[hitekker]

> So many Liberals seem to have been emboldened by losing to Trump a second time into embracing bullying and letting go of what empathy and compassion that they had instead of using the moment to question why their party is so disconnected from so much of the country and why so many who are suffering would fall for Trump's lies instead of Democrats and the status quo.

This gets at the truth.

To generalize: if people can't get a win, they'll settle for blame. Pointing the finger at others feels pretty good. Whereas the soul-searching you speak of is suffering, especially for those invested in ideology.

IMHO, this coping is inevitable. We have no leaders who can admit our fault, nor do we longer share a set of teachings to make sense of where we went astray. What we do seem to have in abundance is rage, which fuels the comforting political fantasies we're witnessing today.