I think the likes of QAnon making ground in the US is an inevitability, at least for the time being. It comes down to how far the lefties liberals will be prepared to let that go though. There will be a tipping point eventually.
The point I've made this week on the WEP thread about this accusation about 'women's rights groups being aligned to the far right stands'.
Women's rights groups haven't changed their political positions. They've stood stock still and their messaging is consistent and unwavering throughout this merry shit show - Centre women and children and understand safeguarding principles.
Traditionally they shared the same political space as lefties and liberals.
What happened was they were abandoned and subsequently attacked for not shifting from this position in the name of 'progress' by woke progressive who adopted a hierarchical understanding of identity politics based on ideology rather than practical applications.
When weaknesses in this ideology were exposed, rather than addressing problems the lefties and liberals chose to shout down the women and demonise them for pointing out a problem.
But the problem doesn't go away and it has real world impact. This creates a political vacuum due to a dereliction of duty of care.
This gives rise to right wing opportunists to move unto this political ground as the sense of injustice is ripe to be exploited.
Most women's rights advocates can see this for what it is and they have no desire to change their political allegiances but are forced into a position where they can no longer support their traditional political alignments because they've been abandoned and their concerns dismissed.
A minority will be swayed by far right moves but this can not be blamed and left as the responsibility of women's rights advocates. That firmly rests with the left and liberal power centres which have failed in their duty of care.
This failure of duty of care is real and will persist and won't go away, so there will be an eventual reckoning. Because that's simply how society works. There maybe a cover up, but that still requires an affirmative action by the left and liberals and centres of power to remove the far right squatting on this area of political ground.
This squatting is actually the thing that these politicians are concerned about. Not the actual harms. Because that's how politics works.
Just how and when this all plays out is difficult to know. The US has a bigger problem in terms of how identity is linked to politics. What seems likely to happen in the US to me, is 2 years of the Republican party ripping itself apart with Trump v Desantis for the heart and sole of conservative politics with control of the House being something of a poison chalice. But equally the inability and fear of Desantis will focus Democrats minds.
If Desantis is able to sideline trump sufficiently the Democrats have a problem in 2024. This issue then becomes very central. Especially if lawsuits start to pile up and you have Biden associating with liabilities and parody characters during that time.
What happens with Mermaids in the UK will also send ripples and focus minds in the US despite this rhetoric we currently see.
Mermaids won't change the US dynamics but it certainly will eventually make people start to ask questions. And thats all you need to break the dam (cult), to foster critical thought.
This has some years to run yet as a high profile issue but I think it will start to fade - in part because it will represent such an embarrassing episode, there are vested interests who will seek to ultimately Bury gender identity as something high up the political agenda. Once that starts to happen the social contagion lessens...
I think we have now passed the height of the madness and we are now into the fallout stage though.
We may have a 'relapse' phase yet though (look at all the children who have no support and are now doing x to themselves) with the use of emotional guilt tripping but that will fizzle out if legal proceedings start.