If Trump had said "I'M DECLARING WAR ON COVID!! Lockdown is necessary, WEAR YOUR FREEDOM MASK WE WILL WIN!" what would have been the outcome? I am fairly certa

If Trump had said "I'M DECLARING WAR ON COVID!! Lockdown is necessary, WEAR YOUR FREEDOM MASK WE WILL WIN!" what would have been the outcome? I am fairly certain there wouldn't be any of this hand-wringing about "tradeoffs" between rights and liberty. Deficits only matter when the other party is in charge, elections are only fraudulent when we lose, and science is a hoax when conclusions don't support what we wanted to do anyway. My main fear is this: Reality may have a "well-known bias" but it also has the benefit of being true and backed by the physical laws of the universe. Eventually reality catches up. We are damn lucky that COVID wasn't much worse. We're also very lucky Trump is not a great policy maker and surrounds himself with sycophants and loyalists rather than ruthless movers and shakers. But he laid down the template and I have no doubt would-be dictators and evil people in both parties are salivating at the prospect of replicating his methods but with much more competence. That is extremely dangerous and something we should all be very afraid of. And I really mean the threat is coming from both directions. Republicans have certainly proven they have no principles, but imagine a populist Democrat cut from the Trump cloth with a dash of competent leadership who decides term-limits are for suckers? I remember in the 90s when Republicans were all about winning people over with their ideas and actually championed making it easier to vote because if you have good ideas and policies why would you be afraid? You should be able to win hearts and minds. Who knew we'd end up here? One of the many reasons I left the party.