It felt like we were inching towards that in 2020, then most folks just went home and went back to pretending we were back to 'normal'.

It's like the Democrats gave up on the working class in the 90s, ceded the rural areas to the GOP just as they were doubling down on the religion and tacking hard to the right. The public portrayal of this country is like the American Dream, as George Carlin said, "you gotta be asleep to believe it." For millennials like me, we got to watch three thousand people die on live TV in middle/high school, and then nothing ever got better. I think it's telling that both Good and Pretti were millennials, there's a generational rage there that's only just beginning to find expression.

It's very easy to make poor people hate each other

Amen. Pretty sure that's the story of this country in one sentence. Lol, if there's any consolation in all that's happening, it's that the regime is going at this in a fashion that is almost guaranteed to make sure it isn't enduring. If it didn't have a succession problem it would have a coup problem.

Was telling my partner about what you said last night, 10 years seems like a long time for that kind of intensity, but at the same time it tracks with much of the resistance struggles I've studied, also about how long it this place to throw off the British yoke. In 2020, it was slightly reassuring that there wasn't really much in the way of organized paramilitaries for the regime to call upon to repress people, but now we've got the secret police nobody asked for...