[pinkmuffinere]

Ya, honestly it is getting scarier than I thought it would. I disliked him from the outset, but figured "after his term we'll at least return to normalcy and fix things". Now I'm much less confident, but desperately hope it goes back to normal after the next election. Maybe we can use this experience to strengthen the institutions that crumbled under the pressure.

[mindslight]

The institutions "crumbled" because of the hostile Supreme Council with its "unitary executive" theory (aka sparkling autocracy). The only way we're going to have institutions again is a Constitutional amendment laying out that Congress can charter independent agencies. I'd suggest their heads be directly elected by the People. And of course we've got to get rid of the supplicants on the Council too, and then maybe we can call it a Court again.

[jochem9]

I suggest to hope less.

The world order we knew is upended and it's likely to stay that way. Better to spend energy shaping that into something that is acceptable, then hoping it will all go away once DT is gone.

[bulbar]

That's what Europe is currently doing. The US has indicated that it does not intend to lead the current world order or the Western world anymore so Europe is adapting and forming new bonds and alliances as fast as possible.

Just closed a trade zone deal with South America that was 20 years in the making. Now in deep discussions with Canada that itself is desperate to reduce the bonds with the US.

In a few decades, US will be at the same spot as Great Britain has been before. They will realize they lost a lot of their standing in the world and are now just one of many countries.

The only good thing about Trump is that he is stupid. If he had been clever, Europe would have ended up in a much worse position.

However, he was super transparent from the beginning and even started a war, giving Europe the opportunity for an easy united (non-) response. The war even showed the reliance of the US on Europe bases for their power projection. Making the reducing of man power that followed even more dysfunctional.

Only thing he could have done to destroy all bonds with the western world faster is to actually annex Greenland. However, there's still plenty of time for that.

[atmavatar]

> "after his term we'll at least return to normalcy and fix things"

We'll only return to normalcy after Trump upon implementing our own Nuremburg-style trials for members of his administration and enacting a number of constitutional amendments to fix the structural failures which allowed it to come this far. Even then, it would take at least a generation before the rest of the world will consider treating the US as a sane, good-faith member of the global community.

Unfortunately, the chances of either reform occurring are near zero right now.

The only way to get enough support for such reforms requires the bulk of the MAGA cult wake from their delirium, which won't happen unless/until things get a lot worse. Loyalists have a pretty large capacity to compartmentalize their dislike of actions taken by Trump separate from their support of Trump the person, even when you can get past the "fake news" mantra that lets them dismiss anything negative which doesn't affect them directly.

[FireBeyond]

> Loyalists have a pretty large capacity to compartmentalize their dislike of actions taken by Trump separate from their support of Trump the person, even when you can get past the "fake news" mantra that lets them dismiss anything negative which doesn't affect them directly.

Absolutely so. Even today a member of the Administration was asked about the $1.8B slush fund and the appropriateness of banning the IRS from auditing not just Trump, but his children and their families (i.e. Kushner, etc.).

The response had the name "Biden" in the first six words out of his mouth. Bear in mind, apropos of anything else the leak of his tax return was during Trump's administration, under Trump's choice of IRS commissioner, from a contractor who worked for a GOP-affiliated company working with the IRS.

But as you say - just say "Biden" and a sadly not-insignificant subset of the population will automatically begin rewiring neural pathways.

[tstrimple]

Worse than trump are the tens of millions of Americans willing to vote for someone like him. They will largely still be here after Trump is gone.