The Cost of Hyper-Tolerance — Part 2

How 150 Years of Hyper-Tolerance Built the Nightmare We Face Today

Nov 27, 2025

We’ve documented the crimes. The extrajudicial executions. The ethnic cleansing. The torture prisons. The disappearances. The illegal tariffs. The pedophile protection. The brazen corruption.

And now comes the predictable response: “Can’t we just move forward?”

Some will counsel healing. Others will talk about unity. Many will say we need to look ahead, not back. They’ll warn that demanding accountability is “too extreme,” that it risks a “spiral of retaliation,” that we should take the “safe path.”

They’re the same voices that have counseled restraint for over 150 years. And those 150+ years brought us here—to extrajudicial killings, ethnic cleansing, and systematic corruption.

It’s time to be honest about why the “safe path” has failed, and why maximum accountability is the only viable option left.

The Paradox of Tolerance

Before we trace that pattern, we need to understand the framework. Karl Popper had it right: unlimited tolerance leads to the disappearance of tolerance itself.1 If we tolerate the intolerant—if we allow fascists to operate freely in the name of civility—we hand them the tools to destroy democracy. They don’t respect norms. They don’t play by rules. They weaponize our tolerance against us.

But here’s where people get confused. They think “don’t tolerate intolerance” means “don’t tolerate anything I disagree with.” Wrong. This is not about silencing good-faith disagreement. This is about refusing to tolerate bad-faith predators.

Tolerate this:

Christians who feed the hungry and shelter the stranger
People expressing their culture and traditions—yes, including white Americans celebrating their heritage
Organizations doing genuine charity work
Good-faith actors who disagree on policy but operate within democratic norms

Do not tolerate this:

Mega-churches that enrich owners while doing virtually no charity, serving only as political power engines
White supremacy disguised as “cultural pride”—the kind that seeks to disenfranchise, exclude, and deport people based on ethnicity
Those who weaponize religion, culture, or tradition for power and profit
Bad-faith actors using democratic systems to destroy democracy itself

The line is clear. One side operates in good faith. The other side is predatory. Trump and his enablers are predatory. And we have been hyper-tolerant of predators.

This Is Christian Nationalism and White Supremacy

Let’s be clear about what we’re actually facing. The Trump administration’s atrocities aren’t random acts of cruelty. They’re not aberrations. They’re the deliberate execution of Christian Nationalist and White Supremacist ideology.

The boat strikes killing 79-83 people? White Supremacy. Targeting brown-skinned people from Latin America and the Caribbean without evidence, without trial, without due process. The message: non-white lives are disposable.

The CECOT deportations? White Supremacy. 238 people—at least 130 with no criminal convictions, over 60 Venezuelans seeking asylum legally—disappeared into torture prisons. Not because they committed crimes. Because they’re immigrants. Because they’re brown. Because Christian Nationalism demands ethnic purity.

Alligator Alcatraz? White Supremacy. 250+ detainees with no criminal records. DACA recipients who grew up here. 1,200 people disappeared from databases. Ethnic cleansing dressed up as immigration enforcement.

But wait—what about Maxwell/Epstein and the crypto corruption?

Surely protecting a convicted child sex trafficker and cutting shady crypto deals with foreign billionaires aren’t examples of White Supremacy or Christian Nationalism. Right?

On the surface, that may seem the case. But look closer.

In 2022, the Southern Baptist Convention was exposed for spending decades hiding hundreds of pastors who had sexually assaulted members of their congregations—including children.2 Hundreds of predators. Protected by the institution. Exposed only when investigators forced the truth into the light. The largest Protestant denomination in America ran a systematic coverup of child sexual abuse.

And here’s the part that should make your blood boil: In 2013—six years after they started maintaining their secret list of predators—the SBC passed an official resolution calling on Southern Baptists to “cooperate fully with law enforcement officials in exposing and bringing to justice all perpetrators.”3 They resolved to “stand with our Lord Jesus in loving and protecting children.” While hiding 700 predators. They stood before God and lied. These are the same Christian Nationalists protecting Ghislaine Maxwell and all the other monsters involved with Epstein.

