because he didn't go out of his way to destroy it. The federal agencies and the civil servants who kept them going continued to work; people didn't worry about whether they'd get their Social Security checks; national parks stayed open; the Kennedy Center produced whatever performances it wanted; law firms weren't retaliated against for representing clients who opposed the government. Some very bad things happened viz. Iraq, but the federal government still chugged along, competently managing the day-to-day issues affecting most people. But Trump is not merely stupid; he's much worse than that. He's at the center of a Venn diagram of stupid, crazy and evil. A government can still function if it's not intentionally sabotaged. Ours was basically stable and functioned pretty well under the good presidents and the stupid ones and the bad ones - until now.

There is no good reason to deny American voters' agency in this shithole of a country we have got here.

our Senators, and almost everyone in present-day Texas State Leadership comes from that administration. He should be in prison. I say this because I live in Texas.

However, from a national perspective, I blame Reagan. The politics/religion, government is evil, anti-unionism, corruption, and just disgusting rhetoric - he is the worst overall. Another POTUS that was clearly suffering from dementia.

W created the Presidential election stealing road map that was rubberstamped by the Rehnquist 5 in 2000. Millions of Americans watched in horror as their legal votes were thrown out and then decided that democracy no longer works which made them open to the idea of a dictator. tRump has used W's 2000 Presidential election stealing road map to the letter and he's said publicly during the 2024 campaign that he would be a dictator. This is how we got here. There would be no tRump now without W and the repug Rehnquist 5.

But Trump is a charismatic malignantly narcissistic sociopath. Historically, we've had them before; and while it didn't end well for them, the world paid a heavy price for their existence.