So general thoughts:
The first is that our public discourse is media-driven.
The second is that we do not value empiricism as a public good.
Yesterday was supposed to be the “Tesla Takedown” with mass protests at hundreds of Tesla locations across the country. Were there protests? Sure. Were the size of the protests commensurate with the hype and months of build-up that Elon was some sort of crypto-Nazi helping Trump end democracy? Please. The Tesla Takedown is the “Snow White” of political action.
Now in fairness this may be the start of something bigger in the future, but they have been building this for weeks now. You have to ask, this is all they got?
We have been here before. Leading up to the 2024 election, the Left was quite vocal in stating that Trump was a modern-day Hitler (or at least Caesar) who would end democracy. Given the displays of power the Left showed in 2020, I expected something along the lines of a post-Election color revolution with massive civil unrest; swarms of green-haired librarians and school teachers with a dash of AOC and Anttifa. Nothing happened.
So that leads to the second thought from above, why did nothing happen? Why didn’t the dog bark?
The ability to reflect is a key civic virtue. The use of reason in the form of empiricism, to use experience in order to modify our mental models and understanding of the world us is not just a life tool but a necessity for any functioning society.