Your man Steve Bannon (though I have no idea whether he's really "your man") is perhaps going to have considerably more influence outside the White House than he had inside it? Regarding the "intellect of the Presidency", Dr. Sebastian Gorka is perhaps the one you need to watch, in the long run: not short of brain-cells at all and particularly articulate. I'm "just saying" (admittedly from thousands of miles away and with little real understanding of the subject ).
I certainly saved paying taxes on my boat - I get to travel the world and work as and when I feel like it.
If we get political, at least let's stay factual: "You can still buy high powered beer, wine and liquor to take home, even when state liquor stores are closed. Even on Sunday. ... Epic Brewing on State Street in Salt Lake has been doing this for six years." Now, can you buy anything on your boat 500 miles from anywhere in the middle of the ocean any day of the week?
Guess it shows I was last in Salt Lake City just about 7 years ago! Actually even then they had a thriving micro-brew scene which I found a little ironic, you just couldn't buy anything to take away as I recall.
You obviously don't know what Sharia law is but that's besides the point. All political ideologies think they are living under an authoritarian regimes when the party in power is not their own. That is not unique to you. Under Obama I heard the same rhetoric from the right. And again, with all due respect to you sir, I have had family live under a real authoritarian regime and this isn't it. Although we came pretty close here under FDR when he rounded up Japanese from their homes and schools and put them in internment camps in WWII.
That was supposed to be a tongue in cheek joke about being afraid of laws based on religious beliefs being fine as long as they're their religious beliefs! Actually I believe not drinking alcohol is in fact part of Sharia law, the Abrahamic religions differ mainly in how closely their followers adhere to the barbaric customs of a bunch of goat herders from 3,000 years ago, not what those customs were. We are not an authoritarian regime, far from it thank goodness and the efforts of those who have ensured we aren't. Sadly we have a big part of the country that seems to think it's fine to make us into one. I oppose that strongly, and pretty strongly resent being told I'm somehow lacking in my manhood by such opposition, or that I'm no different than those on the right who opposed Obama with ridiculous crap about Sharia law. We didn't have a big part of the country on the left that supported suspending elections if Obama wanted to, regardless of what Breitbart published. Sorry but this whole "both sides do it" thing is just false equivalence in this case (and most cases when you're talking the whack-a-doodle part of the right that foments this stuff) I think you hit the nail on the head with the FDR example, it doesn't take much to rile up a good portion of our population into doing some truly awful stuff. Its our job to do everything in our power to stop that. I'm pretty confident that's happening now, like I said I'm pretty hopeful this will all be a bad hangover in a few years. But to the original point about why you would need a U.S. passport for "protection" and why you might want another passport instead for such protection: If you were a guy with Japanese ancestry in January of 1942 wouldn't you have liked to have had another passport for you and your family to avoid being interred in a concentration camp in CA? Pearl Harbor happened in Dec, two months later in Feb it was too late. You don't get another passport in 2 months.
No sorry. This is not a false equivalency issue. This has more to do with psychology. All groups throughout history believe they are being persecuted by others they don't agree with. It's a natural and actual quite normal human tendency. Most people believe their ideology is the "right" one. Most people believe God is on "their" side. Most people believe they are acting on the best interests of everyone else even if everyone doesn't recognize it. It's the same thing that leads most people to believe they are above avg drivers or above avg parents or spouses when in fact it's more likely they are just in fact, average. We have more freedoms in this country then anywhere in the world, including Switzerland. We can openly criticize ANYONE in this country, almost to a fault. Meaning we can even legally falsely accuse people of things and usually get away with it. In the most deeply religious states in this country (christian), we have gays, liberals and Muslims living among them. And in the most deeply progressive states in this country we have bible thumpers, conservatives and free market proponents living among them. That is a rarity in this world and is in complete opposition to your theory we are moving into an authoritarian state. There is one catch though. We have this pesky little thing called the first amendment. It means you might live among those you disagree with, but they don't have to be quiet. They can yell, march, wear ugly hoods, carry ugly signs, do anything that expresses their speech. And you have to tolerate it. And that is what makes this country so great. And it's probably why so many soldiers are willing to keep dying for it. Because they are not dying for what you believe, but just that you have the right to believe it. And god damn that is special. And of course, you are free to leave this great land anytime you want. But let me assure you of one thing, you will not find her equal anywhere else.
I think we agree that the present situation in the United States is great (although not nearly as exceptional as you propose). Hell I spent over 20 years of my life defending it. And I'm more than sensitive to the concept that your team never fouls and the other team never get's called. But there are absolutes in the world. Half of democrats never, at any time, said they supported suspending elections if the President wanted to. Half of Republicans surveyed just did. They get to say that, and I by no means want to shut down their ability to do so. In fact I never said anything to even suggest that, so not sure where that came from. But that they do say that should disturb you, because it indicates that a substantial part of the party in power wants to destroy all the great things that you listed and we both agree make the country great. They certainly have a right to believe that we should suspend elections if Trump wants to, they can even talk about it all they want. They don't have a right to make that a reality, and I have every right to be concerned that they support such a thing. If you'll excuse a small simile here, I was a pilot. As such, it was imperative that I could look up at the clear blue sky on a gorgeous day and decide not to go fly because while it was currently sunny and nice there were massive thunderstorms just beyond the horizon. Same deal here, just because we're a great nation right now doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about a big part of our population that appears to want to tear it all down. So again, don't succumb to this false equivalency crap. That will lead you into not only failing to oppose those who want to end what you just so eloquently listed was great about our country, but criticizing people like me who have devoted a substantial portion of their life supporting it and who are working to ensure this whole democracy thing continues.
