TUCSON — Forget any remaining doubts. Donald Trump intends a scorched earth blitzkrieg to corrupt the nation he'll swear on a bible to serve during a pay-for-play Inauguration extravaganza. It is a tossup whether Americans can stop him.

Democracies survive only if voters deliver a plurality at the polls. America blew it. Skilled reporters laid out the threat in irrefutable detail. Inept coverage, guesswork "influencers" and propaganda drowned them out. There may not be a second chance.

Joe Biden's swan song address echoed Dwight Eisenhower's. In the 1950s, America was headed for control by a military-industrial complex. Today, Biden said, it faces a tech-industrial takeover: oligarchic and plutocratic rule by the mega-rich.

It is worse than that. That hoary telltale canary in a mine is a dry Southern California in the Santa Ana winds. An unhinged president could quite literally steer Earth toward Armageddon. As Biden said, only ordinary workaday Americans can stop him.

Republican ramrodding will likely confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, with the failsafe responsibility to ensure a hair-trigger president does not activate the nuclear football always in his reach. That is only the extreme of unthinkable potentialities.

As a reporter since 1961, I can't recall a more shameful moment in America: self-serving spinelessness by elected lawmakers, a failure of news media executives to react and widespread apathy among so many voters whose own progeny will suffer as a result.

P. J. O'Rourke wrote a book in 2003 meant for laughs. "Parliament of Whores." When a president punishes legislators who do not fall in line despite their private opposition to his dictates, that is no longer funny.

This may change as reality bites hard, and Americans step up to the challenge. Or not.

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TUCSON — With Thanksgiving over, Americans need to drop despair cold turkey and unite behind a single stage of grief. Anger. The others lead to acceptance, the final triumph of a creeping coup d'etat that plutocrats and ideologues began in the 1980s.

Voters have only two years to begin rescuing America, calmly but persuasively and without letup. After 2026, solid majorities in Congress and statehouses can start steering a ship of fools back toward sanity. Consider what is at stake.

An Islamist terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head just rallied fractious Syrians to end 53 years of indescribably cruel al-Assad family rule in a week-long blitz.

Abu Mohammed al-Golani promises democracy to Muslims of all sects, Christians, Jews and the rest. Syrians who fought him bitterly in a free-for-all uprising after the 2011 Arab Spring are now delirious with joy. Many hold out hope that he means it.

American diplomacy and sparing use of military options is crucial now to referee Middle East turmoil with a massive impact on global order. Donald Trump says it is not his problem. Leave it to Russia and China.

By 2028, Syria could end up being closer to democratic principles than the United States. Not likely. But even that possibility ought to snap awake Americans who are sleepwalking toward tyranny.

Trump envisions an amoral, hate-fueled autocracy that spurs on climate chaos, enflames conflicts and further separates rich from desperate. Legislators, generals, civil servants and journalists and educators could be locked away for doing their jobs.

He insults allies with punitive tariffs while courting despots who muzzle the press, stamp out human rights, encroach on neighbors and plunder dwindling resources as Earth's ecosystem collapses.

He hands power to big donors, corrupt relatives and incompetent sycophants who snivel at his feet. His crass money-spinning schemes flout the law — and human decency. Hardly a president, he is a p-word with a last syllable that rhymes with loot.

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