That's how things tend to work when people are so alienated or disenfranchised from the system that change within the system becomes impossible, yes.

And while people like to dismiss any group whose concerns they disagree with as being merely an "angry mob," more often than not that "mob's" concerns are legitimate, and their anger is justifiable. Laws don't get passed to "pacify" them, they get passed because public pressure and awareness turns public opinion in their favor, making it politically infeasible for those in power to continue the status quo.

That's not the way it's supposed to work, but that's the inevitable result of a democratic process and society not working as it ought to begin with.

>> That's how things tend to work when people are so alienated or disenfranchised from the system that change within the system becomes impossible, yes.

And the endpoint of that process is revolution. Again, not a good thing. Revolutions are bloody.

How can you fix the democratic process so that works as it ought and prevent the disaster you're heading for?

I don't know. I never thought I'd see the day when Americans seem more concerned about "SJWs" exercising their free speech rights than actual secret police tossing political dissidents into black vans but I guess here we are.

This is a non-sequitur.

Getting low level employees fired for some kind of political faux pas does absolutely nothing to combat Trump's gross abuses of power.

Many people oppose "cancel culture" and "SJWs" because they see them as part of a vast leftist conspiracy imposing a political agenda across media, arts and academia and oppressing free (read: right-wing) speech at every turn. Many of the same people support Trump's abuses of power being wielded against those they consider "leftist agitators" like BLM and Antifa.

Both cases linked by fear of and opposition to the existential threat of "the left" as an insidious enemy within and a willingness to accept any means necessary to stop it.

I see both cancel culture and Trump's strange presidency as part of the same problem - the one that PG is talking about.

The rise of dogmatic orthodoxy and the inability to have a civilised dicussion where the participants disagree yet respect each other.

I look on in desperate horror at the blatant, authoritarian corruption happening every single day at the White House, and yet the only righteous anger I see on the “intellectual watering hole” of HN is towards cancel culture. I don’t get it. Don’t people read the news? How do you not have an ulcer from watching this shit every day for four years?

The legitimate concerns and justified anger tend to be characterized by long-term (multiple years), consistent pressure. People exerting it can listen to opposing views (without angry screams) and justify their own.

What we see today are angry flashes that can change direction on a whim. Flash mobs of statue tear-downs, coronavirus mask/no-mask outrages, etc. are in my view more of a symptom of pent-up aggression fanned by pre-election opportunism, not of legitimate concerns. My 2c.

With the exception of the coronavirus protests, everything else has had years of consistent pressure behind it.

There have been riots and protests over police brutality and systemic racism for years. People have been protesting America's whitewashing of its history and romanticizing of the Confederacy for years. None of these issues are new. The CHAZ wasn't the result of "pre-election opportunism," read their list of demands. It's fueled by anger, yes, but also seeks redress for grievances the black community has been complaining about for years. "Biden 2020" isn't in there anywhere.

> That's how things tend to work when people are so alienated or disenfranchised from the system that change within the system becomes impossible, yes.

And it almost never ends well.

In some ways yes. It seems to me that democracy requires those in power to have a healthy fear that if the government doesn't work for their constituents then they might overthrow it.

Jefferson said:

"what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants"

Granted I'm not trying to make some extreme, tough guy statement that the current situation is equivalent to a revolutionary war. I just mean that to some degree that is how a democracy works.