There was certainly a meaningful choice, but it was between status quo conservatism where the plebs get thrown a few bones but no overall reform to ever-ratcheting corporate control, and spiteful populist destructive rage taking for granted everything we still do enjoy. Spite won. It's hard to tell if another Trump term will be merely another standard of living haircut via rampant inflation and corporate giveaways, or the actual end of US hegemony and western society, because the guy is a verbal diarrhea chameleon. But we as a society have bought the ticket, so I guess we're taking the ride regardless.
It is unfortunate that we didn't have a Luigi Mangione a few years ago, and maybe a few copy cats. Not because escalating to that type of accountability dynamic is something to be celebrated, but rather because the wide outpouring of understanding is the type of unifying pressure relief valve our society desperately needs, instead of being divided and conquered by different flavors of authoritarianism.
It is unfortunate that we didn't have a Luigi Mangione a few years ago, and maybe a few copy cats. Not because escalating to that type of accountability dynamic is something to be celebrated, but rather because the wide outpouring of understanding is the type of unifying pressure relief valve our society desperately needs, instead of being divided and conquered by different flavors of authoritarianism.