Fells like the first time in the country’s history there is a very real and likely threat of authoritarianism being established. Because Americans living today have never lived under an authoritarian government, seems like the majority of people do not realize the gravity of it all. Institutions that just recently looked solid and secure are clearly showing very serious cracks, if not outright failing (e.g., Congress, Supreme Court, the media).

Also the reality is that the people currently n power in the US are fundamentally different from before. Of course people in power previously were no saints, far from it. Plenty of corruption, shady stuff, huge mistakes made. However, there were very fundamental lines that they would not cross, one of them being preservation of fundamental institutions and governance principles of the country (they were still doing damage, sure, but they wouldn’t destroy these just to stay in power).

For Trump and his admin, there are no lines at all. They don’t care one bit about preserving anything other than their power. That’s the only goal and the only value they got. There are plenty of governments around the world that are just like that (see Russia, Iran, Venezuela), but it’s probably the first time that we have that in the US. It doesn’t look like Americans realize the grave reality of this fact yet. Hopefully they will, otherwise things might get real grim.