[MarcusE1W]

My optimistic interpretation is slightly different. So far the US is still a democracy with a President wo doesn’t take the law too seriously.

On the other side every democracy looses a bit focus over time and laws to keep government clean get softened, IMHO.

But let’s say the next election happens and the opposition will be voted in (if not, god knows where this ends) , then there will be a government with a state apparatus in tatas. They have the burden but also the opportunity to rethink how things are supposed to work and can make changes that most previous governments did not even thought possible.

Maybe, I don’t know. But maybe this slightly painful time is part of a renewal process that in the end will be helpful. And Trump of all people makes it involuntary possible.

[rurp]

Well my less optimistic observation is that Trump 1.0 broke a whole bunch of norms and was flagrantly incompetent, and the response was almost nothing. The opposition won a middling victory and made almost no structural changes to prevent what's currently happening.

The main response was a series of milquetoast foot-dragging prosecutions that accomplished little more than ralling the Republicans around him and giving him even more media attention.

[foogazi]

> The opposition won a middling victory and made almost no structural changes to prevent what's currently happening.

Prevent people voting ?

[em-bee]

i can pretty much agree with that. while my comment focuses on the negative "the US will be less relevant", yours focuses on the positive. but they are both possible at the same time. heck, being less relevant may even be a positive in itself.

the current events provide a wakeup call that has the potential to galvanize change. as i said, what we need is a consensus. hopefully the next government will realize that too, and work towards that. otherwise it is up to us individuals to work on that too.