How bad does it have to get? If we lose it all, how do we take it back?

[Aristus]

3. One of my biggest reasons for hope is that the American people really don't like being told what to do.

If the American people had a collective shit-fit over mask mandates and vaccine requirements when relatively rational, competent, devoted public servants were in office, how do you think they'll react when the person in charge of looking like someone's in charge is some 400lb loser with a scraggly rat's-nest beard, a wardrobe full of XXXL tactical gear, and who calls himself an 'alpha-dog'?

We make a lot of references to Weimar-Era Germany and the German people here; easy prey for the Nazis. But unlike post-Imperial Germany, the American people have not been conditioned to absolute, unquestioning obedience; and any American Quisling-wannabe is going to get laughed off the dictator-balcony.

It's a scary time, and we have valid reasons for being afraid. But we have a lot more reason to be hopeful than German liberals and humanists did in 1938.