Nov 8, 2016: The end of Democracy as we know it?

--> [written Sept 1, 2016, posted Nov 9] 
If Trump wins in November, at least historians will have a date-certain for when the American experiment in democracy returned the definitive null result.  That differs from the ends of the Roman empire (too many choices with civil wars and goths) and the British (when is a crumbling empire finally toast).  Although the end was abrupt, like the death of some elderly people we can note in the late US empire a history of increasing frailty.  We recall an abrupt personality change, toward meanness (1968), thankfully transient, a return to decency before a fall (1980), compromised intellect and onset of dementia, again a recovery and compos mentis ('92) then a hard fall with serious injury (2001) that produced delusions of grandeur and power, then a final, brief remarkable lucidity and partial recovery (2008) before the terminal plunge into madness, self-absorption and fantasy (2016).

We hail our new vulgarian Overlord.