Russia, Authoritarianism and the Populist Rabble

If you're wondering why I haven't been writing about the Russian military buildup along their border with Ukraine and the imminent possibility of a full-scale invasion, there's a reason for that. I am figuratively holding my breath to see which direction my own country, America, takes during the next two major election cycles.  Will we return to our often fractious and quarrelsome, but ultimately peaceful political debate that acknowledges and respects election results or will we move toward a fascist, authoritarian system typified by an increasing number of regimes in the world where the leader panders to a certain element of his constituency?  This element is found in large numbers just about anywhere...composed of people, whom I term as the "rabble", who are essentially xenophobic and imperialistic as they believe that the only true leader is an aggressive strongman and that his political opponents are by definition traitors who should be punished accordingly.  Before the 2020 U.S. presidential election and its immediate aftermath, a lot of us here thought that the United States was immune to this sort of thing...but events since then have proved otherwise.  In our nation's past history it was manifested in populist movements that came and went, but in some other countries the rabble component of the population is much larger than ours, setting up a kind of ironic political situation: authoritarian regimes that won't allow free and fair elections that would most probably reflect the general approval of their population.  Until corrected with evidence to the contrary, that's where I believe countries like Russia, China, Turkey, the Philippines and Venezuela...among many...stand today.  It's not just secret police or restrictive laws propping up their governments...a huge bloc of their own people stands solidly behind them as well.  As does a substantial bloc of our own people behind efforts to transform our democratically represented republic into one in name only.  I hope nothing violent comes out of the Russian troop buildup, but I think that in spite of that country's leadership making it out as an external matter between them and the West, it's most likely rooted in inner political struggles that have been submerged by that great nation's abandonment of free and fair elections in favor of authoritarianism...