re: #91 Florida Panhandler

“Paranoid fantasies” 2015 - Trump will win the Presidency, pardon outright criminals and toadies, openly threaten and intimidate press members, harass and suggest violence against political opponents and foreign countries, and lead a coup to negate an election and overthrow democracy in the USA.

Conventional wisdom 2015- Trump may win, but he will turn out to be a moderate who will soon assume traditional limits and behaviors consistent with previous administrations. Even if Trump does try and test limits, Republican leaders, Justices, and Congress will keep him reigned in. …Trump will soon be “Presidential.”

The country experienced a catastrophic failure of imagination about how far dedicated terrorists would go and on 9/11, 3000 people paid the price with their lives.

I had a catastrophic failure of imagination in 2016 when I largely dismissed the mathematical quirk in electoral vote apportionment which have Trump an electoral victory while Hillary won the popular vote count.

In the lead-up to January 6th, 2021, I had another catastrophic failure of imagination when I dismissed the trolling of Trumpist “friends of friends” on Facebook telling us Biden supporting Democrats to “Just wait until January 6th. You’ll be singing a different tune then when we Real American patriots march on Washington to reinstall Trump as the rightful victor” as just big talk.

So, no, I’m not going to dismiss FP’s fears as paranoid fantasy. The Republicans have descended into mass insanity. In that circumstance, it’s possible that those of us who want to cling to the flotation device of a sense of lasting normality are just not being paranoid enough.