It’s been hard to keep track of all the ways in which America has been speedrunning toward a full-blown fascist surveillance state over the first two years of the second Trump administration. That’s partially due to the disorienting, shock-and-awe nature of each fresh injustice. But it’s mostly because of just how many they’ve been throwing at beleaguered Americans in rapid-fire succession. In the runup to the midterm elections, which polls suggest will deliver a debilitating blue tsunami to MAGA’s vitality, the chaos has only intensified as the incumbents make it clear there’s nothing they’re not prepared to do to cling to power. ICE began a fresh campaign of raids in blue state “sanctuary cities.” DHS has been targeting election centers in historically Dem-voting counties of battleground states with demands for voting records and voters’ confidential personal information under the pretext of investigating voter fraud. And early voter reports that their poorly-calibrated touchscreen machines keep glitching out—not unlike the President himself—have many fearing full-bore election rigging.

While any voting-aged Americans reading this should definitely not let any of the above intimidate them from exercising their civic rights at the polls (and triple-checking their ballot), it’s admittedly all a lot to take in. So, while it certainly can’t be described as comforting, it might be at least… grounding(?) to take a step back from the discrete outrages that make it feel like we’re increasingly living in an authoritarian nightmare and look at some hard data that proves it.

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