One thing about getting older is that I remember that era (I guess this is also in response to Joe) well and, contrary to popular belief, Dubya was not fucking literally Hitler. The whole “Bushitler” is baffling in retrospect and while we were all wetting the bed on the netroots left that Bush would engineer a legislative coup to seize a third term and declare a terrorism state of emergency and assume martial law when in fact he just retired to his farm and has been content to paint and be generally uncontroversial post-presidency.

This is all to wonder if the Trump thing is getting just a wee bit overblown. There have always been quotes taken out of context (“dictator on day 1”, “you’ll never have to vote again”) and the collective wailing about. Scratch that. I mean, what would really happen if Trump wins?

The worst-case scenario is the Supreme Court. But even when the Republicans had the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2017, they did nothing. If you remember, when the Democrats had the presidency and both chambers, with 60 seats in the Senate, in 2009, nothing got done. At most a half-dozen Agenda 2525 items would even come to the floor, let alone pass, before the midterms, and non-legislative measures can easily be reversed. Never underestimate the American system’s ability to grind to a complete halt, and if the next Congress is anything like the current one…

I think this is Gen Z’s 2004. I think I’m optimistic about Trump not destroying the country because I’m feeling good about Harris.