
As someone who wasn’t of voting age in 2015/2016, I swear Trump’s first term wasn’t this bad. Like, once he lost to Biden I feel like he just went completely off the rails. I’m a socialist. I’m definitely not conservative. But like, wtf. This government and this country is so unserious with its current leadership and decision-making. It’s a full mask-of moment and, as we’ve seen, there have thus far been little to no consequences for it.
That sounds about right to me. I think I don’t remember it being this bad the first time around because he wasn’t outright doing tyrannical/authoritarian things on the daily. He was just doing things that seemed ill-advised and like a guy who had no experience in actually governing. I think I wrote it off as incompetence and self-importance. But this time, it’s obvious intended as malice.
Charlottesville and COVID-19 were pretty bad, but outside of those it was mainly “haha this guy is an idiot and clueless”. I think what really did him in was BLM, because all of this supposed rioting and looting (which was overblown by media; 94% of protests were peaceful) was happening under his watch and he felt weak for letting it happen. That’s when the old school “law and order” came out in full force and it was progressively worse after that