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The timeline you've laid out seems to presume that the Progressives do as they please, and no real effective response ever emerges. I would hazard a guess that you'd justify this lack of opposition by pointing out that these steps are self-reinforcing, that each step makes the next step much easier and opposition harder. Certainly this seems to be how Progressives see things; they see themselves as snowballing a set of advantages into even greater advantages, with the hope that eventually the snowball gets too big to stop or even slow down, and their opponents simply give up and die off.
The problem with this is that a considerable portion of their opposition will not give up, that escalation can and will invalidate all advantages of the snowball, and that the snowball cannot, in fact, prevent escalation and in fact makes it inevitable. They can absolutely dominate the society we have now, but the society we have now depends on a lack of domination to survive. They are committed to destroying the foundation for their own existence.
Right now there are mainly three venues, as I see, that Republicans can resist. First: SCOTUS, which is the most powerful, even if the slowest and least sure way, and its power means it's going to be destroyed first.
Second: electing Republicans that are capable of blocking Dems in Congress, in numbers that enable that. With filibuster pretty much gone, and Republicans still unable to figure out how to counter things like mail-in voting and ballot harvesting, and completely incapable of handling lawyer superpredators like Elias, this option's time seems to be running out quickly. Oh yes, and if Big Tech keeps its informational war against the Right - and I see no reason why they wouldn't - it means reaching the masses necessary to make cheating impossible, and delivering message consistent enough to entice them, is extremely hard. Not many normies read Gab and TruthSocial (and tbh things happening there aren't always good for convincing normies, either). Musk helps but it won't be enough - and with enough force deployed, Musk will fall too. If 2024 elections would resemble 2020 in any way, this option is out.
Third: red states conducting independent policies and blocking federal Dems. This is also a weak option and becomes weaker once SCOTUS falls, because this means state rights are gone, Constitution is a living document, and Feds can do anything they want. Plus, many states have been long dependent on massive federal funding grants, and threatening to pull those would politically kill any local Republican that becomes too uppity. So yes, these things are reinforcing each other, each of them makes resisting others harder. Please tell me which venues of resistance I am missing.
What kind of escalation you are talking about? Strolling through Capitol again and getting 8 years in jail for that? I am not sure it's as scary for Dems as some may think.
Why didn't Biden use this power against Abbott when Texas defied the federal government on the border?
...It seems to me that many such predictions vastly overestimate Blue Tribe's willingness to actually prosecute a fight, or to enforce their will in the face of significant opposition. They absolutely like dropping the hammer on isolated Red Tribers who they estimate they can destroy without consequence, but they do not actually seem to relish a fight that costs them casualties. Rittenhouse ended the Kenosha riots single-handedly, after all. The ATF will absolutely murder some isolated loner's wife. I doubt they will relish going door-to-door in Texas or Arkansas, and I doubt they can make the locals do it for them.
See here. In short:
Perhaps that seems implausible to you. If you believed it were true, though, would it shift your assessment of the probability of success for the current Blue Tribe snowball approach?
Here's a fresh example of using funding power to coerce a red state to change their policy: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2024/09/04/scotus-blocks-oklahoma-federal-family-planning-funds-amid-abortion-fight-n2644339
It's a good example too. State-level economic warfare by coalitions of major corporations is a similar problem. I'm just not sure it's actually decisive, whereas the system actually breaking down, whether through durable federalism or legit "things fall apart", seems pretty decisive.
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First of all, Texas didn't really do anything substantial. The border is still largely non-existent and the migrants are still pouring in. Second, SCOTUS and Republican house are still there, for now. Third, Texas is a big state which may be harder to make to bend the knee. Smaller red states could be much easier. Texas would probably be the last to go, and likely will fall from the inside rather than the outside.
Which fight would that be? They don't need to make army to invade Texas. They just need to restructure subsidies and pork spending and Republicans that are too feisty suddenly find themselves unelectable because they can no longer bring home the bacon. No casualties necessary.
He didn't. 1000+ National Guard deployment did.
How many locals refused the lockdowns and the mask mandates? That was a trial run. Most complied. Seriously, I've seen people wearing masks on the street as late as 2023, and this is a deep red area. They will comply the next time too.
And btw, if anybody on the right gets some ideas about "shifting the probabilities toward collapse of centralized authority" - that would be the left's wettest dream of all. Now they need to wait for China to make a suitable virus or to invent some bullshit threats involving FBI entrapping a bunch of idiots, but if they get a real, genuine thing... They will use it to scare the population so shitless that they will agree to literally anything just for the nightmare to end. They are good at it, judging by the results. And terrified people are very easy to herd.
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