I was trying to find a way to express something vaguely like this, but this thread is very good. https://twitter.com/jeffsharlet/status/1324387833336025091

Basically, though, it seems like people expected a landslide denunciation of authoritarianism. And I feel like that was never actually on the table? Of course it would have been nice! Sure! No question! But that’s never how it seems to work?

I’m not enough of a historian to have any go-to but Hitler, sorry, but I seem to remember that he was quite popular and then he lost the war and a few years later nobody in Germany had ever been a Nazi and that was all other people in some other town.

We all wanted the big repudiation without the war. I get it! But I think we did something more impressive, in its way.

We saw it coming before we got that far.

More Americans than have ever voted in the history of America saw down the road and went “Oh HELL no!” Before we had to have the big collapse where suddenly nobody had ever supported the despot, ha ha, no, not us, that was some other town, nobody here.

So yeah, it would have been more emotionally satisfying if all the Trump supporters had a Come to Jesus moment and threw down their MAGA has. But you only get that if the despot runs unchecked long enough to destroy...well, everything.

If there’s a really unsafe road and you block it off, a lot of people aren’t going to be grateful. They’re going to yell that it’s safe and anyway, they’re a good driver. Somebody has to die on the road—maybe multiple people—before they’ll admit it’s dangerous. Some never will.

But the sooner you close the road, the more lives you save. And that’s worth it.