Boiling the frog

I can see now how it happens. Back in 2016 the bar was still somewhat high for the tolerance of caustic discourse and flaunting of civil behaviour. Fast forward to 2024 and that Access Hollywood tape wouldn't even register with the public.

The same parallel can be drawn with the appetite for authoritarian rule which is spoken about daily by both those who fear it and those who welcome it. I can see how Germany might have moved slowly from Weimar Republic to Nazi rule within the space of a decade.

Political expediency and appetite for power helps uncover moral weakness and many of Trump's enablers might know better but chose to look the other way because going against the tide means their positions are at stake. The tape of their denouncing Trump is on the record but that need not matter in the age of the 20 second sound bite where people have the mental retention of field mice.

You raise the temperature on the frog until a terminal point is passed and then it's cooked.

If the US glides slowly into authoritarian rule it can't say it didn't see the signs coming. It just means that enough people chose to ignore them.