Yes, but actually! For the most part, we spent money on procedures without focusing on visible outcomes.

I don't know, but this does seem like a 'yes and'. People are voting with their feet and choosing to live in cheaper, more conservative places. You need to have intense focus on these rule of law concerns, but you also need to make liberal places more attractive than conservative ones.

I think this is fairly right. The hope is for the bundle of authoritarian actions that Trump is doing gets associated with failure in the form of foreign policy setbacks, higher prices, lower quality of living, more crime, or some other negative. Moral appeals just have no juice.