A couple of thoughts. If people in the USA don't think this can't happen here, we are already walking down that path to destruction. One could argue that the United States is too big and independent to completely fall to a tyrant like Putin and they would be right. There is no way the USA will be united if certain states decide to go fully autocratic. WA, OR and CA would just fall away and still be like the fourth largest economy in the world. But Trump taught a new generation of idiots what they need to know how to appeal to the stupid base.

I always wonder what their end game was. Putin, Orban, Trump, Le Pen, etc etc... I thought to myself, what is their grand vision for the future? They must want to build a certain type of society, but now I realize they don't care. They just want to line their pockets with as much money as possible. They have no moral compass; they simply don't care who they stomp all over. At least with Hitler he had a grand vision for the future, as twisted as it was, but these imbeciles just want to enrich themselves just like Putin and Xi. If they lock up millions of people and kill millions, they don't care.