And through inaction said public is consenting to be ruled by nasty Christian predators.
How (and/or what) should thoughtful people think about the public’s consent to be ruled by elite Epstein class pedophiles?

The world isn’t quite as black and white as you want to make it out. And the range of possible responses do not exist in isolation.
Let’s start with the absurd response of “Annie, grab your gun and let’s go overthrow the government”. This would stupid on so many levels. First and foremost is the simple unlikelihood of success. While the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan have demonstrated that the overwhelming force of the US Military has problems dealing with a dedicated insurgency, such insurgencies require a fanatical level of dedication on the part of the insurgents. Do you really think you and a million of your closest friends area ready to get blown apart by an Apache Gunship to force Trump out of office? So this is just a dumb idea.

Moving on, you could always just go for targeted assassinations. You can be John Wilkes Booth all over again, though I don’t suspect Trump is as much a fan of live plays as Lincoln was. Maybe stalk him to a McDonalds? Ignoring all the logistical issues of actually getting to and assassinating a sitting President, it’s not like you would get much done. JD Vance isn’t all that much better (couches everywhere beware!), and the GOP has demonstrated that they are quite willing to keep coughing up horrible people for leadership positions. Really, the problem here is that we have a very divided country at the moment and a significant enough part of the electorate is just fine with a rapist, pedophile grifter as President.

So, let’s take political violence off the table. The best outcome it offers is a civil war with maybe your side winning and maybe the US under the direct control of Ya’ll Qaeda. Or worse, a balkanized US locked in a modern version of the Hundred Years War.

That leaves us with civil disobedience, general strikes and other protests. And I don’t want to downplay the impact these things can have; however, the US is a large, diverse place. A general strike in one State is unlikely to have a major impact in another. And coordinating a general strike across the entire US is very, very hard. Maybe that is the answer to your question, but the fact that it hasn’t been done yet lends some credence to the idea that it’s not really possible. If you think this is what is needed, then by all means, get out and start trying to organize one. Or work with existing groups to try and get one going, I wish you the best of luck, but I’m not going to be putting money down on your chances of success. Protests and civil disobedience can get attention, though that will only get you so far.

All that above leaves the quiver pretty empty. And I’m going to point out the answer you don’t want to hear and will complain about: organize, advocate and vote when the option becomes available. Yes, the GOP has been running full throttle trying to hijack elections. And working within the American Democracy is slow, marginally effective at best and endlessly frustrating. But, unless you think you have the gumption to win a civil war (you almost certainly don’t), this is the system of government for the United States for the foreseeable future. It’s a terrible system, but better than the other stuff humans have tried.

Of course, that means you are also stuck in the situation of “through inaction said public is consenting to be ruled by nasty Christian predators”. And that is partly true. One of the downsides of democracy and elections is that the people you disagree with will occasionally get into power and be able to push their ideas on society. That’s part of what it means to live in a functioning democracy. That the whole thing doesn’t devolve into civil war the minute one side or the other loses. We have boundaries written into law which define exactly how far any one party can go in implementing its agenda while in power. And we have some levers for the out of power party to push back on. But, the system is built on the idea that the peaceful transfer of power between parties who disagree is a far sight better than the non-peaceful transfer of power whenever one side of the other manages to out-violence the other.

So ya, I hate that it’s true, but since I value a stable democracy, I consent to the orange shit running the country. Because the alternative isn’t some left-wing utopia, it’s constant civil war. If we want our country to look more like a left-wing utopia, we need to win enough people over to our ideas and implement those ideas when we hold power. It’s not hopeless, and it all entirely possible. But, it’s easy to just complain, give up and scream into the void that “voting never fixes anything”. But cynicism doesn’t solve problems, hard work does. And hard work isn’t fun, it isn’t sexy and it doesn’t play well on social media.

I think rather than revise up how comfortable you think most people are with the current leadership, you should revise down how much “consent” you believe is actually required from the governed by their governors and how comfortable you think the average person was historically with their leadership.

Thoughtful people understand the public doesn’t think about any of this.

What do you mean by consent?

Its not a question of consent.

Trump has been elected to govern the US as President.

Plenty of people dont want that but its not a question of consent. Its a question of whether theyre angry enough to strike or revolt. The answer is: theyre not.

I feel obligated to point out that while Trumps sex crimes are the most emotive, the scale is far less than the harm hes doing through war, and his fraudulent self enriching behavior.

I dont want to diminish the suffering of the girls he and others assaulted, and those victims absolutely do deserve their abusers to face justice.

However, the scale of their suffering is dwarved by the transfer of wealth that is happening, and the harm caused by the war in the middle east.

Public rarely consent with the government. Government keep its power with force. You need no less than revolution to change the government. Democracy mostly just shuffles names (ok, now it’s your turn to rob those peons, colleague) but don’t change the system.

Consent = approve = eh im okay with this

Are you?

You can take it as confirmation of the depressing truth that most people will ignore and even try to justify horrific behaviours if the perpetrator is in a position to enact things that they agree with.

I can’t take any opinions on this topic from people on here seriously anymore when so many were in the trenches fighting for Michael Jackson using the same defense lines as MAGA uses for Trump: extortion, greedy fake victims, hit job by some enemy, circumstantial evidence, and no conviction, etc. People don’t actually give a shit about child abuse or pedophiles, lol.