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If the injustice that has been done to him is not punished harshly, it will become the norm and the Republic will surely be destroyed. Trump must win or be defeated in a way all regard as fair.
I tend to think it'll be destroyed regardless because the ruling elite will not be able to muster the discipline not to fuck with him even more if he wins, but at least there is a chance a Trump administration can convince the American people that they successfully drained the swamp, if none at all that they would successfully do it.
We'll see how it shakes out, but the Rubicon has already been crossed, Trump is on a collision course with the establishment. People are not going to pick the GOP candidate on such petty motives as policy or track records. Not this time. Not after presidential mugshots and attempts to remove him from the ballot.
I think people are judging such things in such a biased way that this has become impossible. This goes for all points on the political spectrum, not just the R base.
(Which, I suppose, might reasonably be parsed as "the nightmare scenario you're trying to avoid is already here".)
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