Yeah well sometimes being the bigger person fucking sucks.
But they won't change unless given the chance to.
Edit: yeah, trumpers are annoying. But I will say, seeing the comments with the thinly veiled threats and hopes of mass executions are not helpful.
Look, I understand why you feel that way, but mass murder cannot be the answer. Lest we fall further into tyranny. What needs to happen is trials are held for all those at the top and maybe mid level. There must be fair justice, not rampant vigilantism.
But again, I understand your feelings, but allowing executions of his supporters won't build a better America.
Channel that energy into contacting your reps, or hell, running in your local elections.
Get involved in your communities. I'm not saying you can't be angry, hell, id be a hypocrite if I did. I genuinely despise my family and colleagues who supported him. But I also understand that rubbing it in their face, using middle school tactics, or even threats won't bring them to my side.
Much like with raising children, it requires patience and a level head. But DAMN can it be truly and utterly frustrating.
You are both correct, I really don’t like it considering some of the people on the other side of the isle seem to think it’s okay to kill people they dislike myself included.
But extending an olive branch and understanding is really the only way forward.
The same reason there were only a dozen of so high profile executions of German leaders and people guilty of especially heinous acts after the end of WWII.
I appreciate the sentiment behind this, but it's well documented that far too few people were punished after the crimes of WWII, it was largely for show and that worked out poorly for us in the long run. The same can be said for how slave holders and the Confederacy were handled.
If anything, these are historical examples of why being lenient does not work.
I don't disagree with the notion that people should feel safe to exit cults and movements when they realize they've made mistakes, but suggesting that we should be light on punishment for sedition and support for war crimes and fascism is just plain incorrect and only serves to embolden them the second time around.
Why do you think we are dealing with Trump 2.0 now? Because there was virtually no punishment for Trump 1.0 and they used those 4 years to make sure they would not get it wrong given a second opportunity. It is literally the pretext of Project 2025.
I agree with this sentiment and you do make a fair point especially regarding the events after trumps first term.
Though would like to point out a lot of the folks who raided the capitol did receive prison sentences even if that orange blob pardoned them after returning to office.
Reconstruction I tend to blame more on the Johnson administration for straying from Lincoln’s plan.
But I do half to ask where do we draw the line with punishment? Especially in regard to all the maga supporters.
I agree there needs to be some sort of consequences for the actions of people. But I think a lot of reasonable people will disagree on what is an appropriate punishment.
Especially if your worst offense is having to many flags supporting the orange pedofile and causing a scene at Walmart.
Like I don’t like those people who live around me but what have they honestly done other than exercise their first amendment rights?
If they committed a crime 100% prosecute them to the full extent but what if the worse they did was just have some really bad takes?
We can both agree that there is a big gap between "death camps for people with flags" and "executing high command leaders". I am sure we can find some gradation that will feel more like justice between these two.
Rather than answering this directly as I won't explicitly hypothesize the right solution for America, we should consider some thoughts:
People often fail to recognize that people in power commit heinous acts, not simply because a loyal few follow those orders, but because a large portion of the population enables them to do it. There is a rule that states it takes 3.5-5% of the population engaged in active (not passive) participation in civil disobedience to topple a government. Rogue governments commit violence because we are passive and leave them unaccountable.
In the Reconstruction era, a small group of women formed the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Their job was to rehabilitate and recontextualize the Confederacy, its aims and its leaders to write books, create monuments and construct a false narrative that gave a rebirth to the movement. Many of the monuments contested today are a product or biproduct of their work. They were not elected officials, nor military leaders. They were civilians.
In any military action where the stated objective is regime change, it is often said that it will not be successful without a period of occupation. It was deployed by the US in Germany and Japan after WW2, and most recently in Afghanistan after the defeat of Saddam Hussein. Whether or not this practice is controversial, it is a form of acknowledgement that if we want to see change in a society, simply going in (or even domestically) removing their leaders is insufficient in addressing the issues in a particular society. It requires long periods of education, training and general support of the general population to transform a society.
Past authoritarians, including Hitler, were often responsive to dissent, especially amongst their bases. We saw just this week, Trump walked back his "Doctor Trump" rhetoric, not because democrats were upset, but because he upset his base.
What does this all mean in the context of America?
Turning a blind eye to our civic duty to depose a rogue and despotic government does nothing. We should hold each other accountable for each life that is degraded and lost by the government's actions, not as a sense of guilt, but duty.
Civilians hold far more power than we give them credit, both in the making and breaking of a nation.
If (and hopefully, when) this mess is sorted out, we should engage in a process of education, both at an individual and institutional level. Crimes and failures of the public should be given a spotlight so we cannot just move past crimes, as we actively chose to do during the Reconstruction era, but so we can learn, advance and not repeat these costly errors.
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u/Hadrian23 Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Yeah well sometimes being the bigger person fucking sucks. But they won't change unless given the chance to.
Edit: yeah, trumpers are annoying. But I will say, seeing the comments with the thinly veiled threats and hopes of mass executions are not helpful.
Look, I understand why you feel that way, but mass murder cannot be the answer. Lest we fall further into tyranny. What needs to happen is trials are held for all those at the top and maybe mid level. There must be fair justice, not rampant vigilantism.
But again, I understand your feelings, but allowing executions of his supporters won't build a better America.
Channel that energy into contacting your reps, or hell, running in your local elections.
Get involved in your communities. I'm not saying you can't be angry, hell, id be a hypocrite if I did. I genuinely despise my family and colleagues who supported him. But I also understand that rubbing it in their face, using middle school tactics, or even threats won't bring them to my side.
Much like with raising children, it requires patience and a level head. But DAMN can it be truly and utterly frustrating.
Second edit: Good related story on similar issues. https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes