Tom Nichols: “Trump’s autocratic instincts have now fully mutated into an embrace of fascism. And yet, America shrugs: Millions of voters think of the upcoming election as just another contest between a conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat, instead of an existential contest between democracy and authoritarianism. The early hysteria about Trump has ended up submerging deep concerns about democracy in a haze of equivocation and complacency.”
“Even people who have no particular love for Trump typically argue that life under his administration was mostly normal, and that all of the fears about how Trump could collapse American democracy were just overheated rhetoric.”
“By now, I have been asked many times: What is everyone so worried about? What would it even look like for American democracy to collapse?”
