The world has duly noted that the US is no longer a country of laws. The transition must have happened at some point in the past 3 years.
Usually, these trends are hard to reverse and tend to accelerate over time. Expect the political arrests & media censorship to start in ~2022
Usually, these trends are hard to reverse and tend to accelerate over time. Expect the political arrests & media censorship to start in ~2022
One important point is that a lot of the opposition in the past 3 years has consisted of saying "xyz is illegal!" (with the implication it couldn't happen or couldn't stick -- almost invariably, it did). Have you considered that it may not matter at all?
The history lesson here is that you can't defend the rule of law purely via the rule of law. Systems are ultimately made of people, not rules.
To be clear, I don't expect the US to become totalitarian overnight. Rather, it will take a similar direction as Russia in the 2000s. It'll keep its constitution, it'll have elections. It'll look mostly normal. But the power of the state will start getting used against opponents
You'll see journalists, political opponents, and anyone who angered the leader getting intimidated & silenced via lawsuits. Arrested on false charges. Every job appointment in the govt and at the top of large companies will become political, motivated by loyalty to the leader
There will still be an opposition -- just increasingly marginal and increasingly scared. There will still be political criticism in the media -- just increasingly less mainstream. But overall, everything will still look like business as usual
Until the next big crisis, in 10-15 years, when the mask will fall -- as it usually does
