American democracy and society have been sick for a long time. Donald Trump’s election to the White House in 2016 was a symptom and not the cause of these deep problems. There is extreme income inequality and the gangster capitalist regime that profits from it, racism and white supremacy, a growing lack of faith in democracy and other governing institutions such as the news media and the elites more broadly, widespread social atomization and loneliness, collective exhaustion and lack of sleep, anti-intellectualism, mass death and trauma from the COVID pandemic, a broken educational system, a media culture of spectacle and distraction and an overall sense that “a return to normal” is not that great and “playing by the rules” and “working hard” to achieve the “American Dream” was a cruel joke and has been for a very long time.

Too many political observers — especially the institutionalists and centrists — incorrectly convinced themselves that Trump’s first victory was an acute aberration, in what was fundamentally a sound democracy that had widespread support and legitimacy among the American people. These supposed experts willfully repeated that same error years later, because to admit they were catastrophically wrong would be a narcissistic injury both to them personally but also to the larger political class that has given them much of their identity and social capital.

If American democracy and society were sick and ailing before, Trump’s return to power in a few weeks may be terminal.

With Trump's 2024 victory over the Democrats, Trump and the MAGAfied Republicans take control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress. Trump and the MAGA movement also expanded their base of “populist” support in the form of a rainbow coalition of malice, rage and resentment, creating what could potentially be a realigning political force in American politics that will dominate for years if not decades to come.

Donald Trump has promised to be a dictator on “day one” of his presidency. All the evidence points to Trump immediately following through on his autocratic vision and what he and his agents describe as a “shock and awe” campaign against “the enemies within” and the “poison” in the “blood” of the nation. Per Trump and his agents’ own words and meaning, this will likely be a very “bloody" and "traumatic" story.

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It is true that President Biden achieved many great policy successes for the American people in terms of the economy, the social safety net, infrastructure and manufacturing, defeating the COVID pandemic, restoring the country’s respect and influence abroad and broadly trying to remedy the worst of the great damage caused by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans and the larger antidemocracy movement. But Biden and the Democrats were defeated in the 2024 election because they failed to effectively and consistently communicate those successes to the American people.

In all, President Biden’s time in the White House will, in the mid to far future, likely be looked back upon as some interregnum and intervening years in the larger Trumpocene. In many ways, the Biden administration and what it embodied was like a beloved relative or favorite pet that is very ill and the family convinces themselves that because today (or the last few weeks of........

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