Look at mega-churches that fleece their parishioners—private jets, mansions, luxury cars—while doing virtually no charitable work. Look at televangelists who preach prosperity gospel while their followers struggle to pay rent.

This is the pattern. Protecting and rewarding a hierarchy of powerful, connected individuals—almost always men—even when they prey on their own followers. Especially when they prey on their own followers. Because the hierarchy itself is sacred. The powerful are chosen by God. To hold them accountable is to question the divine order.

That has been the defining characteristic of fundamentalist Christianity for centuries. The flock exists to serve the shepherd. The shepherd answers to no one.

Maxwell and the crypto corruption aren’t disconnected from Christian Nationalism. They mirror its function. They operate by the same logic: the powerful protect the powerful. Predators shield predators. And anyone who questions the arrangement is the real enemy.

Trump isn’t protecting Maxwell because she’s useful to some explicit Christian Nationalist agenda. He’s protecting her because that’s what this system does. The powerful don’t face consequences. That’s the rule. Christian Nationalism didn’t invent this—but it sanctifies it. It wraps the protection of predators in the language of faith. It makes hierarchy holy.

The crypto corruption works the same way. Trump isn’t looting the country for Christian Nationalism. He’s looting it because oligarchy and Christian Nationalism share the same architecture: a small group of chosen men at the top, everyone else beneath them, and accountability flowing only upward to God—never downward to the people.

So yes: the Maxwell protection and crypto corruption are connected to Christian Nationalism. Not in their specific details. In their structure. In their logic. In the fundamental belief that some people are above consequences.

And it is no wonder that the party calling itself “Christian”—the party where members now proudly declare themselves Christian Nationalists—finds itself defending both the protection of pedophiles AND the exploitation of crypto scams. This is not a contradiction. This is the ideology working as designed. Hierarchy. Protection of the powerful. Consequences for thee, immunity for me.

Let me be clear: I am not condemning all Christians. I’m no longer religious myself, but I find the Christianity prescribed by Jesus—feed the hungry, shelter the stranger, heal the sick, blessed are the poor—perfectly tolerable. More than tolerable. Admirable. That Christianity calls us to serve the vulnerable, not exploit them.

But that is not the Christianity of the Republican Party.

Republican Christianity starves the poor and calls it “fiscal responsibility.” It evicts the homeless and calls it “law and order.” It leaves the sick to die and calls it “freedom.” It rips children from their parents and cages them and calls it “border security.” And all the while, it enriches and protects the most powerful—the predators, the grifters, the billionaires—and calls it “God’s blessing.”

That’s not Christianity. That’s Christian Nationalism. And Christian Nationalism is just White Supremacy in a choir robe.

That’s the ideology we must dismantle.

And here’s the thing: We’ve been here before.

The Pattern Since Reconstruction: 150+ Years of Hyper Tolerance Leading to Atrocity

Let’s be brutally honest about what the “middle path” has accomplished. The template was set after the Civil War.

After the Confederacy lost, we chose reconciliation over accountability. We let Confederate leaders back into power. We withdrew federal troops. We looked forward, not back. We called it “healing the nation.” We called it “binding up the wounds.” That choice gave us the KKK. Jim Crow. A century of lynchings. Systematic disenfranchisement. Domestic terrorism. State-sanctioned apartheid. The failure to hold the Confederacy accountable didn’t prevent violence—it guaranteed it. It didn’t heal the nation—it condemned Black Americans to generations of terror.

That was the moment. That was when we established the pattern: when those in power commit atrocities, we choose unity over justice. And every subsequent generation has repeated the same mistake.

After Watergate, we chose healing. Ford pardoned Nixon “for the good of the country.” We moved on. That taught Republicans the president is above the law. After the 2000 election—where the Supreme Court handed Bush the presidency in a nakedly partisan decision—we chose unity. Gore conceded for the good of the country. We moved forward. That taught them courts can be weaponized for partisan ends without consequence.

