To say we’re in an unprecedented place is vastly understating it. We are in a place where no proper democracy has ever been or should ever be. We are about to have a president for whom there are utterly and literally no expectations. No one expects him to behave well. No one expects him to uphold normal standards of decency. If he muses one day about bombing London, or bombing Vancouver, or for that matter bombing Detroit, he will surprise no one. The panelists on The Five will just joke that there are certain sections of Detroit that a good bombing would only improve. Ha ha. 

Trump will enter office facing no accountability, and with virtually no chance that he will ever be held accountable. You think I’m exaggerating? OK. Let’s play out a hypothetical. Let’s say President Trump gives nuclear secrets to North Korea. The New York Times breaks the story, let’s say. What would happen? 

We know all too well what would happen. One of two things. Either he’d lie and call it fake news, in which case the right-wing agitprop machine would grind its gears in his defense. They’d unload on the Times. They’d snoop around and find out that the reporter on the story cheated on an algebra test in tenth grade. Fox and the others would have the story “debunked” within about two days, and the Times and the rest of the mainstream media would be overpowered.

-Michael Tomasky in The New Republic