OK, so here is where I think the breakdown is. And again, the same ole disclaimer, that all sides fall victim to this. When you see polling data, too often times, both sides use this data as an argument for why they should radically propose certain policies. Let me give me examples that you will probably agree with. A recent poll showed that 75% of millennial's support socialism. OK, well to someone on the right, this poll might scare the shit out of them. Oh no, our country is going to become socialist. The truth is, that poll, like all polls is deeply flawed due to selection bias. Meaning, that it's almost impossible to control for who decides to respond to the poll. It will almost always be biased to the group who the poll is targeting. I have some experience with this btw in that I have a Masters in Economics and this is actually a very important issue. The fact is, most millennials do NOT support that issue. However after accounting for self selection, yes, there are random samples that will and that makes the headline. But groups on the right will use this data to scare republicans into taking action to making sure we never become a socialist country. Another example is abortion. You see polls all the time showing how many people support partial birth abortions. This data is often used to scare conservatives because it shows that most Americans are not against it. That is also not true. Again, what happens in these polls is that people quickly identify that they are targeting the left or the right and many feel compelled to support their team no matter what the poll is. Hell in the 1930's there were polls that showed that a majority of Americans did not oppose Hitler in the beginning. The truth is they did, again, self selection bias. So during the Obama years we saw all sorts of crazy polls that gave a very ugly portrait of America. When in fact those polls were random samples with selection bias. Remember, most polls showed Trump with a 1% to 5% chance of winning. And it turns out, the people who responded to the polls were heavily biased towards Clinton because in this case, Trump supporters did NOT want to be self identified. The point is, the left and the right use this data to scare people like you into action. And for good reason btw. We are in general a very apathetic country. We have some of the lowest voter participation rates in the world. We generally don't care about others and at the end of the day, you have to really push our emotional buttons to get us moving. This is why in this country there is such a cultural war. Nobody is going to scream at each other over taxes or education. We fight over abortion, immigration and LGBTQ rights. Why? Because that moves us emotionally. So the left will show polls to people like you that Trump wants this or that and the right will show polls saying communism is gaining in popularity, you guys better get up and do something and round and round we go. As someone who analyzes data for a living, I see through this stuff pretty clearly but I can see how others get sucked in. Don't even get me started on how polls can be biased based on wording, the ordering of questions and even on the subtly of certain words that people misinterpret the meaning of. For example there are many people in this country that think Obama Care and the Affordable Care Act are two completely different policies. So how are you suppose to react to a poll that shows most Americans support the ACA but are against Obama Care. LOL. Anyway, I get annoyed by all groups who react to their weak emotions. I pride myself of holding libertarian beliefs although I no longer consider myself a libertarian because of the group think that invades all ideologies. In the case of libertarians it was the 9/11 truther movement that signaled it was time to find the door. You have a right to be scared all you want and if you think that adds quality to your life by all means, be scared. Using these examples of "hey, wouldn't you have liked to have a second passport if you were Japanese in the 1940's" is silly. It's the same argument that the NRA makes when they say "hey, just in case man, you never know, the gov't might come after you, you better get your rifle now before Obama takes away your guns". Everyone can use these scare tactics to "prepare" for anything and you know Sig, those people live absolutely completely miserable and unhappy lives. I rather be happy and content for the time I have and be completely unhedged to your scary visions of the future then to live in fear and worry but completely protected on the downside should those events ever happen. And I guess that is the real difference between us.
Certainly all fair points about polling data, although Sessions going after IP addresses of web sites that don't support Trump is a real thing without much ambiguity. I've lived though a number of political cycles, many where I didn't agree with the party in power (hated both Clinton and after he changed my political outlook George W), but never saw the level of anti-democratic sentiment that I see now even with things like the Patriot Act. Like I said, we live in a great country and it's on us to keep it that way, which I'm guessing you agree with on the whole, we just differ in how much we should worry about it's direction at the moment. BTW, this whole thing started based on someone who said you needed a U.S. passport for "protection" and me arguing that a lot of other passports would provide more "protection" then a U.S. one. I personally started the process by opening a business line in another country and getting a work visa there, not a lot of work and increased my revenue so a win-win for me that has increased my happiness with the added benefit that if we do continue to lose our minds I can just move and be halfway to reconstituting. A free call option if you're an MBA type, and also ironically a military pilot mindset kind of thing. But I certainly wouldn't advocate the prepper route, I agree with the miserable lives part of that.