After the Iraq War—built on lies, resulting in hundreds of thousands dead—we chose to look forward, not back. No prosecutions for torture. No accountability for war crimes. “We don’t look backward,” Obama said. That taught them you can lie us into wars, commit war crimes, and face zero consequences. After the 2008 financial crisis—where fraud crashed the global economy—we bailed out the banks and prosecuted almost no one. That taught them you can loot the entire country and walk away rich.

After 2016, when McConnell stole a Supreme Court seat by refusing to hold hearings for Merrick Garland, we accepted it. “We’ll fight harder next time.” That taught them you can shatter constitutional norms and face zero consequences. After January 6, 2021, we prosecuted the foot soldiers. We held hearings. We documented everything. Real accountability, achieved through the system. Then Trump pardoned them all on day one.

Every single time—for 150+ years—we chose the “safe” path. We avoided the “extreme” response. We feared the spiral more than we feared the cancer.

And every single time, they learned the lesson: Crime pays. Norm-breaking works. Accountability is optional. The spiral we fear? We’re already in it. It’s been spiraling since Reconstruction. Each cycle, they go further. Each cycle, the cost of our tolerance grows. Reconstruction’s failure gave us a century of lynchings. Our modern failures gave us CECOT deportations, boat strikes killing 79-83 people, 1,200 people disappeared from databases. Those aren’t hypothetical future harms from some retaliation spiral—those are the consequences of the spiral we’re already in.

The question isn’t whether we risk starting a spiral. The spiral started 150 years ago. The question is whether we finally stop it.

Why “Moving Forward” Cannot Work

The fundamental problem is this: You cannot rely solely on in-system solutions for problems created by weaponizing the system against itself. When Trump abused constitutional powers to erase accountability—using the pardon power not for mercy but to reward insurrection, defying court orders, committing crimes against humanity—he created a problem the system cannot solve from within. We prosecuted January 6 insurrectionists through the system. He pardoned them using a power the Founders never intended for this purpose: blanket immunity for political allies who showed zero contrition, who were proud of attacking the Capitol. Technically legal. Fundamentally a perversion. The accountability was reversible; the corruption of the pardon power is not.

This is the halting problem of constitutional abuse: a finite rulebook can never anticipate every way a bad-faith actor might twist or break it. Once they step outside the bounds to undermine the system itself, the Constitution is being asked to “solve” a problem defined by people who are vandalizing the rulebook. Republicans broke outside the bounds. We have to step outside those bounds long enough to put them back in place. That’s not destroying the system. That’s defending it.

The game theory is equally clear: when one side defects repeatedly without consequence, they learn to defect more. The only way to restore cooperation is to impose real costs on defection. Calling that “a spiral” confuses cause and effect—the spiral started the moment we decided there would never be a meaningful price for breaking the deal.

Yes, Republicans might escalate when they regain power. But that’s precisely what they’ve already been doing—that’s what the last 150 years prove. And they’re not escalating because of some backlash to accountability; they’re escalating because we refused to impose it. They’re already committing crimes against humanity. They’re already looting the country. They’re already weaponizing every institution. What exactly are we preserving by continuing to tolerate this?

The question isn’t whether they’ll retaliate if we hold them accountable. The question is whether we face that retaliation after establishing accountability or after surrendering it.

The Political Reality

Here’s what the numbers show: Trump’s approval with independents is -40 to -46 points. His overall approval is 38-41%. Democrats didn’t lose 6 million voters in 2024 because they were “too extreme.” They lost them because they were perceived as too weak. The base stayed home because they didn’t see Democrats willing to fight.

During the 2025 government shutdown, when Democrats held firm for 43 days, they won 100% of contested races. Voters rewarded strength. Internal polling consistently shows: Democrats poll poorly not because voters think they’re too aggressive, but because voters think they won’t fight for anything.

Maximum accountability, framed as righteousness and justice, will mobilize more voters than it alienates. The disaffected will return when they see politics matters. Independents disgusted by Trump will show up for justice. The gains will outweigh any incremental right-wing mobilization—which is already maxed out.

