Just like the collapse of the USSR, once it started it appeared to happen quickly but in fact it had been falling for sometime we just didn't realize it. I think the same is true here, it just took Obama take full advantage of it. Hopefully the voters will install some checks in 2010. We can only pray it happens. But, without a complete sea change I don't think things will get better.
Be too late, we might recapture the house, but the senate is out of our grasp, so reversal of any of these Fascist policies will be well engrained into the system, never to be overturned.