[inDheart]

i would say a true leftist movement found the realest candidate they could back in 2016 and 2020 in bernie sanders (and also warren this year), but there's been a lot of money poured into the democratic rank and file, and deals cut with many of the other candidates in the presidential primary. money also makes it hard for any other political party to really emerge here, so all the talk of "if black lives matter is a political party" etc etc doesn't really matter

right-wing white supremacist groups continue to top the lists of domestic terror risks, and three (as of today!!!) plots to kidnap governors have been infiltrated and nudged along by the FBI only to be foiled as they reach fruition. there are even gun nuts who'd be happy to see a civil war strike up, here, and they get police protection when they're in the city (which they often bait, but even when they don't, it's like they have special privileges)

when crush 40 (i think?) sings "trust me and we will escape from this city" it's established that there is a significant and violent presence in the city that sonic is in, but really that's all of the circumstances he knows at the time. so even though he's leaving, the small team they maintain need to investigate the story as they eventually learn they need to protect the president, who seems generally uninvolved. now, even though failure to stop the finalhazard would entail destroying a fair amount of the fascist offensive on earth, by then they have identified the problem. SA2 is all about learning and acting on evolving information. it's absolutely an antifa story that turns into PROTECT EARTH once the relevant parts of earth to sonicland are no longer fascist. yeet