And if that’s wrong? If Americans truly backlash against accountability at the scale Trump pursued criminality? Then we’ve already lost at a much deeper level. If showing Americans the truth—79-83 fishermen killed without trial, 238 asylum seekers tortured in concrete cells, the continued protection of child sex traffickers, the country looted through crypto corruption—if showing them all that and demanding accountability results in backlash, then we have a societal problem that goes beyond politics. We have an absence of ethics and morality. We have a population that rewards criminality over justice. And if that’s who we are, then no system can save us. The American Experiment is already a failure; we’re just lying to ourselves about it.

The Choice We Face

Here’s the real choice:

Option A: Continue “looking forward”

Accept that Trump’s ill-gotten gains stand
Hope reforms prevent future abuses
Trust that next time will be different
Watch the cancer metastasize

This is the path we’ve taken for 150 years. It gave us January 6. It gave us CECOT. It gave us extrajudicial killings. It gave us systematic corruption. It doesn’t work. It has never worked. It will never work.

Option B: Maximum accountability

Comprehensive clawback of all gains—political and financial
Proportionate consequences at every level
Aggressive delivery on what people need
Count on Americans to reward justice

This is untested. It’s bold. It’s “extreme.” It’s also the only path that might actually stop the cycle. If it fails—if Americans reject it, if retaliation spirals out of control—we’ll have learned something fundamental: that we’re broken at a level no system can fix. But at least we’ll have tried. At least we’ll have tested whether decency can still anchor our politics.

The “middle path” is surrender disguised as prudence. Every argument against maximum accountability boils down to: “We shouldn’t hold criminals accountable because they might commit more crimes.” That’s not a functional justice system. That’s not a sustainable democracy. That’s already defeat.

The article follows below, but first:

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The Ultimate Test

Unless you believe Americans are rotten beyond repair, maximum accountability is the only logical path. Because if we believe in the possibility of American decency—if we believe people can distinguish between killing fishermen and prosecuting killers—then we must give them that choice clearly and boldly. If we give up on accountability without even trying—out of fear of what might happen—we’ve already surrendered our right to self-determination. We’re admitting we’re incapable of doing what’s right. We’re admitting we don’t deserve democracy because we’re too afraid to defend it.

And if Americans choose wrong? If they reward retaliation over righteousness after being shown the full truth? Then we get what we deserve. But I’m betting—I have to bet—that when confronted with reality, Americans will choose correctly. Not because history guarantees it. But because the only alternative is accepting that we’re already beyond saving.

This is the moment. This is the choice. 150+ years of hyper-tolerance brought us here. Another 150 years of tolerance will bring something worse—guaranteed. The cancer doesn’t stop growing because you ask nicely. It doesn’t disappear because you ignore it. Accountability is the surgery. We either perform it now, or we die on the table.

We’ve shown why accountability is not optional. We’ve traced the 150-year pattern that brought us here. We’ve made the case that “moving forward” is surrender disguised as prudence.

But what does accountability actually look like? How comprehensive must it be? What must we do at the national level—and what must each of us do personally?

That’s what we’ll tackle in Part 3: the accountability we must exact.

The historical case is made. The pattern is clear. But now comes the hard part: deciding what we’re willing to do about it. What level of discomfort we’re willing to endure. What sacrifices we’re willing to make. Whether we’re ready to be as serious about accountability as they’ve been about escaping it.

Part 3 drops tomorrow and will lay out exactly what accountability must look like—at every level.

Your Move

The historical pattern is clear. The case is made. But I want to hear from you:

What’s your answer to those who say “this is too extreme”? How do you make the case that we’re already in the spiral we fear?
Which historical failure of accountability resonates most with you? Reconstruction? Watergate? January 6? What pattern do you see?
If we fail to exact accountability now, what do you think comes next? What does the next cycle of this spiral look like?

Part 3 drops [DATE] and will lay out exactly what accountability must look like—at every level. But your perspective matters.