So here's the problem...

...the imminent elevation of a wingnut fundie (what the hell do you call a religious/political "conservative", anyway? There needs to be some sort of one-word term for "religious nut/right-wing nut". Holy wingnut? I dunno, but Barrett is what one of those is...) to the Supreme Court reminds us that the current political problems facing this country are damn near insoluble.

Let this go - let the "conservatives" lock in a political mastery for the next fifty-odd years - and you have a numerical minority that clings fanatically to political, social, and economic ideals that range from disliked to violently loathed by the 55-60 percent of the nation that is not them forcing those ideals on that majority. 

Basically you have the political setup of any number of ex- European colonies; the colonial-favored minority rules the colonial-crushed mass of the population. As places like Nigeria and Cuba and Nicaragua and Rwanda and Congo and Indonesia discovered, that's not just not stable democracy, that's not stable, period. The ruling minority eventually has to go full-dictatorship to keep the mobs down. Or the mob rebels and it's civil war.

But...let's assume that the opposite happens. Trump loses bigly, the blue wave washes over the Senate, and suddenly the positions are reversed; the "liberals" hold all three branches, and are in no mood to act nice.

So Trumpkins left and right are prosecuted, wingnut lust-objects are attacked and destroyed, the Court is packed...all the wingnut nightmares bloom.

But the "conservatives" are still there. The hard, irreducible, intransigent lump of wingnut hate for the 20th Century remains scattered all across the nation. It can't be reasoned with. It can't be bargained with. It can't be appeased. It will prefer to burn the nation to the ground rather than accept the existence of Drag Queen Story Hour.

So instead of post-colonial Nigeria, we're stuck with Britain in 1859 Ireland or 1750 Scotland, or Austria-Hungary in 1914 Serbia ; a ruling majority has to deal with a violent minority utterly unwilling to live peaceably under their conquerors, with Ingraham and Limbaugh and Hannity as Radio Rwanda or the Black Hand, constantly urging resistance to the oppressors.

I have no fucking idea how either one of those works as nonviolent politics even in the medium term. Either one leads to shooting one way or the other, either as rebellion or dictatorship.

And I have not idea how to change that, or avoid it. I think it's just coming, and we're going to have to figure out where we all stand when it does.

Update 6/27: Interestingly enough, Bob Reich thinks we're already there.