You can disagree respectfully.

True.

But here's what you CAN'T do respectfully.

You can't deploy the military against cities operated by mayors in the opposing party just to flex your executive muscle, respectfully.

You can't fund a genocide, respectfully.

You can't use regulatory bodies to intimidate comedians and media into submission, respectfully.

You can't try to overthrow the will of the people on January 6th, respectfully.

And you can't do all of that and pretend that the OTHER side is the cause of political violence, respectfully.

You can only do those things disrespectfully, dangerously, and in a way that ultimately rejects and collapses the entire concept of "respectful debate in a functioning democracy".

The problem with normal people who feel shame (i.e., not MAGA), is that they readily accept the premise of the pushback from the other side. They don't want to be seen as disrespectful or dangerous.

So instead of holding onto the truth of their cause against creeping fascism, they're willing to allow the crazies to reframe each argument and lead them into intellectual cul-de-sacs where they're left trying to define what "is" is.

They allow the other side to narrowly define "political violence" as assassination attempts with guns against elites - instead of what it REALLY is - violence against ALL people rooted in political motivation (cities and mayors, immigrants, the poor, institutions of power, attacks with hammers against congresspeople and their spouses, etc).

They allow the other side to frame freedom of the press and 1st amendment violations from an authoritarian government as a "two sides" cancel-culture debate.

They readily accept that murder is bad (which, of course it is) without stopping for a moment and saying "hang on - I KNOW murder is bad - which is why I've been adocating for commonsense gun laws while Charlie Kirk has been railing against ANY gun control much less ANY empathy for ANYONE - because his 'faith' lead him to believe that empathy is a fake concept!" (look it up).

They readily debate the technical definition of "Genocide" instead of saying "HANG ON A SECOND, WHO CARES WHAT YOU CALL IT, WHAT YOU'RE DOING IS EVIL". They fail to recognize that the semantic debate (and the semitic debate) is just a smokescreen to deflect accountability and continue the ethnic cleansing. Never mind that this is probably the 3rd or 4th major genocide Israel has perpetrated (think about it).

I'm so tired of everything being a Rorschach test and devolving into an endless "debate" in the comments.

Truth. Objective reality. Reason. These things have been completely lost in the face of people who are willing to gasslight and be gasslit just to protect their tribe. They have no shame, and they have all the power - so there is literally nothing that can or will stop them.

And you know what else? This post won't make any difference, either.

And you know what's worse?

Many people will, once again, message me privately saying how brave I am and how much they agree with me - but they will once again avoid reacting or commenting (or better, sharing) because they are too afraid to say the truth out loud.