The thing about January 6th, and especially about how Republicans behaved in the aftermath, is that the veil dropped.
We all saw how willing Republicans were to murder Americans and rig elections to hold power, and we all saw them doing so without remorse or regret.
We can't unsee that now, and Republicans know we cannot unsee that, so their only path forward is to accelerate the purges, the imprisonments, and the killings. We are at a very dangerous moment.
@alexwild That was their one huge chance to draw a line for democracy and reason, and they collectively chose the dark side.
@westmeadow @alexwild The problem the GOP has (and this is the *real* quiet part loud) is drawing that line dooms the party to increasing irrelevance as currently constituted.
They see the writing on the wall that younger Americans are increasingly disinterested with their core party platform planks: they want more socialist policies because they aren't "communism = bad / socialism = communism" Cold-War-era indoctrinated; they are unconvinced in capitalism as the optimum solution because they lived through several crashes; they watched the world *not* burn down in the aftermath of Loving, Roe, and Obergefell; they *are* concerned the world will burn down literally due to climate change... A phenomenon the GOP tripled down on being fake.
Faced with these demographic statistics, the GOP is stuck in a situation where embracing democracy means the party weakens and possibly dies. They can't *win* if democracy and reason win, and so they're stuck opposing those principles themselves or committing to political apoptosis.
@mtomczak @alexwild Spot on. They're clinging, and it can really only get more extreme unless they completely reinvent themselves, which I think it's safe to say isn't going to happen.