> the only thing preventing total war is the belief that it might be possible to fix it next year
And the knowledge that you cannot win when the other side controls the armed forces, the FBI, and all the governing institutions, a lot of states entirely too, and is clearly willing (and maybe even eager) to use them? The president and the people behind him probably look forward to their opponents trying. I think this "total war" might be very short.
Total war (or just any collective conflict) is in some sense the consequence of choosing the wrong abstraction, not always innocently.
E.g. "It is simply a fact that Group X is just B-like" (group X obviously disagrees, understanding itself to be C+L+M+N).
But projecting B-ness coarsely onto the surface of X, this serves both the members throughout group X and the leaders at its center, who have other goals than understanding the truth of C+L+M+N.
Sorry, that's a new analogy for framing how I see it, as someone working in collective intelligence. Might be a little rocky.
The solution is to decrease your high investment in the politics show, and put your energy where it matters - the people around you, yourself. Do something real instead.
I am working for the people around me. Because they are being hurt by this "show". Government workers who have been fired without cause. Trans people who cannot get their medicine. Latinos who are scared to go out in public for fear of being swept up.
This is not a show for me. These are the people in my life.
You seemed to be frustrated at the lack of alternative, so I pointed out that the alternative is to ignore politics.
From this latest reply it seems you are heavily invested on one side of the political spectrum.
Surely you can see that if you have a specific and highly involved position on one side of the political spectrum, when your side is not winning, it will be losing. There can be no alternative.
What you seem to really want is complete dominance of the spectrum - this is the alternative you really seem and I think you are frustrated not to be achieving it. But would you really want to impose your opinions and 'help' on everyone, whether they like it or not? Maybe you would, I don't know.
Anyway, I'll point you back to my original point. The alternative is to let politicos play their games and try to remain personally uninvolved. This is the path to sanity.
I dont want dominance, i wish people to be less ignorant, to eg. ponder large societal problems in all their complexity and not elevate migration as their top concern.
Dominance over all three governmental branches is what trump actually seeks. If you are ignoring that tiny detail too, you are part of the ignorant masses, part of the problem.
And no matter who wins, the other side will be convinced it was by cheating. And that has no alternative but total war.
I have looked long and hard for an alternative but I'm not seeing one.