Real answer: The checks & balances worked to a point, but trump is the culmination of decades of effort to dismantle and circumvent just about every regulatory safeguard the US had. And most of the really absurd stuff he does is illegal but he just isn't prosecuted for it.

Extremely dirty politics, but with a historic new power twist. He is using "yes men" to make loopholes into existing laws to break or neuter entire chunks of laws. He does his whims until it gets taken to court. Checks and balances are still there, except it's now 100% clogged and backlogged. And to worsen it, dirty lawyers and favorable judges keep overturning and overturning court outcomes.

I am expecting horses.

It's possible because 50 years of the class war being waged against the working and middle class has effectively gutted any chance for upward mobility and the blame is on the educated and education in general.

Stupid people can be easily manipulated to allow any lawnessless to flourish - esp. from those at the top - as long as they aim it at the "educated" and "elite" rich.

It's best expressed by what President Lyndon Johnson said: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best black man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on and he'll open his pocket for you.."

..and that is EXACTLY what MAGA has done and they're too stupid and "poorly educated" to understand that the hardship they're going through now is of their own making.

But by God, they certainly stuck it to the "libs," didn't they?

Goes hand in hand with the people like Alex Jones and the others who now oppose Trump's agenda when they initially supported it and Trump's reaction was to call them stupid.. which they were, because years ago, he famously said "Smart people don't like me.." and that WAS the truth.

The thing about Trump is he's NEVER hid the kind of self-serving prick of a person he is. People always just laughed it off saying it was all a self-deprecating joke.. but it is not.

50 years of the rich gutting public education every step of the way and 35 years of corporate propaganda on cable TV has gotten us here.

This IS how empires rot. From within.

Americans are stupid as fuck and get taken advantage of accordingly.

Americans have done an insufficient job of making fascists afraid. Fascists do what they want. The rest of the country whines online, does a parade, and then accepts it as the new normal.

Americans are fucking cowards.

To be clear, this is only for passports from the DC passport office, no other passports will have the pedo in chief on them.

Easy, just move to Europe

Nah, man. We got a fucked up propaganda machine that promotes billionaire talking points to basically every American. We have a political system that's basically "well, we need to have a king, but he should be elected", there's no actual way to get the motherfucker out if he controls even a large minority in one chamber of the legislature, and the person who ran against him saw all of the people drowning from higher costs of living and basically said "we're on the right track, don't listen to the guy who says he'll help you, he's lying and dangerous" without actually offering to fucking help any one.

Plus, we have enough politically disengaged white people in this country that "things were interesting when Trump was president" was a selling point to them.

... maybe it is a humiliation thing...

has to be ragebait, if he really was about that stuff he would've immediately put his face on the dollar or something actually important.

Customs agent; "What is the reason for your travel?"

Traveler, taps passport depicting Trump.

Customs agent: "I'm so sorry... come right in."

You need to orchestrate a mass famine that kills 60 million people to get to Mao's level.