Reports of right-wing death squads have been greatly exaggerated. Many people particularly on the left are genuinely concerned about the recent election of Donald Trump, a cultural shift towards the right, and fears of people expressing viewpoints they don't agree with. While Trump does represent a threat to the deep state and its establishment bureaucracy, he will not be able to act with the people's interest at heart, even for his own supporters. In other words, the establishment can not be relied upon to dismantle the establishment. Some of you reading this may be cheering on the side of the political left, but my goal isn't to persuade anyone of my opinions but to predict reality.
The inability of the left to understand the right, but not vice-versa, has lead to mass delusions and strawman arguments against things like Project 2025, foreign collusion with Russia and China, etc. Even the attempted assassinations on Donald Trump, are perceived by the left as being staged (by the very deep state that tried to kill him in the first place), or actually carried out by lone gunmen who were mentally disturbed. Understanding the mass psychology of the left, requires an honest examination of the history of their political philosophy.
Convergence on authoritarianism
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Most political parties will try to seize political power to exert their will onto others, with exceptions for fringe parties like minarchists, libertarians, etc. The left has been ideologically captured by authoritarians, very different from left anarchists like Mikhail Bakunin. To be fair, small government probably wouldn't be very effective in exerting force on its own citizens. That is to say, they believe in the use of force to achieve their ends: forced equality, redistributive justice, reparations, or more generally, the dictatorship of the proletariat. Their denunciation of violence is performative, because ultimately political power must be backed by the threat of violence. They are not opposed to the use of state violence when the victims are their political opponents, but decry when violence is used against themselves.
The heavy-handed de jure enforcement of ideology requires a top-heavy, administrative, bureaucratic state. This is the actual end goal, rather than the stated goals of civil rights, freedom from discrimination, equitable outcomes, etc. The growth of bullshit jobs, particularly in corporate administration and government, is a direct consequence of demanding that the government intervene in our daily lives. There are also right wing authoritarians with similar end goals, but by and large, leftists have completely shifted towards the establishment. Ted Kaczynski described the subversion of what he calls the "power process" in Industrial Society and Its Future, where leftists who think they are protesting against the establishment, are actually controlled opposition in service of the establishment.
This is not to say that left authoritarianism is totally bad, it can be objectively good for the people, in cases like China where the government actively works to build infrastructure for its people, and even foreigners with the Belt and Road initiative. However, the US government can not even build a railroad with ten billion dollars, let alone provide adequate healthcare for everyone, or secure national borders. But they absolutely can use their resources to attempt to overthrow foreign governments and propagandize their own populace.
The inability to protest
Nominally, US citizens have the right to protest granted by the 1st amendment. However, it would be insane to think that the same entity which grants the right to protest against itself, wouldn't want to deny that right. The political prisoners being held for the Capitol insurrection on January 6th are still being held in contempt of due process. In less high profile cases, they could hold people in secret jails or black sites, in completely covert operations.
The government has many levers it can pull to effectively squash dissent, long before armed conflict arises. While having access to firearms makes it much more difficult for government to crush people by force, there are many more ways to crush people's spirits. In the Canadian trucker protests of 2022, the government seized vehicles, arrested protesters, and debanked them. Debanking, and civil asset forfeiture, turns the presumption of innocence around to the presumption of guilt: assets are seized immediately and without conviction.
Oppressive regimes such as the current US federal government are rarely toppled by bottom-up violent revolution, they can use raw power to intimidate anyone who tries to oppose them. In fact if you aren't being hunted down by the government, odds are you are not a threat to them. This is something that most leftists fail to understand: if you don't face persecution from above for what you say, odds are what you are saying is socially normative.
In modern society, most people are dependent on the power grid, financial institutions, postal services, landlords, etc. Even if you think you don't have a landlord, your landlord is the government. Most people are dependent on institutions which are controlled directly or indirectly by the government. Someone who is thinking of toting around a rifle to defend themselves against the government, will likely be kicked out of their homes before that happens, and live as an outlaw on top of being hunted by federal agents, which most people aren't willing to do. The US is already far past the threshold of ruling with consent of the governed, but that is no longer relevant.
Elite defection
People living through the late Soviet Union in the 1980s thought that although the system did not benefit them, it would continue to outlast them, with almost no one predicting that it would collapse as quickly as it did in 1991. The system collapsing in itself can only happen quickly when those inside the system turn against it, out of their own self-interests. Elite defection against the status quo is usually one of the later stages of a society in collapse.
Revolution is one of the most least likely outcomes, because most people are unwilling to take any real risks unless they are out of options, and with the modern surveillance apparatus, dissenters can easily be targeted and removed from the population with no legal recourse. The tech panopticon pre-emptively nullifies any rebellion by the people, they know what you are thinking and can predict and subvert anything with the critical lens of an intelligence agent, with the aid of machine learning.
The US has on paper a two-party system, but behind them both are the same corporate interests, foreign lobbyists, and shady éminence grise. Odds are if you are politically active, you are either a useful idiot of the establishment elite, or you will suffer greatly and unjustly, sometimes both. Both sides may think they are oppressed for their political beliefs, whether it is performative or real, it only serves the elite to turn one side against the other.
The way that Donald Trump has been treated by the establishment, via lawfare, deplatforming, assassination attempts, propaganda, attacks on his family, is a sure sign that he is a defecting elite. None of his political enemies find themselves in such dire situations. The deep state doth protest too much, methinks. However, it would be naïve to assume that he is acting with the people's interest at heart. The US federal government would rather turn the military on its own populace than give up power, the only way that there can be a peaceful transition of power would be if the elites decided that it does not serve their own interests.