Unfortunately

Trump has really gotten all of us to really think and possibly re-think a LOT of the stuff we have always taken for granted as being symbolic and automatic democratic traditions. There never has really been a problem with a lot of this stuff because our leaders have always been (mostly) honorable people whom have implicitly agreed to maintain the norms and traditions that have existed in our country over the years but with people like Trump and, to a lesser extent, George W. Bush, whom are either ignorant or corrupt or uncaring about our political traditions and norms, we have had to re-examine and re-think or assumptions whether or not just having these traditions and norms are sufficient in and of themselves to safeguard our democratic system of government. After the last 4 years, I was genuinely terrified of the possibility that another 4 years of Trump taking a chainsaw to our democracy with the ongoing tacit/implicit support/neglect by a major political party (Republicans) would destroy what we had left of our form of government, which had already been weakened by years and years of Republican destruction of norms in other branches of government, most notably the Senate under Mitch McConnell and SCOTUS by conservative ideologues. It may really be time to start making some major changes to how things like Elections are conducted and/or put into place some actual legal/ethical mechanisms into the functioning of our government to ensure that we don't have another President like Trump come in and exploit all of those loopholes ever again. In that way, we can at least salvage *something* positive from our experience of the past 4 years with Trump and, hopefully, prevent another clusterf**k and threat to our democracy for all time.