I bet pardoning the 1/6ers qualifies as giving aid and comfort.

In the US the ruling party fills lifetime judicial appointments, which means the 4 years of conservative rule can have decades of lasting impact that will thwart any progressive policies that the next leftish government tries to implement.

I’m a pretty progressive guy and I don’t think there’s much in here to disagree with. The only nit I would pick is that inertia isn’t a great argument to keep things the way they are. That is, “we’ve always done it this way” isn’t a great reason to do anything.

Your framing of conservatism is in line with the Eisenhower era when we weren’t linked into this existential crisis about the concept of governance. But for the last twenty years (at least) the American right has been against the very idea that the government should govern.

The left is trying to argue about who it should serve, taking its existence as a precondition, and the right is trying to dismantle it without regard for who it serves. As a result, we’re pretty much irrecoverably talking past each other.

I think that’s setting the context for the claims they make, not a claim in itself.

The Darkness.

Also, Prototype, but someone already mentioned that.

It’s probably compressing or resizing before upload.