When you’re on the side of bad ideas—or some bad people—and you’ve forgotten why your ideas are bad, or never really understood, living inside an echo chamber can twist your perception. It starts to feel like you’re the one being mistreated, neglected, or denied what’s fair. You convince yourself you deserve power, and that any means to get or keep it is justified. However, you can. First mistake. And second.

It’s emotional, not reasonable. Then along comes those who see that vulnerability, who weaponize it—and you follow them, thinking it’s “cool,” thinking it’s “progress.”

That’s been Republicans and conservatives for decades.

Meanwhile, Democrats and progressives—we’re liberals all, ideally, since we live in a liberal democracy despite Trump and his MAGA project—made the mistake of not addressing that emotional gap. They didn’t extend enough empathy or compromise when they could have, to make the other side feel seen, valued, included. It teeter tottered into dysfunction.

That failure allowed resentment—stoked by figures from Newt Gingrich to Donald Trump—to harden into anger, then hate, then a cause. All to WIN. Then to KEEP being on top, even as a minority. Then furthering the delusion, to stay on top even if your own who got you there disagree now, who start to see the mistaken path, unaware how they got there. Confused. Knowing they were right, believing it anyway, wondering why they were now on the wrong side. When the other side claims rightfully, they had been telling them THAT all along. Especially, about the people they’d chosen to lead them.

And so, here we are. Today.

Now.

Now what?