I'm not really worried about Trump getting elected, in a fair election. And if he is elected, fairly? We're already toast. We'd be getting what we deserve. And I think that it's a mistake to focus on Trump as a singular evil, like a Bond villain or a Marvel supervillain. His followers will still be around after he loses the election. And boy will they be pissed.

But I think we'll get something valuable out of this election: A reliable measurement of the American people's authoritarian quotient. Both sides are strongly motivated, no disparity in turnout to compensate for. The percentage that votes for Trump in November is America's AQ. Plain and simple.

Well, OK, never plain and simple. We know that authoritarianism is a variable quantity, more a sensitivity of the moment in response to the perception of external threats. So the AQ we get on election day will reflect the state of the world on that day.

Or at least, how the politicians will have convinced that part of the population to perceive the world as threatening. The third leg of the authoritarian stool is the skill of demagogues to exploit the external world to exacerbate the inner perceptions.

Oh yes, ER, we do live in interesting times.