The US was supposed to be destroyed by Trump 2016-2020. That didn't happen at all. The US is now stronger, more powerful, richer. The corporate tax cuts have worked out extraordinarily well, like Ireland on steroids.
Meanwhile the rest of the world has fallen behind the US. China is weaker and sliding (in part thanks to the expansive authoritarianism). Russia is a joke and has been for decades (now a regional power that struggles against Ukraine). Europe broadly is weaker and no longer competitive at almost anything.
US GDP per capita is essentially now double that of Britain or France.
Weakened institutions don't necessarily mean a weakened economy. You can have a strong economy and a high GDP without an independent judiciary or constitutional rights for example. (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with either of you, but pointing out a communications mismatch between your comment and the GP that you replied to; I think you're talking about different things).
Funny how the president who has faced the most political persecution in the history of the US has you thinking he’s against independent judiciary or constitutional rights.
This is the only thing that has me clinging to hope, is that last time it didn't turn out terribly. I have a sense of foreboding about what the supreme court will look like at the end of his term, and the consequences we'll have to live with for decades as a result. And a potential WW3, which seems more plausible on a daily basis. A large scale conflict feels almost unavoidable; I would prefer a cool, calm, collected individual at the helm when it hits.
There is enough protections built into the system, and enough maturity of the system (the "deep state"), that outside of something like war on our shores, no single president can destroy it in one term. But each time its degraded it becomes more susceptible. We just (popularly) elected an election denier. That means future presidents can run this play and get away with it. The most likely scenario now IMO is we get a more cunning strongman who successfully overturns the democratic outcome when not in their favor. We don't have to speculate, as we've see this play out in several other countries. Of course this line of thinking was never a viable political strategy for running against Trump, because its far too abstract for the average voter.
The reality is we are still benefiting from the leadership of some of our more visionary founders and leaders since; but without being reenforced in some way it won't hold up forever. Most people in the US are still under the guise of America being special, and hand waving those scenarios away thinking the worst can't happen here. Which makes it much easier to then vote for Trump, especially if you don't think the climate crisis is real or prescient.
> There is enough protections built into the system
I'm not even convinced of this. The problem is that that many of these protections aren't really legal (at least they aren't all legal), they're conventions and norms. They require the people in power to believe in them, and believe that they're good and useful, or they can be swept aside. The rule of law is a polite fiction that requires people to adhere to it.
Take Elon Musk, for example, who will now likely be involved in government to an alarming degree. By all accounts, he got his start in the US by working here illegally. No problem; rules for thee and not for me. His publicly-admitted drug use should disqualify SpaceX from government contracts. No problem; what are they going to do, cancel them? Musk was unhappy a Delaware judge struck down his Tesla pay package. No problem; reincorporate in Texas and find a different legal framework and judges who like him.
Musk is constantly flaunting norms and getting away with it, and he'll continue to push and ignore these boundaries with whatever government position Trump gives him. Trump does the same, but with a lot more power, and he and his cronies are actually prepared and organized this time, something that wasn't the case in 2016. He has a SCOTUS stacked in his favor, that has already given him broad immunity against illegal acts while in office. He has the Senate, again, and may have the House as well. This time the Senate will temporarily or permanently change the filibuster rules if they're having trouble hitting the 60-vote threshold on things to which it still applies.
I share your sense of foreboding. See my other comment about how I'm feeling about last time vs. this time, but I have one other hope: In the US, the states still retain a lot of power. There are still a lot of states that will continue to be governed sensibly regardless of what's happening at the Federal level. I think that state-level leaders tend to be more pragmatic and grounded, less likely to take things off-the-rails on impulse or to score political points, perhaps because they're closer to "the people" and have to live more with the practical results.
He didn’t have immunity from the Supreme Court, and majority of the Senate and the House back then. Some Republicans working with him still had integrity to prevent atrocities, but they are not there anymore.
I'd argue that the war in Ukraine was caused by the State Department being weakend and not being able to effectively deal with Russian plans to invade. Yes the US economy has been phenomenally succesful over the last 8 years and thats in no small part due to Trumps deregulation of the oil industry which has become the largest in the world. But in the mean time China is dominating renewables which is the future. People also voted for Trump because they're feeling economically insecure, the distribution of wealth is skewed to the rich. the US middle classes have not been a beneficiary of this economic bonanza at all. Which explains why they voted Trump. So either wages have to rise significantly for them, which means corporates endure lower margins or prices fall because of a massive supply side boom, which can be met domestically because it would be inflationary, and cant be met by imports because he's promised to impose 20% tariffs on everyone. Is a circle that cant be squared.
The last time he was surrounded by chiefs of staff, generals, legal counsel, agency directors, etc. who would say "that's crazy, you can't do that" against his worst impulses. Now, all those people are gone and people like them will not be welcome. Now, he has a conservative judiciary (thanks to his last-minute appointees) who recently ruled that he will not bound by the law. Now, his inner circle has a plan to rapidly cleanse all non-partisan Federal government positions of anyone who might tell the Trump administration why something he wants can't be done.
There is no reason to expect things to go like they did the last time around.
Well said. Speaking as a registered Republican dating back to the early 2000s, I thought Trump was a clown when he first announced his intention to run in 2015 (you could call me a "Never Trumper"). I was shocked like everybody else when he won, but I took comfort in the fact that he was still mostly surrounded by old establishment Republicans who I figured would keep things on-the-rails or just impeach him within the first six months. I mean, he had some wackos like Bannon and Flynn and his family members, but he also had old establishment Republicans (in his cabinet and congress) and other non-politicians that I (as a career Army officer) really respected like Kelly, Mattis, Esper, McMaster, and Milley. My expectations were sort of met.
But now what? The Republican establishment has been re-made in his image. The people I respect have all gone public against him in the strongest possible ways. Who will serve under him? I really don't know what to expect this time around.
> That didn't happen at all. The US is now stronger, more powerful, richer.
The proper comparison to make here isn't between America before and America after Trump. It's to America after Trump and a hypothetical America after Clinton.
It may be that we're better off after Trump (though "we" is doing a lot of work in that sentence). But the relevant question to voters is whether we would have been even better off if the other candidate had one.
Meanwhile the rest of the world has fallen behind the US. China is weaker and sliding (in part thanks to the expansive authoritarianism). Russia is a joke and has been for decades (now a regional power that struggles against Ukraine). Europe broadly is weaker and no longer competitive at almost anything.
US GDP per capita is essentially now double that of Britain or France.