Article behind paywall. So, anyway.

What happened to losing with good grace? Surely that is the bedrock notion on which democracy is based. Now we have Trump being a bad loser, but what about Clinton et al in 2016; they never for a second from the start of his Presidency right up to now, accepted his win as legitimate, & indeed fought tooth & nail against it throughout.

In this they were aided by a large part of the 4th estate,  the NYT included.

So I take their analysis with a large pinch of salt.

I try not to think of political movements in terms of cults, partly because like you I'm not entirely on board with the definition, & because it's getting into Cancer Ward territory when terms like 'false belief system' are used.

The guy with the horns on the Davy Crockett hat doesn't represent any of the millions for whom the present economic arrangements are cause for anxiety & disillusion.

These people aren't going away & so Trump's shoes are there & waiting to be filled. Doubling down on the men become women can they use the wimmins restroom nailbiting debate, just ain't going to cut it.

To hell with relying on the robot masters; isn't that what the Chinese Social Credit system is all about. For myself I'd rather see an old fashioned clandestine shipment of a couple of hundred thousand rifles & few million rounds of ammunition to a resistance movement against that, than give in to such a horrifying vision.

I really hope it doesn't come to it, just saying in advance whose side I'd be on if it ever does.

Something has gone very wrong with our politics when we can't agree to disagree & a large part of the blame for that isn't the politicians themselves, but the people whose duty it is to report on their activities & make them understandable to the public.

Who guards the guardians is the question that really needs to be addressed by those who want to halt the decline of the West. 

Are there enough of them to prevail against the odds, as opposed to the predominant new age puritans I don't know, but whichever way it goes, anyone who sees getting rid of Trump as a new dawn, is a wishful thinker.