Trump is certainly playing the part of Mussolini and the only thing that might spare us his worst depredations is his buffoonish incompetence, lack of discipline, and queasiness at the sight of blood. The next one like him will be far more subtle and hard to see for what he is, and therefore more dangerous. The way I always put it is what if it were Manafort in the presidency and Trump taking the fall for him? Manafort has panache and literacy in this favor. In that scenario we would be totally fucked instead of mostly fucked.

As it is, it will be the work of generations to undo the damage Trump is doing and to change law and policy and public sentiment to make it much harder to happen again. And we may well fail to do that, and will, at the least, be having this conversation again someday -- probably surreptitiously rather than in the open.

@mordant While I agree with a large part of what you stated... Manafort hardly has the panache in his favor. He is a dullard also... Just with different color stripes. I agree that we need to be wary of the future. I would have never thought anyone would have let this damage be done. The whole lot will hopefully be in jail soon enough!