I find the Gaetz and Hegeseth picks to be a bit worrying. I struggle to find a reason that the Gabbard is bad at all. In fact, I think she is probably good? She's a former congresswoman, city councillor, hawaii house rep and member of the national guard, etc. She seems like a good pick who is concerned about the US tendency to intervene in foreign countries.

Now, to be clear, I find the Gaetz and Hegeseth picks to be bad but I thought Trump would do these types of things and I think there is a whole universe of things that Trump could have done and so he did some mildly-moderately bad ones. 

So, he did some bad things but it was around expectation and nothing yet in the tails and thus I shouldn't update in the direction of totalitarianism.

I'm still not finding anything to really be alarmed about other than people I know being alarmed.

This seems to overstate how important the ea forum is

My problem with this is that it's not falsifiable.

If I'm willing to bet, I need to take "edge". I am not going to bet at my actual odds since that gives no profit for me.

1/2. I think nearly every president committed crimes, for example, war crimes. This mainly depends on what he is prosecuted for as opposed to what is committed.

3. If the constitution is amended that seems fine. I'm fine to bet on something like this though.

4. I'm not sure why that matters. People can elect people you and I disagree with ideologically.

5. I don't think I understand this one. Can you clarify?

I feel like people are converting their dislike of Trump into unwarranted fears. I don't like Trump but it's not helpful to fear monger.

Sure, we don't have to bet at 50/50 odds. I'm willing to bet at say 90/10 odds in your favor that the next election is decided by electoral college or popular vote with a (relatively) free and fair election comparable to 2016, 2020 and 2024.

I agree that Trump is... bad for lack of a better word and that he seeks loyalty and such. But the US democracy is rather robust and somehow people took the fact that it held up strongly as evidence that... democracy was more fragile than we thought.

I'm willing to bet (and i already have one bet) against US democracy falling.

I have generally found the fears of democracy failing in the US to be hyperbolic and without much good evidence. The claims are also very "vibes-based" and/or partisan rather than at the object level.

Perhaps, to quell your concerns, you should make concrete what you are concerned about and I will try to respond to that

For starters, we have already had a Trump presidency and while the transition was not ideal, it happened and thus should make you less concerned about a Trump dictatorship/autocracy. US institutions help up strong against a real overturning of the election.

Again, happy to formalize a bet on this.

Very good read. Thanks for writing this. This should be a more read post.

First, I loved this comment. I think we might have more philosophical animal support in the highest places in this administration than ever before.

Second, I'm not going to pretend that animal welfare is predominantly left wing but I've been surprised at the recent reception among right wingers.

nope, the fact that @Karthik Tadepalli verified you shows I am wrong. I am sorry for accusing you. The google scholar link not working seemed like a scam because it would look legit until you clicked it. If you want one more suspicious thing is that you posted it twice. Nonetheless, I apologize wholeheartedly. 

Your google scholar link here works but not on your profile. That was one of the things that led me to believe it was a scam