> Sad to see the USA transition to a banana republic.

I'm not sure banana republic is the best description of what is happening, the definition of the term only cover part of where things are heading.

A comparison with NK seems more complete, especially given the current twits at the top, so I've taken to referring to the US as DPR-US.

An insistence - in spite of the reality - that you're a democracy seems likely prophetic.

Right now though I think you can say the US is just back-sliding. Trump threatened to arrest Mamdani for I guess being very popular or something but he doesn't seem to have even attempted to actually do that. Once it's actually gone, Mamdani just gets imprisoned or executed so that Trump's preferred candidate "wins" regardless. The technology of democracy is still there, but the actual principles it supports are gone.