The Downfall of All Authoritarians Is That They Can't Stop Themselves

People love to talk about an alternate history Germany that just didn't invade the Soviet Union, or a Japan that just didn't attack the US, and how that would have changed the war. The problem is that authoritian rulers high on their own power, surrounded by bootlickers and suck-ups who want to see them be more powerful can rarely stop themselves from going too far. Hitler was a genocidal psychopath who wanted world domination, there was no timeline in which he just stopped after conquering France and said that's it. He would have had to have been a completely different person operating in a completely different context.

To bring this to present - Trump could have coasted into the White House, having nothing to prove, and sat around on his ass owning the libs with executive orders about the culture war with an improving economy. Elon could have gotten his subsidies, tax cuts, and led the way to going to Mars. But they wouldn't be who they are if they weren't egomaniacs desperate to do look "tough" and this is why they will keep pushing the envelope until they take it too far. This is good news and bad news - the good news is that they will fall eventually, the bad news is they will probably take a lot of us with them. So stay safe and stay strong, because the Trump & Musk regime will fail eventually, and the faster they try to destroy everything, the faster this will happen. (My guess is Trump will probably try to make good on one of his invasion proposals (Greenland?) and it will fail spectacularly). We will see, maybe it will take longer than we hope, but if the Assad regime can fall in a matter of weeks after decades of total control, anything is possible. Humanity has a long history of fucking things up, and then bouncing right back.