In 2019 I wrote on this site:

All indications are that the GOP and the American people are prepared to collude in the transformation to an authoritarian regime

Well, they tried. And they're still trying. It almost worked in 2020. We were not saved by "our institutions" - we were only saved by a few individuals here and there and some good luck. There were a few election officials, many republican, that refused to go along with the coup. Some staffer in Congress grabbed the boxes containing the electoral college votes on January 6 at the last minute. A few Capitol police held ground long enough for members of Congress to find shelter and avoid being killed or kidnapped.

By Tyler Merbler from USA - DSC09265-2, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98724490

Had any one of those accidents not happened, we could be living in a much different world right now.

With everything we're learning from the January 6th committee, along of course with everything we already knew, what we saw with our own eyes, we know there was a coup attempt. If they succeeded, they would have kept the former president in place, ignoring the will of the people, ignoring the vote, ignoring the Constitution, ignoring that the election wasn't even close, as Mitch McConnell himself stated on January 6. Now we know this coup plot was put to paper. They had a blueprint to use to prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election and ignore the devastating loss that Trump suffered and keep him in office anyway.

How quickly we forget.

After losing the election in 2020, the then-president went entirely AWOL. He was never particularly presidential or particularly attentive to his presidential duties, but after his 2020 election defeat, he was totally missing, focused only on the "big lie" and wanting nothing to do with affairs of state. This is who he is. This is what we would get if he runs and wins back the presidency. We will not get the "muted" version we had for four years. We're going to get the full off-the-rails version we saw for the two months up to when he boarded Marine One at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2021, the version of Trump that (finally) got him kicked off Twitter and Facebook.

Here's some of the crazy stuff that happened after he lost the election:

• After vote counts showed a Biden victory, Trump engaged in what has been called a "post-election purge", firing or forcing out at least a dozen officials and replacing them with loyalists.
• He and his associates filed a number of lawsuits contesting election processes, vote-counting, and the vote-certification process in multiple states. Courts dismissed more than 50 lawsuits of alleged electoral fraud and irregularities presented by Trump and allies. Trump's own U.S. election security officials have said the election was “the most secure in American history”.
• He pressured Michigan officials not to certify the legal and valid election results.
• He famously pressured  Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger to disqualify ballots and "find" him enough votes to win.
• The Trump campaign requested a recount in Wisconsin counties known to be Democratic strongholds. The recounts ended up increasing Biden's lead by 87 votes.
• Trump placed a call to Georgia governor Brian Kemp in which he urged the governor to call a special session of the state legislature to override the election results and appoint electors who would support Trump.
• After legal efforts by Trump and his proxies had failed in numerous state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, some right-wing activists and Trump allies – including Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, and L. Lin Wood – suggested that Trump could suspend the Constitution, declare martial law and "rerun" the election.
• Trump enlisted Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and other aides to pressure deputy attorney Jeffrey Rosen, who would replace Barr on December 23, and other Justice Department officials to challenge the election results. Jeffrey Clark, acting assistant attorney general for the civil division, approached Rosen with a draft letter addressed to officials in the state of Georgia and requested he sign it. 
• Michael Flynn called senior Trump intelligence official Ezra Cohen and told him to take extreme actions, including seizing ballots, to prevent the election results from favoring the winner, Joe Biden.
• On New Year's Eve, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows sent a memo drafted by Trump attorney Jenna Ellis to a top Pence aide containing a detailed plan to overturn the election results.
• On New Year's Day, White House director of personnel John McEntee sent a series of bullet points via text message to Pence's chief of staff to incorrectly assert that Thomas Jefferson "Used His Position as VP to Win" the 1801 election.
• Justice Department officials pressured Atlanta's top federal prosecutor, B. J. Pak, to say there had been widespread voter fraud in Georgia, warning him that he would be fired if he did not. The White House forced Pak to resign on January 4, 2021.

Nothing has changed.

We were not saved by the "rule of law." Pundits keep telling us, even in the long list of dirty deeds listed above, there were no laws broken, or not enough evidence to bring a case anyway. If this holds true, we are no longer a country ruled by laws. Meanwhile, the republicans have been systematically removing everyone that pushed back against the coup and replacing them with Trump loyalists who will be more open to overturning future elections.

Yet we just keep pretending it's politics as usual, just another election cycle. See: A message from the future.

The difference is the steady disappearance of dissent from the public sphere. Anti-regime bloggers disappear. Dissident political parties are declared “illegal.” Certain books vanish from the libraries.

The transition has been nonviolent, often not even very dramatic. Opponents of the regime are not murdered or imprisoned, although many are harassed with building inspections and tax audits. If they work for the government, or for a company susceptible to government pressure, they risk their jobs by speaking out. Nonetheless, they are free to emigrate anytime they like. Those with money can even take it with them. Day in and day out, the regime works more through inducements than through intimidation. The courts are packed, and forgiving of the regime’s allies. Friends of the government win state contracts at high prices and borrow on easy terms from the central bank. Those on the inside grow rich by favoritism; those on the outside suffer from the general deterioration of the economy. As one shrewd observer told me on a recent visit, “The benefit of controlling a modern state is less the power to persecute the innocent, more the power to protect the guilty.”
- How to Build an Autocracy - The Atlantic 

Americans need not look far to see what this kind of boring authoritarianism looks like. As University of Michigan political scientist Robert Mickey has argued, swaths of the US South were effectively under one-party rule during parts of the 20th century.
- Life in authoritarian states is mostly boring and tolerable, Vox

It is happening here. Make peace with it. 

1. Assume all communications and activities are monitored.
2. Do not trust any information released by the government.
3. Support the production and dissemination of independent media.
4. Move banned activities and observances underground.
5. If necessary, change your identity.
6. If you are able, shield those more vulnerable than yourself.
7. Have a hiding place or escape plan ready.
8. Make room for culture, even in dark times.
9. Support labor unions and work stoppages.
10. Keep the spirit of resistance alive and never lose hope.