Snyder's schtick is "Hitler is everywhere" which was not borne out in Ukraine. Oliver Stone tried real hard to make the argument that Ukrainians are natural Nazis and events since the 2014 invasion have gone exactly the opposite way. Literally no one thinks this. Literally no one has argued this. The beef since the 13 colonies has been that the peasants will elect fools. It's literally why the Senate exists. My argument, for purposes of quotation, is that the un-elected officials are more interested in their jobs as they know them than in their jobs as imagined by populists. That is the nature of bureaucracy - like cancer, it does what it wants, not what the body wants. Read WEB Dubois. The model doesn't "generally work" or else Kennedy wouldn't have had to deploy national guard troops against George Wallace. The model is contentious AF, you just grew up in Texas in an era where the Republicans were busy winning one for the Gipper. The information ecosystem is always changing. From broadsheets to subscription journalism to unregulated radio to the FCC to the Fairness Doctrine to the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine to Cable to Internet to Social Media, stability lasts 10 years max. Rush Limbaugh has fuckall on Father Coughlin. The Supreme Court is not inviolate and unchanging, it's just that the investment necessary to change it has been too great. The recent overreach has likely changed that calculus. I keep coming back to that quote from Active Measures: nations that govern by consent don't get to lie to their populace, nations that govern by fear can say whatever they want. Fundamentally? Donald Trump gambled that the transition between "governance by consent" and "governance by fear" was achievable with his resources. When you look at it that way, he was MILES away. Something that hasn't come up is the assumption that if Trump had managed to pull off the presidency he would somehow hold the presidency. This is like Bush seizing Baghdad and then presuming the US would be welcomed as liberators, The End. Fuckin' Trump couldn't bring the goddamn FDA to heel, you think liberals would fall in line with a coup? Why, exactly? You think the military would cheerfully crack skulls? You think the police would deputize enough Proud Boys to unleash the 4th reich? Then what? There's a really annoying belief on the left that Trump nearly overthrew America, rather than recognizing that Trump couldn't even overthrow the fucking Secret Service. There's an even more annoying belief that having shown his cards, he's somehow going to whip out six extra decks and somehow convince the country that he got a royal straight flush with his next hand and everyone will go "oh, okay, guess my kids are growing up in a kleptocracy now." Bitch I grew up with legitimate gay-bashers. Guys who would find homosexuals to rough up just for being homosexual, knowing they could do it with impunity. I grew up with everyone mocking kids that talked with so much as a lisp or used hand gestures a little too effeminately. Go look up some of the moral hand-wringing over Annie Fucking Lennox, let alone Boy George. Fucking Dee Snyder had to testify before fucking Congress. Would the Republicans like to go back to 1961? A lot of 'em would, hell yeah, just without the taxes and unions, please. But you're literally talking about great-grandparents remembering their childhoods fondly, not a master plan for a theocratic oligarchy. A furry went into space. Just four years ago you were allowed to openly mock furries. I care not what the "intellectual dark web" obsesses over so long as they make no traction with it. And them fukkas are sliding down the hill. Everything else you have to say is reflexive doom-scrolling. None of it is based on anything, other than the fact that you live in Texas. I hosted a couple from Texas yesterday. They reminded me of the Serbian girl I dated 2 years after NATO bombed her house. One of them life-long, the other 30-year, both of them ready to jump in the wheel well to make it through Checkpoint Charlie. And that's the thing - there's a pain point for this shit. Here's a question everyone can answer: are you happier now than you were before Trump was in office?Trump should have wised us up to every glaring flaw in the assumption that the people (even a sizeable minority) will reliably elect someone even relatively fit for POTUS.
I think it's most salient to focus on what's driving the departure from a U.S. model that's generally worked, at least in recent American history.
What has changed most is the information ecosystem, obvz. 90's talk radio, then Fox, then alt-right + social media.
In a few years, this court will probably be empowered enough to strike down any congressional attempts at litigating abortion rights.
The seeds of transphobic paranoia are so clearly being planted, there's like a new burst of trans-hate disinfo every few days.
Trump's longest segment in every rally now is one in which he amps the threat of trans athletes, because a fascist can never pass up an opportunity to repeatedly misgender trans females. The entire "intellectual dark web" (hahahhahah) right now is completely obsessed with genitalia.
Fun context on Coughlin is that his audience is estimated at ~30M when the population was 120 to 130M, while Rush had an audience of 15M while the population was 300M+.