How to reverse the "training," the praise and normalization of violence, that, as you say, these folks have been getting? In Italy, Germany, and Japan, only military defeat did the job. I think with luck we might be able to reverse by political means the societal polarization that we've been experiencing. As Lee Drutman argues in his _Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop_ (Oxford, 2022), congressional action to create a version of proportional representation in the House and ranked-choice voting for the House, Senate, and presidency could set free the traditional Republicans who the "winner-take-all" two-party electoral system tends to keep under Trump's thumb. (Or the thumb of whoever is his successor in Republican fascism.) But even if congressional action of this sort was successful (say, after a bloody debacle in 2024), we would still have on our hands thousands if not millions of heavily-armed citizens trained over a decade or more to expect and prepare for a fight.
Mussolini in fascist Italy had his black shirts terrorize and threaten political opponents. And so too does Trump have his version of Mussolini's black shirts. The oath Keepers and Proud Boys are armed white supremacist para military groups. Both groups were ready to overthrow the government in a violent insurrection and even assassinate VP Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi and they nearly did. Make no mistake, both of these groups, under the grip of Trump's authoritarianism represent nothing less than a neo fascistic element dominating today's Republican party.
How to reverse the "training," the praise and normalization of violence, that, as you say, these folks have been getting? In Italy, Germany, and Japan, only military defeat did the job. I think with luck we might be able to reverse by political means the societal polarization that we've been experiencing. As Lee Drutman argues in his _Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop_ (Oxford, 2022), congressional action to create a version of proportional representation in the House and ranked-choice voting for the House, Senate, and presidency could set free the traditional Republicans who the "winner-take-all" two-party electoral system tends to keep under Trump's thumb. (Or the thumb of whoever is his successor in Republican fascism.) But even if congressional action of this sort was successful (say, after a bloody debacle in 2024), we would still have on our hands thousands if not millions of heavily-armed citizens trained over a decade or more to expect and prepare for a fight.
Mussolini in fascist Italy had his black shirts terrorize and threaten political opponents. And so too does Trump have his version of Mussolini's black shirts. The oath Keepers and Proud Boys are armed white supremacist para military groups. Both groups were ready to overthrow the government in a violent insurrection and even assassinate VP Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi and they nearly did. Make no mistake, both of these groups, under the grip of Trump's authoritarianism represent nothing less than a neo fascistic element dominating today's Republican party.