"...Look at all the norms and the rules and the guardrails that have been bulldozed away and you might well wonder what the bottom of this slippery slope is going look like. But those of us with a glancing familiarity with history don’t wonder. We know the answer, and the answer is not particularly nice..."
I have more than a glancing familiarity with history, and this is going to end up where all totalitarian regimes eventually end up: Broke, at war, citizens conquered, subjugated, starving, and in chains trying to generate some form of resistance to a tryannical government without having it root them out and destroy them.
Yes, you nailed it more directly than Schlichter dared.
Add societal collapse, none of our complicated systems will work (supply chains, factories, power, sewer, air travel, education, rails, roads, construction...everything), GDP in the toilet and a greatly reduced standard of living (if you can call communism “living”).
The one way to avoid this is a military coup, resulting in a Caesar or Franco if we're lucky, or a Mussolini or Mao if we are not.
I never thought the day would come when someone could watch Seven Days in May and want to root for Burt Lancaster.