I wish it was just that. Existential threat is the term I'd use at this point.

Republicans are an embarrassment to the country. They've got some understandable gripes, but have been led around by the nose by corporate propaganda for decades. And then they comfort themselves by pointing the ways Democrats are similarly led, but still never perform one iota of self reflection to examine how their own movements invariably end up stillborn.

For example take a core grassroots issue - immigration reform. Slowly building support for decades against the corpo imperative for cheap labor. But after it finally gets critical mass, what does this actually result in? A personal enrichment shakedown dynamic for employers of imported labor, concentration camps, and homicidal gangs of jackboots roaming the streets itching to summarily execute people for exercising their Constitutional/natural rights. All that hard earned political capital squandered on nothing more than a performative con man "for the cause". And in a few years we'll be right back to hearing their pissing and moaning about Democrats being responsible, even though they did it to themselves.

(signed, a libertarian)