Why Thomas Friedman issued a 'code red' warning to America

[Hortensis]

56. Oh, the country will last. What's dismantled can be rebuilt,

and better for some major shaking up. A big part of what's happening is attempts to institutionalize corruption, restructure our government to serve a few. The worst damage will be done to our ethical norms. But whatever we inherit, we will live with while we fix it and move ahead. Right now many are busily fighting to limit damage to institutions and injury to people.

Part of facing this bravely is not flapping our hands but understanding that we do have power too. You wouldn't be posting this OP if you read the many things people are doing to combat this attempt at takeover.

The huge thing, of course, is that the law is on our side. It really would be all over if the law was on the side of the Vichy and Banana Republicans. But it's not. It's a major barrier to them, the more so as they fear prison. SCOTUS is a worry of course, as serious losses there would take much longer to fix, but most of the judiciary is on our side.

But many people in public and private institutions are on our side. Many foreign governments are on our side.

And we also have over 200 years of deeply engrained democratic traditions that are what America means to its people. They've been careless about it because it's so much us we never really thought we could lose it. But we had a majority of the electorate even before the 2016 wakeup call. We lost in in 2016 only because of new types of machinations to keep people from voting for us, but our majority'll be larger this time. And chances are excellent Republican turnout will drop. Even if only a couple of percentages, that's also huge.

If you want to worry about something, you're welcome to share mine. That even if we sweep in 2018 and 2020 this won't be over. As long perhaps 16,000 people in our new ultrawealthy classes can buy whole legislative majorities without even missing the money, democracy is in serious trouble.