My beloved country is becoming an insane asylum, filled with people who want to see the American experiment in democratic-republican government destroyed and replaced by dictatorship. Actual, tangible, real, genuine dictatorship. A dictatorship led by one of the most hideous, vile people our nation has ever produced.

The official position of Donald Trump is that he has a right to assassinate his opponents or judges, or journalists; to stage coups against the U.S. government; to undermine democracy by manufacturing slates of fake electors; and to sell nuclear secrets to Russia or any other unfriendly entity. And he believes he should be able to do all of that and more without any consequences, legally or otherwise.

One of the most successful ways the forces of autocracy and authoritarianism have risen to power throughout history is by creating or stepping into a crisis and promising to be the “strongman” who will fix things and fix them now.

Which, of course, is why rightwing billionaires and the Republicans they own have been working so hard in the decades since the Reagan Revolution to break our government.