I think Snyder's legitimized himself at least somewhat a little with his warnings on Ukraine borne out. Until he and other leading scholars of fascism stop sounding the alarm bell, I'll probably be unsuccessful at ignoring them.

a pop quiz on executive authority and failed.

LOL no, he got a 100, you dimbo!! "Article 2 allows me to do anything I want" "Grab 'em by the pussy, they'll let you do it" motorboating Rudy Giuliani in drag... Seriously, how hard is it to edit those three audio-video clips together (he says, but doesn't do it)? The "they go low, we go high!" shit is so incredibly ineffective right now.

Trump as a vaccine for democracy

It's just wild that this is still up for debate in the body politic. We've had this talk before, and yes, 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. Or a POTUS who'd perform his duties in good faith, maybe sometimes. Rather than the libertarian ("thus, government itself is always doomed to failure") or the aristocratic interpretation ("thus, elites should elect and govern"), 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. There has been no real progress made on combating this threat. The Biden admin task force to target disinformation got slain in the press via disinformation, and was promptly abandoned. Classic 21st century dem.

Kansas

Eventually, all this bullshit has to hit the bulk of the population.

I've been thinking the same thing about Texas. The six-week ban with vigilante enforcement went into effect in December. Now it's less of "have any family out of state?" and more of "lucky enough to have any family in this subset of states, and/or $$$'s to blow??". I confirmed with my doctor that TX hospitals are now withholding healthcare from women in even higher numbers since the Roe repeal. Advised by corporate legal to perform no abortion until the woman is measurably dying. It's fucked because it'll take a while to build the statistics, and by the time you have a study saying "yes so Samuel Alito has killed several thousand vessels", we're at 10k+ or whatever.

In a few years, this court will probably be empowered enough to strike down any congressional attempts at litigating abortion rights. It's so shitty that the Trump years gave us not only the enduring big lie bullshit, but a fundy, delusional SCOTUS. He's back to praising SCOTUS at his rallies after doing the "didn't have the courage" thing with them too last year. I gather that he might finally understand they never had a chance to take up a case, literally everything fraud claims-related was thrown out in the lower courts, but, more importantly, he understands how valuable of an asset they might become for him. However, Trump is not currently claiming credit for SCOTUS. Reportedly he's worried about public opinion on Roe.

the system at work

We'll see. I still think it's prolly too late to stop the fascist theocrat coup. It will go "OK boss, one government, here ya go. All yours!", then "Hmm, and what is it, exactly? Can I whack people with it?", then "Oh no!! It's gone. It's fine though", then "OK, maybe things are worse than ever, but the groomers did it!". The seeds of transphobic paranoia are so clearly being planted, there's like a new burst of trans-hate disinfo every few days. It's fucking disgusting. 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. Even my mom regretfully conceded to me that anti-LGBT sermons and messaging has been noticeably increasing in their church.

The alt-right probably finds the most important benefit of stoking transphobia atm is capturing the TERF "centrists". NYTimes even had a TERF op-ed. I think the campaign has been more successful than most realize, and it's probably intended to mitigate some of the losses they'll incur from Dobbs. I do agree that the loss of GOP voters will still very much outweigh the gain.

Sure, just like with abortion, the vast majority of people want to preserve LGBTQ+ rights, but the White Christofascist minority will damage the election process to whatever extent required (or further!) to preserve minority rule. I think we're probably above critical threshold for the amount of big liars who've won their primaries. Many could go on to have close November counts that are also varying degrees of artfully sabotaged, simply because it was helpful to the GOP. And I betcha ~ 40% or more of all GOP losers refuse to concede. Like at every level. Obviously, everyone should still vote. We will usually have ways of knowing, sooner or later, if any Trumpers tamper with the counts.

I think if the dems lose either branch of congress, that could be "the fat lady sings". Congressional GOP will try some outrageous maneuvering to win the electoral college. I agree that you at least gotta try to legislate against it, but apparently it's damn near impossible to make them not ultimately break the law. They'll also begin congressional hearings to fabricate a narrative for a future nutzo DoJ AG to prosecute the J6 committee with. That should be fun.