>This rhetoric is misguided and dangerous. Is it? It seems to me that the rational, liberal members of the American body politic were and are blind-sided by th

>This rhetoric is misguided and dangerous. Is it? It seems to me that the rational, liberal members of the American body politic were and are blind-sided by the take-over of one of our major political parties by a fascist autocrat. Simply putting your head in the sand and wishing it weren't so won't change things. We have a huge percentage of the population that wants a strong-man ruler. That's bad, but it's not clear that can be changed. Therefore, rather than fight against reality and what cannot be changed, accept reality and change what can be. In this case, we cannot change the urge to autocracy, but we can control the identity (and politics) of the autocrat themselves. In an ideal circumstance such a person could do a great deal of good and get the country on track to a functioning democracy, and address the underlying dysfunction that is driving anti-democratic sentiment. This sentiment is the product of a combination of poor education, media manipulation, and also a reasonable reaction to rampant corruption at all levels of government, civil and criminal, moribund corrupt state bar associations and legislative "leaders" who spend more time on the phone asking for money than governing. None of these problems have a clear solution through normal democratic means. Therefore to save democracy we must put democracy aside for a time. The difference between a liberal dictator and Trump is, of course, that such a person does not pursue power for powers sake, but rather to restore functioning democracy. They look forward to putting it down, and hope to shape the system(s) such that such measures won't be needed again. If the choice is between electing a liberal dictator or letting democracy die, do you choose the latter out of principle? And besides this is a thought experiment designed to provoke conversation. "Your bad and your ideas are bad" is not that.