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America is well past the point where any of this is going to end without gunfire. So yeah. Leftists, it's time to admit that MAGA doesn't give a shit about your "protests" or your "letters to your representative". Protests only work if the person you're protesting gives a shit what you think.

It's time to get your guns. Mussolini didn't end up hanging upside down in an Italian town square because of protests.

To rephrase this line
Protests only work if the person you're protesting gives a shit what you think.
Protests only work when you directly affect their vested interests. They don't care about you or what you think. Period. Yet, they do care about something.
Organize. Find out what those vested interests are. Hold them hostage. Create the credible threat that if they do not start representing our interests, as is their assumed role of the position they have been appointed to, then we will royally fuck it up and hit them where it hurts.
Then, it doesn't matter if they care what we think, we have established our authority and made it known that it will be enforced with immediate consequences. If they want their authority as a government official then they will respect our authority as their constituency or else.
Most of all, be prepared for them to retaliate and defend their interests. To deter us and threaten us to stand down. These are the times in history where we can't back down. We cannot give in to them just to save our own skin when it comes at the cost of, if allowed to continue, the skins of millions of others under the boot of their oppression.
We fight and stand our ground knowing that we may possibly die, but also possibly survive and save millions of lives, or we do nothing, let millions fall to their atrocities, until they finally turn their sights on us and we die with regret that we didn't even attempt to stop them.
They can't do this without us so, if they want to go this route, we need to be ready to sink the whole goddamn ship so they don't get their cake and eat it too. Mutually assured destruction is not just a nuclear deterrent. The best part is, us workers can rebuild. We built this all to begin with. The owning class assholes, if they get rid of us, will live out their final moments in a burned out husk surrounded by resources with no ability to use them. They will be Kings of nothing, to die of thirst surrounded by water with nothing but their imaginary wealth to keep them company.
Mussolini didn’t end up hanging upside down in an Italian town square because of protests.
While you're right that the people who killed Mussolini were armed dissidents, it's worth remembering that he was allowed to be taken after being deposed after a vote of no confidence from the fascist government of Italy after they got their shit kicked in a few times militarily, and it was the King who removed and presumably arrested him before the citizens did their thing.
And also, the Allies were plowing a path of destruction towards Italy.
Moral of the story: no great story is as simple as we need it to be. There is still politics, there are still decisions by the ruling class that allow the next steps to happen and that ruling class can have their will bent. We still need to be involved in the political system, armed mobs cause as much harm as good even in the best of circumstances, so we want to avoid that if possible, but we need to also have that force behind us or the politics won't work.
- The calm that washes over me when I see people just casually talking sense on the internet

Lefties can have all the guns they want. The debate can be held unrestricted. AI driven drones will disperse any militia decisively.

It won't be done with militia. These guys are likely to just get Luigi'ed.
Probably not AI driven since that still sucks ass, but yes, remotely operated drones are the future/present of urban warfare.

US people ☕️

Mag dumping each other for fun and profit.

I don't believe in the horse shoe theory except when it comes to gun owners larping about rising up against the government.

Rising up against the government is a LARPy roleplay fantasy by people who don't have community or culture.
However, making your insane, fascist government think twice before knocking down random doors in random neighborhoods lest they face a hail of gunfire, that is almost a necessity right now.
This country has too much wealth and resources that a lot of people would love to control, Trump is just the first to succeed at getting into the vault, but there have been many, many others who would have taken the US by force from within given the means.
Yes, better social policies and better international relations would have done a better job mitigating that, but we didn't get that, so here we are. Huddled behind our weapons and hoping they scare the monsters enough that they leave us alone.

Actual leftists have always been pro gun though...

Yes, Karl Marx wrote:
"Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary."
"To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party [bourgeois], the workers must be armed and organized."
- This is going over a lot better than when I said it, in progressivepolitics@lemmy.world no less. What a difference a month makes these days, I suppose.
  https://sh.itjust.works/comment/19935457