It was the perfect climate from which a candidate like Ian Wrightman could emerge. He understood, or someone in his campaign understood, what Americans so desperately wanted: someone to believe in. A Sully to convey the message: Trust me, everything is going to be all right. The only thing Wrightman was missing were the aviator glasses. So while the Republicans were warning Americans about encroaching socialism and the Democrats were promising economic equality and affordable healthcare, Wrightman positioned himself as the plumber who could fix the leaking pipe. He shrugged his shoulders and agreed that all those promises the other guys were making were great, we all want everything they were offering, but meanwhile that leak is destroying your house. It really was a brilliant metaphor; millions of Americans easily related to fear of plumbing.

The usual Meet the Press/This Week/GPS panelists characterized his campaign slogan, “Restore Order,” as a code phrase for either fascism or neoliberalism. But what they failed to understand—okay, I missed it too—is that order was exactly what people wanted. Wrightman paid attention to what was happening around the world. The Russian people loved Putin. The Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain—note that, a captain!—who proclaimed, “A good criminal is a dead criminal,” and set out to prove it. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte became wildly popular by detaining small-time criminals for loitering and smoking and even drinking outdoors while sanctioning executions for more serious crimes like dealing drugs.

Wrightman came into office with a smile and a fist. The smile provided cover for the fist. Day after day his administration announced seemingly minor changes and restrictions that taken as a whole gave the impression that he was going to do exactly as he promised: restore order. After the endless chaos of the Trump White House and the intense ineffectiveness of the Democrats, the belief that an intelligent adult was flying the plane allowed people to sit back and enjoy the penguin movie. It worked—as long as nobody looked behind the curtain.

With great fanfare, Homeland Security introduced the new Cyber Card program, creating an app that allowed everyone to download their national driver’s license—which also could be used to bypass long security lines at airports and to prove voting eligibility—on their smartphone; but registering for it required providing proof of citizenship and other personal documentation. In reality, it was the country’s first national identity card, and it allowed any law enforcement officer to instantly learn numerous private details about you simply by scanning the bar code. The whole concept made me feel uncomfortable—in fact a lot of the questions that had to be answered were invasive—but as much as I didn’t want to register, the card offered a lot of convenience that was impossible to ignore.

I started to get really uneasy when the Defense Department, citing the founding fathers’ belief, as directly expressed in the Second Amendment, that a national militia “was necessary to the security” of the nation, urged gun owners to voluntarily form militias to assist local law enforcement. This was taking the actions of the Trump administration in sending armed DHS troopers into our cities a great step further; it proposed granting limited law enforcement powers to private organizations. To facilitate this, grants were given to cover start-up costs and buy locally designed uniforms; blanket liability insurance policies were made available. Within days, militias began forming all over the country—“Elks with guns,” joked Fox News anchor Trevor Roberts. To ensure these militias remained independent of the military and were not directed by the government, the NRA was placed in charge of the program.