You can't have a democracy if you can't hold it accountable. Violence is the last option, of course. But it must be an option in the face of the threat of more violence. Fascists will always exploit this weakness in liberalism.
Republicans aren't actually pro small government/freedom. That's all just opposition rhetoric. When they are in power, it's as much government in your face as possible.
Democracy isn't government on cruise control. Democracy is a responsibility. Blaming politicians isn't going to change the fact that it is not institutions that uphold democracy. It's the people.
So yeah, ultimately the people failed themselves. Some people just need to learn the hard way. If that is the only way these people will learn, why try to stop them from getting their lessons?
Americans are basically spoiled children. Never experienced government hardship. Why expect them to understand the value of what they have that prevents the hardship?
This may or may not be relevant to you or other's situations but Trevor Noah had some great advice: watch the news no more than once, maybe twice a week. That's all you really need to stay informed. More than that is just doom scrolling endless speculation pieces. This is exhausting.
Use this energy to get involved locally. You can't personally affect things in Washington (and accept this), but you can have an effect locally.
We are in uncharted territory here. There is no crystal ball for what comes next.
That being said, this is not sustainable. Society is a contract. The contract goes away when parties to that contract begin to disagree on what that contract says, and that is inevitable when people are fed garbage without results. Most empires have collapsed under their own weight. I suspect this will happen to the US as well, which has always been the purpose of all this disinformation: not to consolidate power into a dictator, but instead to sow division, and rip apart the social contract. The fact that Americans are so polarized is proof of that division. You ask if people will ever wake up. Clearly half the the US has.
The only question is how that collapse will happen, and how peacefully it might be.
There is still waste involved into putting edible food in the compost. Growing, packaging, and transporting food all consume resources that go to waste if the food is not eaten.
Are unpopped popcorn kernels a significant source of uneaten food? Debatable.
Holding Trump supporters accountable for their actions is the only way forward. There are no more excuses. Every bad thing to happen now moving forwards is 100% on Trump supporters AND complacent bystanders who chose not to take a stand. It was plain for everyone to see. Repudiate fascism and the toxicity plaguing the country at every opportunity.
I get how you feel, and I desperately want to feel the same way. But we aren't going to win people over back to the rational side with this attitude. It just feeds into the tribalism and makes the problem worse.
We need to empathize with the other side, which means start by listening to their concerns, and then the moment they feel listened too, we have to completely repudiate the awful stances they believe in, shut down their flawed logic and force them to face facts and reality: one human being to another.
This is brain washing remedy 101. Did we all forget the painfull lessons we learned through the first Trump Presidency? I feel like we have all collectively forgotten that period in time.
You can't have a democracy if you can't hold it accountable. Violence is the last option, of course. But it must be an option in the face of the threat of more violence. Fascists will always exploit this weakness in liberalism.