My worry with that approach is that this plan may be too long-term. That, in the attempt to save democracy, you’d let a regime seize power that proceeds to dismantle democracy. When Trump’s campaign includes the promise that you’ll never (“have to”) vote again, attempting to use votes as leverage is gambling whether they will have any value as leverage when the next election comes around.

In my view, Trumpism is not a spontaneous thing that came out of nowhere and might disappear just as easily, but rather something that emerged as a natural result of declining material conditions. You can't hope to just weather the storm, because it's not just Trump as an individual, and when Trump is gone whoever the right turns to will be just as bad, if not worse. Furthermore, as things stand, they will continue to gain power over time and will become an inevitability. This inevitability is caused by two things.

The first is the tendency of the rate of profit to decline. In regular language, what that means is that as an economy gets more developed, the number of untapped, productive ventures shrinks, it becomes harder and harder to make profits through the development or expansion of productive industries. That's why we get things like the enshittification of the internet, because companies have to find ways to increase their profits and if there's no more room to grow, all you can do is squeeze customers more. This is the general, overarching cause of economic decline.

The second part of the inevitability of the far-right is that they are the only ones who are positioning themselves as an alternative to the existing status quo. Liberals are very much wed to the existing system, and they do their best to shut down any leftist voices calling for change.

Now, what happens when you have an economy that is declining because of fundamental structural reasons, and the options are sticking with that forever, or... the Mystery Box? People are going to chose the Mystery Box. And as it stands, the only Mystery Box out there is fascism. Now, we could offer our own Mystery Box, but any time we endorse a status quo candidate, we discredit ourselves as actually being distinct from the status quo. We are telling people, "This is acceptable, this is good enough" even when we know that's not true, and as a result, when they fail they drag us down with them and discredit our messaging.

Because I see defeat as a near-certainty in the long term, I am willing to accept risks of the whole thing blowing up in the short term in an effort to avert that. There is no gamble if we were doomed anyway. If it is a political impossibility to actually address the structural problems, then we at least have to provide alternative explanations and an alternative vision. We have to hold a candle in the darkness, even if all we accomplish is guiding a few lost, confused souls towards the truth and away from the enemy.

The ship is sinking, and I'm saying, "We have to plug these holes," and the liberals respond, "It's actually really antisemitic for you to say the holes exist, and if you try to fix them we'll break your legs." And so, what can I do except rip planks off so I at least have something to cling to when it all goes down?