Imho, here's the scary thing.

[Dill]

(12-23-2019, 01:53 PM)hollodero Wrote: So now what I'd want is someone telling me I'm just hysterical, nothing I said is really relevant, Trump's just an asshole and that's that, all will go back to how it used to be and democracy is still strong. Because I can not believe that and I'd deem the 2020 election pretty much the last chance for a reversal. And as of now, I can't be certain at all that 2020 is still a fair election, or that Trump were actually to go away if he lost. And because all of that, I am scared.

And yeah, my country does not provide that kind of chilling popcorn drama. It's actually scary entertaining. That's why I'm here. If you want to get rid of me, vote democrat. (Not that I like them, they are just the one democratic party still.)

A very thoughtful post, and deserving of serious response. 

I am sorry that I cannot tell you that you are "just hysterical." Much of what you said is actually relevant. I am scared too.  Like you, not so much because of Trump, but of what he symptomizes--the issues which brought him to power will not go away, even if loses the next election or otherwise leaves power.  The alternative facts machine will remain in desperate war against liberal elites and the "unelected bureaucrats" of the deep state. A significant portion of the population will still lack any real means of evaluating US foreign policy beyond its role in prepping for the imminent millennium. The power to cast the most neutral and informed analysis as hate-driven personal attack on Trump's base will remain with Hannity et al.

I can, however, offer what I think a more inclusive assessment of the current conjuncture, marking "test balloons" which have failed.  Start with the fact that Anti-Trumpers have always been the majority of voters, and their numbers are increasing.

Then the 2018 elections, which saw the House return to the Dems, where they have begun extracting some accountability from Trump AND the GOP, limiting their ability to quash or fail to launch investigations from inside the government, while drawing their criminality into the forum of public debate, and impeaching a president even as he is credited with the lowest unemployment rate since WWII.

Also, cracks within Trumpdom--the recent Christianity Today editorial, signalling the displeasure of white male evangelicals (still rooted in the alternative worldview) for whom the vulgarity and immorality of Trump have finally become too compromising. (Evangelicals of color and some Evangelical women rebelled two years ago.) Trump support in the military is decreasing in small increments, as people in harm's way, and their families at home, grasp the uninformed and random character of the C-in-C's judgment, be it in abandoning their battle brothers, the Kurds, calling out and then backing down from Iran, or superceding the military's own judgment of improper conduct to elevate war criminals into heroes. Some who once heard tough talk from a "strong" leader now ponder the consequences of ignorantly and uselessly squandering US credibility abroad.

Finally, and this relates more to the future, the increase of Trump's power increases his accountability and that of his GOP supporters in ways that stress their capacity to construct alternative narratives to the "Fake news" accepted by the rest of the world. GOP leaders do public about-faces to support conspiracy theories and defend erratic, contradictory WH pronouncements. The exhausting, non-stop scandals involving the FISA warrants, the Bidens, and Ukraine are always, Benghazi-like, just days away from the revelation which will finally take down the criminal Dem/Obama/Hillary party and confirm the Trump base's decision to ignore the "Fake news." The constant postponement may foster exhaustion and disinterest in "both sides," but in the long run, it creates a desire for stability, for emotionally steady political leaders whose public statements are filtered through ethical norms and who respect their own intel services--not the bombast of demagogues. 

I'm of a mind that if Trump is not impeached or "25th-ed" over the next year, he will not be re-elected. Even if he is, I still don't see us heading for the kind of Preussenschlag that could set up true dictatorship.  My one caveat is that, should the US be plunged into a serious war, one with the capacity to, say, threaten the US with real, perhaps nuclear, damage, then all bets are off. (Pretty sure Trump sees this too.) I do not know how that would play out with a frightened population, a segment of which has proved unusually susceptible to right-wing disinformation.