Right, and every time they have to do this sort of thing, they expend political and social credibility. Heavy-handedness hurts the throne in certain ways, and if that heavy-handedness doesn’t even amount to the death of enemies of the throne it’s just tantruming. They’re creating enemies with little benefit to themselves.
I know “don’t interrupt your enemies when they’re making a mistake” is trite now but it’s why I don’t even get slightly mad when they pull this sort of shit and then a bunch of people call them on it. I no longer feel the need to even bother calling them on it. They’re actively alienating people by the tens of thousands every day, which is a much faster pace than they were alienating them in the 2010s.
Their power relies on normies tacitly supporting them, and that tacit support is starting to evaporate because these people took away their fucking grill