Yes, democracy in the US is at risk of turning into the kind of...

Yes, democracy in the US is at risk of turning into the kind of sham democracy they have in Russia where Putin makes sure he wins. They have elections in North Korea too, if Kim Jong-un got 101% of the vote they'd probably all accept it. Saddam had similar elections in Iraq. Jan 6 was the day America looked like those sh*thole countries, if Trump got his way on that day it would have been game over. Everyone who believes his stupid "stolen election" lie is like a North Korean believing in the 101% vote for Kim.

Dosdan's discussion of the cult of individualism is also good. People actually like doing good things for other people, it's a biological need, be it altruism, reciprocity, prosocial or eusocial behaviour. Sometimes, the most fulfilling way to exercise your individual freedom is to do something nice for other people.

Unfortunately there is a sick idea that compassion for others is a form of weakness, only self-interest is real. That's Trump to the core. This thinking is also baked into neo-Liberal capitalism and it has influenced Labour, Liberal, Democrats, Conservatives, left and right. It dominated the Clinton, Obama, Blair governments, you can even see its sick influence on Jim Chalmers, the European Union. Of course our Liberal Party is full of it. It leads to attacks on health care, public housing and education.

Sometimes you get a political movement which pretends to reinstate compassion, but ONLY for a select group, be it America First under Trump, or Aryans First under Hitler. I recommend the excellent little book "On Tyranny" by Timothy Snyder, which draws out these comparisons. Trump is old enough to have been influenced by the earlier incarnations of this phenomenon, when Americans thinking was drawing from the same well as the far right in Europe.