It got a lot worse this time because he brought all his people in. The old administration started with misalignment and some competent people. The administrators were less willing to break laws. So that one was better.

A year ago, I used to still list living in America as among the things I'm grateful for. I don't do that anymore because then I think of the places I'd rather live.

I really hope this new craziness and volatility is temporary, but I wonder if it is. We could become the next Argentina if not.

Had the wrong ideas, but also a lack of competence to follow through as well. Also the global scenario wasn't quite as grim.

The best outcome would have been no Trump terms at all, and failing that just a single term. But if we had to have two Trump terms I think we would have been better off having them consecutive instead of breaking it up. Because of his loss and then eventual win:

• His sore loser syndrome kicked in hard and made him more actively want to undermine democracy itself.
• His tangle with the justice system also had him undermining the justice system.
• It gave the Project2025 assholes a whole 4 years to scheme how to leverage a Trump win, and now we have a pure PJ2025 administration.
• It distanced moderate republican leadership who assumed Trump was done, leaving Trump only with the worst of the MAGA sticking by him at the top.

His first term was moderated because he somewhat abided traditional input and his administration was a mix. He did a lot of the same wrong things generally but failed enough to significantly mitigate the harm. His anti-immigrant rhetoric was real, but also he didn't care enough to actually follow through as hard as his administration has this time around.

Though I do agree, I wasn't exactly excited about 2018.