Yes, I think that is so: anything that advances the long-term goal is satisfactory, especially after they saw how patiently Mao himself marched through the institutions (people forget he started his process in the early ‘20s). The malevolence is appalling and the determination is, well, frightening. And the thing is, under our polity, it will be the one who is seen to throw the first punch who will be penalized. So long as they don’t openly assault someone, they can keep inching the goal posts further left until there’s no field left.
I guess one consideration is how to get them to lose patience and make a game-changing mistake. If they can be induced to throw the first punch, we may be able to strike back fast, before any ‘referee’ can interfere. We certainly won’t get away with trying to topple them. Either we can stall and then vote them out, which is preferable, or we have to goad them into error so we can morally fight back.
You see another alternative, maybe?