This really tracks for me. I grew up around wealthy liberals and am intimately familiar with how these motherfuckers think. I have been telling my friends for months that we cannot expect the Democratic establishment or our current batch of elected Democratic representatives to address the problem.
- People are like "Don't they understand that it's a war?"
- Most of these people think we're idiots for thinking of it as war.
- Their high spending donors think we're idiots for thinking of it as a war.
- They think Republicans are angry idiots who have to be negotiated with so we can "get on with business."
- They see Republican voters MAGAing and rioting on Jan 6th and they think "What a bunch of yahoos!" (my multimillionaire boomer dad's literal words).
- They see Leftist protests turning out en-masse and they think "What a bunch of yahoos!" (again, my multimillionaire boomer dad's literal words).
My father has literally said about the second Trump presidency.
- "This will all blow over."
- "You just watch, the system will slow all of this down."
See, it's not just our "elected dems in office," who don't seem to get it, it's the entire leftish / center leaning, privileged ass, rich ass, mostly white, mostly older demographic, all comfy with their owning of multiple homes and their inflated stock portfolios and their rubbing shoulders with billionaires. We complain about the "elected dems in office," because we see them out there being like this in public, in the news in front of everybody. But this whole demographic is like this and that's why we keep seeing it.
EDIT:
The only way we'll change this is to STOP ELECTING DEMS FROM THAT DEMOGRAPHIC. They're not "spineless cowards," they just DON'T ACTUALLY REPRESENT YOU. They represent other neolibral rich people (people just like them, in other words). Those people's highest values are
- Stability.
- Business Economics (the price of gas and eggs doesn't really effect them that much).
- Maintaining their comfy "compassionate upper class" culture.
They DO genuinely care about
- Philanthropy (usually of a sort of egocentric variety).
- Social safety nets (most of them genuinely value compassion especially when it doesn't really cost them anything).
- Sound fiscal policy.
- Science (they believe in climate change and worry about their children and grandchildren).
- They LOVE to reassure and prop themselves up by talking about all the good they're able to do because they're rich / influential.
- On that note, they tend to embrace a kind of leftist, New Agey take on Prosperity Gospel and see wealth as something that enables them to do good in the world and help people (See? Greed is GOOD!). Some of that has merit, but it is NOT nearly as true as they tell themselves and others it is.
Faced with chaos and instability they will
- Try to negotiate with the people causing it, to get things "back to normal."
- Compromise with those people to keep things as stable as possible Every. Fucking. Time.
- Run off to meditation retreats and vacation homes and time shares in Hawaii or ritzy parts of Mexico to "find their center."
- Abandon their higher values to circle the wagons around the first, basic three (Stability, Business, Culture).
Importantly,
- They DO NOT see you as being "like them," "their people," or "part of their culture." They're actually VERY aware that you are NOT part of their culture.
- They usually honestly think that that's because they made better choices than you. They ARE able to acknowledge that there are people less fortunate then them, and even that they may have an obligation to these people. But they don't think they OWE you anything.
- When I say culture, I'm not talking about your Italian heritage, your black southern cuisine or how you abuela only speaks Spanish. I'm talking about private school / charter jets / fundraiser dinners / owning a mint condition classic car / keeping your boat in the garage of the OTHER house you own on the same street as your primary home.
- They do not feel obligated to go out of their way to defend your culture. Although if your culture is artistic, entrepreneurial, agitates for social justice, or is tangential to their own religious beliefs (looking at you Buddhism), they might be willing to fund it.
- They DEFINITELY feel entitled to exploit or profit off your culture, if they see an opportunity to do so, and will pat themselves on the back for "the good they're doing in the world" and "how they were able to help people" the WHOLE WAY TO THE BANK.
- This doesn't mean they're bad people or lack compassion for you.
When we're asking our congressmonsters to fight, we're asking them to take up our values in ways that many of them (rightly or wrongly) see as abandoning their own core values. THAT'S why they're angry.
They're NOT cowards. They just don't actually value the same things you do and their core priorities aren't in the same place yours are. They never have been. And as long as we primarily elect Dems from this demographic, they NEVER will be.
spoiler
I made a pretty nasty undead bbeg in a 3.5 game by applying both the lich and vampire templates to a necromancer, then giving him levels of the Vampire Lord prestige class from Libris Mortis. He also had the Swarm Shifter template, with swarm of undead parts. His skull would hover in the middle of basically a whirlwind of bones. I let the skull make Vampire drain attacks too, but also it was vulnerable to PCs trying to target it directly.
The nastiest thing about him though was how many other undead he could control.