This should be pretty chilling, but it feels like par for the course.

Assume everything is tapped and monitored, no exceptions. Not even airgapping will save you.

Be cautious, but don't be paranoid. Do not underestimate the enemy, but also do not buy into the propaganda of the all-powerful oligarchs where any resistance is futile. Do not be naïve, but also: Do. Not. Give. Up. Hope. Trumpism is failing, as is the surveillance-powered neo-feudal fantasy that the fascists behind it are pushing for. While the most dangerous days are likely still ahead of us, defeatist rhetoric is not going to get us past them. Resistance is both possible and worth it.

Neo liberalism needs to fall for this to end. Trumpism is the natural reaction to Neo liberalism when the propagandised can only see a move rightwards as escape. Trumpism, or its like, is what Neo liberalism systemically herds a democratically significant protion of society into with the explicit purpose of delivering permanent power to plutocrats.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

Neo liberalism needs to fall for this to end.

No disagreement between us on this. The current rise of right-wing populism around the world (which Trumpism is just the most prominent part of) are mere blow-off valves, designed to release some of the pressure of an unjust system and (mis)direct the justified anger of the people away from its main beneficiaries.

Hmm. If it was ~just~ a blow off valve I don't think so many of the more self aware plutocrats would be dumping so much money and time into it.

Governments are dead and rotting.

Oh I didn't mean it as a defeatist message, just as an extreme call for caution.

The Tea Party movement and the Trump I admin emerging from it certainly was just a valve (as well as many other right-wing movements). Trump II, I agree, is a much different beast, although what exactly it is and who is in charge of it remains debatable:

• Is it authoritarians and neo-fascists running the show, merely taking large chunks of the billionaire class hostage, as Carole Cadwalladr has said about the CEOs lining up for inauguration and later almost falling over themselves when promising to bring back investments from offshore?
• Is it the moneyed elite who are tired of playing grey eminence, merely buying influence behind the scenes while, by and large, still keeping up the charade of committing to liberal democracy, egalitarianism and the rule of law?
• Is it a Russian or Chinese operation designed to destroy American power throughout the world? A look at the results of < 2 years' worth of Trumpist foreign policy lends a lot of plausibility to this hypothesis: why else would this admin take the axe to American soft power and alliances throughout the world, threaten and alienate its allies while at the same time cosying up to Russia and other dictatorships, and deplete U.S. high value munitions in yet another senseless war?

That's fair. I wasn't sure which way to read your posting: "be careful" or "bunker up, the end is nigh!" So I felt a little spirit of resistance was in order. ;)

increasingly smaller ... politicians

smaller? like their height?