a confirmation of it) is the only legal process intended to serve as an alternative to assassination, but it failed with regards to Trump and this time he's just a candidate.
Using violence to stop someone is also a slippery slope because objectively Biden is responsible for far more human life years being lost than Trump though, no matter how one slices the data. That's the difference between being a middling businessman mostly licensing their name and being president 4 years versus a 50 year career politician who championed all of the US' worst moves both at home and abroad.
After Trump got shot - at Blueksy I saw some upvoted posts mentioning the genocide in Gaza. The liberals at that site right now are willing to upvote some posts to give them a few hundred likes. For Blue sky those are fairly popular post numbers. Maybe that trend will continue a few more days. But after that - the libs will start to put Gaza out of mind and ignore it again.
Also - I typical see the same account names with Gaza posts. I assume that's because liberals want to like only the posts "right" leftists who tend to phrase things in a lib-friendly way. No hyperbole. Usually no heavy sarcasm. Little or no mention of Biden's role in the genocide. So - of course - no dirtbags.
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When it comes to violence, rules, and, norms I think libs are in a weird headspace right now.
After the shooting I must have seen literally 20+ popular "PSA" posts reminding people that judges and the Secret Service have no sense of humor so remember that! I expected to see some post but why so very many? I think libs are shy to say "obey the law" because Trump's second term could begin in just six months from now. So they virtue liked posts that indirectly express obeying the law is good by reminding people that doing so is for their own self interest.
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Every day there's always this sort of crap.
To use an analogy to another riot-worthy issue, if someone says “we should riot over genocide in Gaza,” and a dude says “I want to do it by painting swastikas on synagogues,” I tend to suspect my dude is not actually in it for Gaza.
https://subium.com/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social/post/3kx6efafhaj2h
It's by Popehat who is very popular on lib Twitter. He's a lawyer. And I think he's around 60 years old. The comment has ~200 likes. He's mentioned Nazis using Gaza protests as an excuse to be Nazis before. He can't seem to stop himself from making that connection.
"My dude"? It's like "hello fellow kids". In any case - I think of Popehat as playing political fantasy football. Just a few short weeks ago he could have said any form of violence or property damage is wrong, illegal, and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But his brain was sort of broken by GOP justices immunity ruling that gives a Trump king-like powers (including legal murder) in his second term.
He's an extreme case but I think every lib paying attention is having their brain at least a little broken a little by what's happening. For example they know that all Trump's four trials - will most likely result in pretty much nothing at all. And that will be due to GOP justice - GOP judges and GOP justices.
They are stuck in the Vote! trap of their own creation. They are obsessed by the danger of Project 2025 and post about it all the time because it's easy to block if you Vote! Only rarely (if at all) do they mention the problem of the GOP SCOTUS justices because that problem won't be solved if you Vote! Biden and the dems would have to do radical court reform - and the chance of that is zero which kind of puts a damper on the whole Vote! thing.
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After Trump won in 2016 - there were protests and marches. 2017 Women's March had 200,00 protestors. I hadn't thought about pussyhats in ages...
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Sewn and knitted pussyhats being worn by women on a plane to Washington D.C.
If Trump is president in 2025 - he will hold all the cards. And he can fuck with the libs as much as he likes. He could say he "will allow" a large DC march, wait for libs from all over the country to fly to DC, and then the day before the march he could blandly say "Due to national security - no march". And that's that.
Not the libs, surprisingly, they aren't quiet or performatively doing praise because it runs too countercurrent to what they have been saying about Trump this entire time. There was even an AmITheAsshole post on Reddit asking, "AITAH if I don't really care what happened?"
It's not like that police sniper or that Sandmann kid where they rush to condemn the left or whatever to show they're decent. Not sure if this means the party will reconfigure their strategy into one that allows their supporters to openly continue attacking Trump the way that the GOP claims is incitement, or if Joe, last seen lucid in 2016, will think telling the world to be nicer to Trump is the appropriate way to go.
