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This particular "flamebait" is merely a rehash of Masha Gessen's work, which you'll find strewn across The New Yorker, The Atlantic etc.
Trump will be gone in two to six years. He isn't a ruler, he was democratically elected President. There is no scenario where he remains, Trump is not a dictator or ruler just like George W. Bush (accused by the left) and Obama (accused by the right) were not.
Further, Trump wasn't elected by a fake extreme majority as with Putin, he squeaked by courtesy of the electoral college system. His opposition spent three times as much money as he did and had nearly all of the media on their side. He is popularly and very openly opposed by nearly all elites in the US, all media, all talkshow hosts, the large majority of pundits, all celebrities and nearly all large media companies. Trump is not placing his opposition into prison or silencing them (even if he wishes he could, he can't), see: Schumer, Pelosi, Harris, Feinstein, Clinton, Booker, Bezos, Soros, Reid Hoffman, Tom Steyer, and a thousand other prominent examples. Snoop pretended to kill Trump in a music video, try something equivalent to that in China or Russia, see how long you last. Every celebrity in Hollywood routinely attacks Trump and his policies, often viciously, with zero legal consequence. In China they disappear prominent people for a tiny fraction of that behavior.
Can you imagine what would happen to a prominent musician in China that made the first lady of China (Peng Liyuan) a stripper in a music video, as recently was the case with Melania? Most likely they'd never be heard from again. What did Trump do about it? Nothing, T.I. will continue on expressing his views and art.
The First Amendment is clearly very much alive and well in the US.
There is a mountain of anti-Trump sentiment and protest across the US and has been for two years now. It is not being silenced or stopped, it's on nearly every TV channel 24/7 and it's all over the US Internet.
Now please contrast that with Xi and Putin vs their opposition, domestic protest, what you're allowed to do in opposition in China and Russia, and so on.
To be more precise, i am pretty sure since he took office 640 days ago, there has not been a single day where there wasn't some negative trump story in the papers, a quick shot or mock clip on some late night TV show or some outrage on Twitter.
Trump, Putin, Xi, Erdogan, etc are all the same breed. The US, Russia, China, and Turkey are different places. The same set of beliefs/tactics/views/attitudes will produce the different outcomes in different environments.
One thing you should consider is your faith the the abstract notion of "rule of law". What you're seeing with Trump is that lots of people don't really care about abstract high-minded principles, they only care that their guy is in power. Laws and conventions will be discarded in his favour.
One thing that has really changed in my mind over the last two years is finally understanding Weimar Germany. I used to be perplexed at how an advanced society can fall like that, but seeing 2 years of "progress" under Trump, I can't imagine what terrible outcomes a decade or two of Trumpism will produce.
I wonder if this is better or worse. Trump is like the ALDI version of the other two and this low afford leaders seems to become a thing in the west while you need to push and control people in the east. I wonder what the implications will be once those new western ALDI leaders caused enough damage. What did we learn? How can we prevent this?
Prevent what? Trump and the recent rise of right-leaning populist leaders in Europe (Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Switzerland partly, Slovakia...) was simply the will of the people. Its not "fake news" that has elected these forces, it was the failure of the former mid-left/mid-right government parties to listen to their people and they have been voted out of office rightfully.
There has been signs of Russian meddling via propaganda though.
Nevertheless it’s the people who voted.
If said people don’t wake up and realize that they are being played as “useful idiots” to destabilize their own country ...
Besides the fact that foreign propaganda has played a relevant role, all the countries besides Italy are very good off. The east European countries have been hanging from the EUs tit for years and have grown into good prospering members now. And Switzerland and Austria never had any problems to begin with.
This whole movement grew out of prosperity. Same goes for the US.
Now that they are in force, they either mess up (cutting down democracy wherever it's possible, damaging legal institutions, spreading hate against minorities, hurting the economy)or are on the way there, see Italy. Meanwhile spitting in the faces of those who fed them (see east EU and Italy).
How can you call anything of that "rightful" is beyond me.