It's never been about conviction or honest concern about "freedom" etc. It's been a grift for a loooong time - the only difference is that the grifters are in the White House now.

I listen to a podcast that's been dealing with Alex Jones and Infowars for a long time. Of course that isn't as hot now as it was, say, 10 years ago, but they make it interesting. One of their recurring statements is that Jones used to cheer for values that his current hero - Mango Mussolini - is diametrically opposed to, which kinda proves that he never believed in any of that anyhow. He's just a grifter.

And then they go back in history and find out that Jones himself was influenced by earlier radio grifters. Rightwing media outrage has a looong tradition in the USA, and it's fair to say that it's never been honest.

Believing anything that comes out of teir mouths is like believing that raspberry flavored chapstick represents actual raspberries and their flavor.

They like suffering for some reason. They’ve been told they’re victims for such a long time - not that their own choices helped put them where they are - that it’s everyone else’s fault they aren’t living the American Dream. So they lash out like angry toddlers and take happiness from someone else’s suffering, they actively seek to increase it. Doesn’t matter if it’s taking away LGBTQ rights and actively encouraging discrimination against them, ripping kids away from brown-skinned parents, or letting women die thanks to the lack of abortion services. So because Billy Bob can’t afford a lifted F150, the government won’t let him have a full-auto AR variant, and he can’t stand a school that might read his kids a story about a gay couple, everyone else has to suffer worse to make his lot look better.

But don't worry, the guillotines will only be used on the bad people.

That's why the Zoran Mamdani Campaign is so successful

It still works that way in a lot of places. The US has definitely lost its way a long time ago though.

From their perspective that's what they're doing though. The means to help their kind just involves more collateral damage and what ends up indistinguishable from targeted pain.

...human empathy is not a team sport...

Now you freaking mention it...

That's been a minute.

I remember kids in my school wearing shirts with tanks running over Saddam with the caption, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up." I remember how happy my mother was about it.

how dare she