Donald Trump will be a tragedy, a sad joke in American history.

American democracy faces a massive challenge. I don't think it is a certainty that we're headed toward Putin's Russia, as some commentariat does. But people need to mobilize and build up small-d democratic institutions to prepare against that eventuality.

It's pretty clear that Hillary Clinton was a deeply, deeply flawed alternative. She had the wrong combination of the internal political chops to muscle out all the mainstream nominations from the field, leaving only Bernie Sanders, who was unacceptable to the Democrats' party establishment. But she also had a real lack of political skill that would enable her to win the general election.

Because many people remembered a time when the Republican Party was not so extreme, and hadn't full grasped how much it had changed, people blamed Obama for his failure to get Republicans to agree with him. That blame coloured so much of how the public saw Obama during his presidency. The public thought he was dealing with a brand of Republican leader that just didn't exist any more.

Conservatives are much more comfortable supporting the leader who's in power than liberals.

Trump is what Obama critics think Obama is: Someone who's focused on symbolism rather than substance.

In the long run, however much damage we come through, Obama's vision is the one that's going to be left standing. It's a question of how much pain and suffering America has to endure in the meantime.