I mean yeah but the dude rapes children so he needs to be in prison. The ideal answer would have been for his parents to have raised him better but that ship sailed a long time ago.

Art of War is a little inapplicable here because in that book, there's an assumption the enemy isn't out to destroy the whole world, but trump really has no qualms about destroying everything if that's what it takes for him to keep his freedom despite his horrific crimes.

They don’t want to escape, though.

They’re in a prison of their own design.

I'll say: it really seems like that call is coming from inside the house. Lots of former conservatives can get by in leftist spaces by just not being a conservative when asked about their opinions. If you can laugh at who you used to be you can absolutely be a reformed conservative. Maybe you have to be a few years removed from who you used to be but I've seen it, I know people who have gone through exactly that and they're as left as anyone now. Mostly because being a leftist means engaging with and being in the normal world.

But if you're in a conservative environment even the smallest dissent can be seen as fully treasonous. It spirals into hysteria and we see how conservatives have to live in an alternate reality to stay in the in-group.

But they are not admitting they where wrong... They are complaining Trump didn't deliver them the riches they where promised.

They are still bigoted assholes.

He also said once committed to an act there is no turning back.

Yeah... for the most part they just double down. You can point out the war in Iran that they supposedly didn't want, the deficits they supposedly wanted to reduce, the prices that they thought would go down with tariffs somehow, and they will just say that doesn't matter because the Democrats were going to turn their boys into girls.

I worry we’ve created a world where its not possible to change your stance on something or admit you were wrong.

Are you kidding? It is comically easy to just change sides, announce you have always believed everything about the side your own, and begin heckling the people on the original side by calling them idiots and assholes. Just roll up another account. Or be Tucker Carlson.

Nobody will care, so long as your caustic remarks and smug self-aggrandizement and self-pitying doomerism jerks your audience off the right way.

Like something from the Art of War that says you shouldn’t surround your enemy completely or they will fight harder since escape isn’t an option.

The problem isn't that Liberals have somehow backed Conservatives into a corner. The problem is that Conservatives effectively make up a Liberal to be afraid of and regularly sell their voter base on being terrified of the Dark Brandon Ultra-Left Anarcho-Chinese Muslim Tankie hiding behind the milquetoast corporate centrist who agrees with them on 90% of public policy.

When you've built a fantasy world for your voters to live in, the best way to keep them there is to tell a bunch of horror stories about what's outside the echo chamber.