Welp, @EricLevitz has precisely captured my thoughts. America& #39;s problems are structural, not tied to Trump, and it& #39;s difficult to see how even a Biden victory would slow the downward spiral. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/rnc-republican-national-convention-speeches-democrats-crisis.html">https://nymag.com/intellige...

You cannot have a) a white revanchist Christian rural & suburban backlash that is contemptuous of democracy, b) deep-pocked oligarchs willing to fund a media machine that keeps the backlash stoked, c) a gov& #39;t structurally biased to overrepresent that backlash, and ...

d) a functioning democracy. It doesn& #39;t work.

One of every democracy& #39;s key challenges is finding ways to accommodate an irreducible core of illiberal voters opposed to democracy -- give them voice & representation w/out allowing them to destroy the thing.

The US system of gov& #39;t is not structurally designed to do that well. It could be, with substantial reforms, but it& #39;s chicken&egg -- the revanchist minority w/ veto power will never allow reform. And so we& #39;re botching it horribly and it& #39;s probably going to be the end of us. https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😞" title="Enttäuschtes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Enttäuschtes Gesicht">