Yes, but this tension has been there since the founding of the republic. The federalists wanted to centralize power (some much more than others), and the republicans (the "jeffersonians") bitterly opposed it. In his second term George Washington personally lead troops to Pennsylvania to put down the whiskey rebellion.
Zooming out of the 24h news cycle, "all power to a singular person" concerns seem far too overblown. Half the country hates Trump. He won the popular vote, but not by all that much (despite what he may assert). By comparison LBJ, FDR, and Nixon won ~60% of popular vote. Even if he were a young man, I don't think we're in any danger of a caesar.
To be clear, a plurality of individual voters voted for Trump and Vance's electors. Trump still had less than 50% of all votes cast. At 64.1% turnout, that means that less than 32% (approximately) of eligible voters voted for Trump.
Why would a small difference in voters supporting him or not matter if he has all the guns and fanatics willing to use them?
The number of Americans willing to check the other person on the ballot is a lot lower than the number of Americans willing to pick up arms when he ignores the law like all the other laws he ignores.
I think the scarier part is how utterly polarized the US is. The ratings are awful for trump, but it gets really scary when you zoom in.
80% conservateives at worst still support trump, while 7% liberal at best support him. Maybe someone can bring up polling to prove me wrong, but that is utterly unheard of levels of polarization. The only solace here is that independent voters are tanking, so in polls this close that can be the breaking point for all of this.
>Even if he were a young man, I don't think we're in any danger of a caesar.
The scary part is that he's not a young nor healthy man. He can blow the world up and not live to see the utter destruction he triggered. At least Caesar was assassinated and had to be on edge for years. Trump will have lived a full life never being punished and the world will burn afterwards.
From my reading of history the level of polarization was at least as high or higher during the early republic, and obviously higher leading up to and through the civil war. I don't know American history in any meaningful depth outside these two periods, but I suspect there were other periods of extreme polarization. I really don't think this is new.
Zooming out of the 24h news cycle, "all power to a singular person" concerns seem far too overblown. Half the country hates Trump. He won the popular vote, but not by all that much (despite what he may assert). By comparison LBJ, FDR, and Nixon won ~60% of popular vote. Even if he were a young man, I don't think we're in any danger of a caesar.