[rsynnott]

> I used to believe this, until one of our political parties officially adopted the position that the 2020 election was stolen from them

That's not new, though, really; it's new for the US, but it's a pretty common thing in the developing world (and was somewhat common in Europe pre-WW2).

The right sort of leader could absolutely have caused a similar reaction in the US 70 years ago, and the US _did_ have another weird political moment around that time; the McCarthyist panic. If McCarthy had been a weird narcissistic president rather than a paranoid, and then lost re-election, what do you think would have happened?