As for Elon Musk and the like influencing Trump. I think it is fair to say that Trump is listening to X CEO Elon Musk, not Testla CEO Elon Musk. This seems significant.
As for norm violations: As you point out, Ben Shapiro voted for Trump in 2020 with the logic that the damage had already been done on that front. But immediately after the election Trump initiated the biggest norm violation within living memory by resisting the peaceful transfer of power. Vance has signaled that he wants to take norm violations further in the future by ignoring the Supreme Court like Andrew Jackson once did. I think that Shapiro was wrong to think things could not get worse, and I think people would be wrong to say the same thing today.
You're right, it could certainly get worse. But i'm not convinced that voting for Harris makes this possibility all that less likely. The Democrats have constantly undermined the supreme court as an institution (I was frankly pretty surprised to hear Biden refer to the court as "extreme"). The right has done this too, so I'm by no means saying any of this is a democrat problem. But it's not true that norm violations have been on one side. I still don't fully believe that we have Joe Biden in the White House even now, after the whole country discovered he should be in hospice. Kamala Harris is by no means exempt from moral responsibility for that whoel fiasco.
As for Elon Musk and the like influencing Trump. I think it is fair to say that Trump is listening to X CEO Elon Musk, not Testla CEO Elon Musk. This seems significant.
As for norm violations: As you point out, Ben Shapiro voted for Trump in 2020 with the logic that the damage had already been done on that front. But immediately after the election Trump initiated the biggest norm violation within living memory by resisting the peaceful transfer of power. Vance has signaled that he wants to take norm violations further in the future by ignoring the Supreme Court like Andrew Jackson once did. I think that Shapiro was wrong to think things could not get worse, and I think people would be wrong to say the same thing today.
You're right, it could certainly get worse. But i'm not convinced that voting for Harris makes this possibility all that less likely. The Democrats have constantly undermined the supreme court as an institution (I was frankly pretty surprised to hear Biden refer to the court as "extreme"). The right has done this too, so I'm by no means saying any of this is a democrat problem. But it's not true that norm violations have been on one side. I still don't fully believe that we have Joe Biden in the White House even now, after the whole country discovered he should be in hospice. Kamala Harris is by no means exempt from moral responsibility for that whoel fiasco.
Democrats at least don't tend to initiate serious norm violations, which is the thing I am most concerned about.