All people have some degree of racist tendencies - regardless of gender, sex, color, etc. And criminal tendencies. And other tendencies.

And what actual consequences will be applied that impact one group or another tend to go in cycles/pendulum back and forth (and hence impact what percent of the population is going to do x, and how many will see real consequences for those actions).

That is because when one group overdoes it (or is perceived to), enough people get tired of that group/outraged, and then things shift. And these patterns tend to be on coarse criteria like gender/sex/color/race/language, etc. because the most brazen users of any sort of shitty force/violence/shaming/whatever are exactly the type of people who are the shittiest. And every group of people have a percent that is shitty.

For instance, for many years now shame has been a major consequence, along with legal action.

So eventually, we end up with a group/leader essentially immune to shame and legal action, who is now going to use do all sorts of shameless and illegal things. Really, a large group of people like that. And who don’t mind violence (or the threat of it) as a potential consequence.

Eventually, being a shameless crook will fall out of fashion (or will have finally hurt/pissed off enough people), and another counter group will rise to take it’s place.

Often, when it gets particularly ugly/strong in one direction or another, there is also a corresponding backlash against the particularly strong users of the prior ‘fashion’ of power.

Sometimes beheadings, or ostracizing, or legal harassment, or whatever.

Weinstein getting what he got (as deserved as it was), was one swing. We’ll see who gets this next counter reaction.

Why do you think the dems and tech companies are going out of their way to be as friendly to the incoming admin as they are? They know the score, and are trying to avoid getting whacked.

Or, to quote an old western - ‘Deserve has nothing to do with it’.

Yes. Probably multiple lifetimes. This is why I say that real change takes generations.

You cannot have a democracy and rapid social change to your preferred specs. You can either strip the people who hold reprehensible beliefs of the vote, or you can work diligently over generations to change the culture. But as long as you have a democracy, you will never be able to create change that sticks by simply wielding the power temporarily granted to you.

Wield that power too forcefully, and you'll get pushback, and unsavory politicians will ride that pushback to power. When that happens, as you observe, a lot of what was previously accomplished is undone.

I believe that democracy is the greatest good progressivism has ever accomplished. I'm not willing to sacrifice democracy in order to speed up the rate of change, even if it means that people suffer in the short term. And because I believe in democracy, I cannot support the heavy-handed use of power to try to force people to change. Not for their sakes, but because it simply doesn't work. As long as those people have the vote, they will resent you for your use of power and be able to strip it from you. That's the lesson of 2024.

That's not to say we can't do anything while in power, but it must be done with an eye towards the next century, not just the next election cycle.

> The trap is to see it as a one way ratchet, when in reality it comes and go, and the groups with the most power can revert decades of progress in a snap of finger.

The trap is accidentally triggering a reactionary movement by moving too hard too fast. Reactionaries aren't called that by accident—they react. It is within the power of progressives to avoid triggering them by staying within (whilst steadily changing) the national Overton window.