The war in Ukraine is very important for the US establishment, as it is part of the long term strategy of containing and weakening Russia. There is no way Trump would be allowed to ruin their plan which is going so well. If Trump will not cooperate (my bet is he will), there is a quick fix for such nasty behavior, as the Kennedys know too well.
I have no doubt when it comes to appreciating the magnitude of importance of Ukraine for the US grand strategy. But then again so was South Vietnam.
During the Cold War, the U.S. adopted an all-in approach to save
Ukraine the Republic of Vietnam from communist overlordship because they had a common belief that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, then the entire Asia would fall under Communism.
They call it the Domino Theory
We knew that the US entered Viet Nam because of this. But then again from 1965 to 1973, a lot of things happened that finally overturned the blob grand plan in Viet Nam and Southeast Asia. Those 10 years saw the rise of hippie culture, counter-culture, the rise of pacifism, the oil crisis etc etc.
In 1973, when the US and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam signed the Paris Peace Accord, one of its clauses stated that the US is obligated to replace South Vietnam military equipment on a one-to-one basis + secret Nixon security guarantee in the form of another intervention if North Vietnam fails to cease attack.
In a year the Communists broke their promise, and the US on their part also broke their promise, why? Because of the domestic situation compels them to do so. Nixon had been booted out and Ford was unable to convince Congress to continue because those congressmen relied on popular support to stay in power and the mood in the US is not in favor of continuing the war.
And the rest is history.
Putin has a lot of time to figure out how to capitalize on the US domestic problem, MAGA has never been so powerful, and Republicans has shown tendencies to favor him rather than the foreign policy blob. Just like in Vietnam, eventually, US politicians care more about their own asses in congress rather than the US grand strategy globally.
Putin on his part, is a very patient guy.
There won’t be any civil war in the US. This is just Putin’s wet dream, which is very far from reality. The US institutions are very strong, and any attempt at instigating a civil war will be put down quickly, with imprisonment of the agitators.
What did the Capitol Riots achieve? Long prison terms for those who instigated them. Someone must be totally nuts to try this again.
Never say never, the chances are slim, but it doesn't mean it will never happen.
Your are focusing too much on the exceptions while ignoring the majority of results. The majority of authoritarian regimes throughout history have been a disaster, characterized by total self-interst of the leaders and brutal supression of the masses. You try to find out the rare exceptions where dictators where actually good for the overall society, and paint it as what authoritarianism is.
Democracies have been much more successful than dictatorships, as you can see in the standard of living and development of the current world, where democratic states dominate by a high margin.
Democracies are also much better at reducing conflict and war, because they have a mechanism to adapt and change with the times and wants of the population, while authoritarian regimes are very rigid and tend to end up in conflict or brutal uprisings.
The Ukrainian conflict will remind you of the harsh reality that democratic regimes are superior to dictatorships, when the democratic world (US, Europe and their allies) will defeat the Russian-Chinese axis of dictatorships.
Too bad so many people will have to die just to remind a dictator like Putin that his country is much weaker than the “decadent” West.
Democracy is just a Fata Morgana. There's a saying once by (I forget the name):
"If voting could make things actually change, they would criminalize it."
Democracy for the most part is designed to fool people into believing that they have an actual say whilst everything has been pre-determined from behind closed doors. You yourself admit it when you say:
"If Trump will not cooperate (my bet is he will), there is a quick fix for such nasty behavior, as the Kennedys know too well."
Most of these unsuccessful non-democracies are Communists and their satellite states, which is just a tiny part of human history. Had the US collapse, you would find their dependencies like Israel, Lithuania, Romania, etc fall into the same misery. In fact most of history's most successful powers are non-democracies. Even the homeland of democracy Athens was destroyed exactly because of democracy.
You look at the various Islamic Caliphates, those are by today's standard an autocratic despot where one man (Caliph) rules over a fuck ton of men solely by decree of god. Yet during Umar II or Harun Ar-Rashid's reign, wealth and justice reached their peak. In the times of Umar II for example, wealth is so abundant that the charity officer of the state would sometimes be confused about where should they distribute the Zakat money when everyone was so wealthy.
And those two I mentioned span hundreds of years, The Umayyad spanned 150 years while the Abbasid spanned 500 years. In comparison, despotic failures like the Soviet Union only lasted less than 80 years. That's clearly the wrong sample to take from the many samples
So if I were to follow history, there seems to be no correlation between being a democracy = wealth + justice on the opposite, the adoption of democracy has created the exact opposite of what democracy promises to its followers. You look at Ukraine, the corruption is enabled by their own democracy, where money and interests from various groups rule the Rada. No wonder that even in the middle of the war, the wealth of Ukrainian 'representatives' exploded exponentially.
Ukrainians will appreciate the benefit of having a simpler political model with a clear hierarchy tahn the jungle of democracy they're having now, but right now they would have to be forced to do so.