Some readers may think I am being pessimistic, but think about how, back in 2015, very few people would have predicted the relentless political backsliding that the past seven years have brought. Given how drastically the political situation has deteriorated so far, it only makes sense to predict that it will continue to deteriorate at the same rate in the future.
We all need to prepare for the likely imminent future in which right-wing Republicans continue their ongoing successful takeover of the federal government and enforce laws and policies so authoritarian and so unflinchingly cruel that they will make the past seven years of political backsliding seem like a daydream.