Kind of incredible how fragile the scaffolding of American ideals was, in retrospect.
The last eight months represent an unabated march to the most idiotic satirical version imaginable. No guardrails provided even the slightest of sanity or introspection, much less resistance.
This has been going on for 10 years. I'm actually surprised it has withstood as much as it did. As they say, these things tend to move slowly, and then all at once.
The main problems seems to be that in order to stop these things, you have to recognize them well ahead of when the metastasize (what's happening now). We had several obvious opportunities where the call was easy, and we couldn't make the right call every time.
The first was in 2016 when Trump revealed his abject racism and sexism, two qualities that are necessarily required for a fascist movement. If we had rejected him on the basis that he sexually assaulted women, which we knew in 2016 before the first election, we could have averted this whole disaster.
Then we had another opportunity in 2020, when he had organized an insurrection against his own government to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. At that time, we could have arrested him, convicted him, and also impeached him, barring him from office forever. If we had done that, we could again have averted this whole disaster.
Then we had a THIRD opportunity in 2024. I don't need to go over that recent history, but it suffices to say at that time we knew he was a racist, sexist, insurrectionist and we STILL voted him into power.
So I don't think the system was all that fragile. It's just, it can't bear the load of so much stupidity and self sabotage. No matter how robust the system it can't survive if you just invite the vampires in the front door!
Don't fret too much. This has been in the making since at least [1933](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot). Nixon moved it forward, but found enough conscience or fear to give in. Ford's pardon and the DoJ's failure to prosecute rounding out the idea of not actually holding our leaders materially accountable. Then Reagan comes in and torches the economic basis of the federal government, gutting its ability to audit the wealthy or effectively regulate white collar crime. He also quietly deregulates broadcast media leading to a massive consolidation throughout the 90's and oughts. Clinton, the centrist he was, let critical economic safeguards lapse. The gaslighting begins in earnest with Newt Gingrich leading. Then the world changed and a document written at least as far back as the 80s but never successfully adopted was renamed "The Patriot Act" and rammed through on an "emergency" basis and which laid the groundwork for the erosion of civil rights. "Free speech zones" enters the American lexicon, anywhere within 100 miles of the US international border is now subject to searches without a warrant. All the while media consolidation makes it possible for organization to push a fantastical right-wing agenda. The Overton window slides to the right. "Terrorism" becomes not just household but daily word. People became comfortable with the military, they were everywhere and in everything. And then the internet exploded in popularity and network connections and the meme wars began.
The battle was lost because only one group understood the battle was occurring.
The last eight months represent an unabated march to the most idiotic satirical version imaginable. No guardrails provided even the slightest of sanity or introspection, much less resistance.