Sometimes I wonder how the former reality television star’s malevolence, laziness, and insatiable hunger for praise would play out in a second term. What would his version of fascism look like? Anne Applebaum’s depiction of Autocracy, Inc. is informative. I also picture competing ideologues, opportunists, and grifters vying for influence and ill-gotten gains.

What I can’t imagine is a coherent mass movement to support whatever the orange one’s authoritarian instincts manifest. But politicized justice, state violence, mob rule in places, unnecessary suffering by lots of people… Yes, that is easy to imagine. Incremental, inconsistent, and arbitrary abuses. Loud curfew notices on phones in areas of mass protest. Piss-poor morale in the military… Ima stop thinking now.