[Vaslo]

You’re pretending like the vast majority of people are being oppressed by some military government but easily forget that tens of millions of us support the president and aren’t intimidated whatsoever by anything people like you could do.

[whatever1]

All oppressive regimes have die hard supporters. The f'ed up thing is that they may even become the majority. Hence voting cannot fix it.

[Vaslo]

Yeah, it’s well known that oppressive regimes have 10s of millions of supporters.

Or maybe your ideas are just bad, and maybe the other side thinks your ideas are weak and doesn’t want any part of them.

How would you “fix it” without voting? And if it involves “force” why do you ever think we’d let you do that?

[whatever1]

In the beginning the people who vote for them may or may not support the ideology.

But once the regime is in place, over time a fraction of supporters start gaining benefits from it. Wealth, recognition, you name it. The regime controls resources of an entire country they can do it.

This core or supporters become the champions of the regime and will eradicate its competitors. Mentally or physically.

Example: try becoming an opposition party in Russia.

Historically if the erosion of institutions is already bad, there is no going back. Only external pressure (sanctions/wars) or civil war.

Elections work only if every group that has real power has agreed to yield it to institutions that will be elected. Either because they believe or because cumulatively the power they own is not enough to challenge the institutions.

[embedding-shape]

> You’re pretending like the vast majority of people are being oppressed by some military government

I wasn't, or at least I don't think I am. What did I write that gave you that impression? I mainly wrote about freedom of speech and censorship, and nothing of meat about the military really, but maybe I don't realize what I wrote sounds like.

[poly2it]

That's precisely the issue, the power dynamic needs to flip. The state of USA and more worryingly the direction it is in is horrifying.