[TrackerFF]

Here's the thing: The traditional / establishment democrats have blindly believed that you can negotiate with people like Trump, because of decorum. Establishment candidates have been more occupied with taking the moral high-road, even if that resulted in loss after loss.

There's this ingrained belief that if you just play nice with republicans, they'll play nice back. And that was valid for a long, long time. The problem is that Trump completely upended that, though he was not the start of it - he's just the natural consequence of populism and the ground that had been fertilized for years.

The reason why Trump has been allowed to hijack the republican party, is because of how the two-party system in the US works. Trump has an iron grip on a sizable number of voters, and thus the GOP had to kowtow to Trump.

Luckily Trump is MAGA, and MAGA is Trump. I fully expect that the current MAGA movement will fracture and splinter into smaller factions once Trump is out. And from the looks of it, they do not have any plan B. No front runner in sight.

[jmyeet]

No, it's worse than that. Establishment Democrats are complicit in what Trump is doing. This went so far as to intentionally lose the presidential election in 2024 rather than oppose genocide. How can Trump both be a fascist and an existential threat and a preferable outcome to stopping genocide?

For years, the Democrats have sold this "electability" lie, that the only electable Democrats are "moderates" or "centrists". This was never true and it was just an excuse for the same people funding both parties to make the Democrats the controlled opposition.

What we've seen in the last year is the right democratic socialists ousting incumbents in primaries and defeating establishment candidates. This movement is undeniably popular and what do establishment Democrats do? They side with Republicans in saying that socialism is an existential threat to the US.

As for your last point, I think we're going to find out what happens sooner than many think. MAGA is a cult and cults never survive intact when their leader dies. There's nobody to take his place so the jmost likely outcome is a descent into factionalism and the party splinters for a time until Trump 2.0 can once again unite the factions.

But we should never forget that establishment Democrats are siding and will side with Republicans to defend the current system.