The gist of the Flight 93 article was that the state of the nation was so dire, the electorate was fully justified in putting its fate in the hands of an outsider lacking the usual qualifications and personal characteristics to be president. What did we have to lose? The status quo had to be disrupted, whatever the costs and risks, because it clearly led to ruin.
Judged by those standards, the Trump years were a success. Invincible ignorance, divisiveness, corruption, and violations of constitutional norms were just different ways of overturning an evil establishment. The worse it got, the more Trump was viewed as fulfilling his promises to the base. They shared his sense of grievance with the establishment, and adored him for trying to shatter it by any means available, even if he did it for himself, not them.
Trump eroded our faith in our liberal democratic system, but he didn’t replace it with anything except himself. In about a month, he will be gone. What happens then? Will faith in the system be restored? Will it be overturned in favor of illiberal democracy or fascism? Everything is on the table now. Dramatic change is no longer unimaginable.
No pressure on you, Mr. President-Elect.