Haven't listened to "It Could Happen Here" - it that the old cold war version where citizen apathy lets a power-mad totalitarian take over?
Looking back through history, this all is kind of normal for the US of A, really. The recent periods of relative calm, plus the severe censorship of the history we're all taught in school, tends to lull people into a "we're all one big happy family, best in the world, everyone loves us" kind of schtick. We "saved the world" in WW2. Man on the Moon: our-science-will-save-us. All that stuff.
They leave out the other stuff. There have been "race riots" many times in the past, usually with cause. There have been race massacres (the Indian campaigns, for starters). There were the private police forces who shot down Union protesters and their families (Leadville, CO. as an example) and got away with it without even a tap on the wrists. It took the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire to get even minimal workplace safety legislation passed. Formaldehyde in children's milk because there wasn't any law against it. Rivers that have caught fire. Medical experiments run by the government on prisoners (of all races). Agent Orange. Concentration camps where US citizens were interned because of their ancestry. Porkbelly spending by the government. Soldiers screwed over by their own government after their service "to the country." And during it. (Think "Jamming Jennies" for starters - ala M-16.) Pershing's cavalry charge on and the burning of the Washington WWI Bonus Army camp. The draft riots during the Civil War. KKK. The anti-Catholic riots where churches and orphanages were burned. "Burn the Witches!" "No Irish Need Apply." "Colored drinking fountains." "No Chinese served." The Chinese Exclusion Act. The "Mexican Repatriation" of the 1930s. Tailgunner Joe and his "anti-communist" purges that ruined careers and lives. Deed restrictions on which religions could live in certain parts of town. Mobsters owning the police. Politicians and gangster allegiances. Gangster and business alliances. Politicians and business allegiances. It goes on and on and on....
We have always been a loosely-aligned group of misfits who couldn't make it in other countries, or who were adventurous enough to leave for something better than we had there. Or who were born of the same. Criminals, social outcasts, religious nutters, entrepreneurs, adventurers, indentured servants, slaves, freemen, starving potato farmers thrown off our land in "the old country". People running to avoid being ethnically cleansed. We have never culturally been all that "United" although we have stumbled along under the banner for a decent amount of time. Originally a colonial possession of several foreign powers, chance/warfare/money/deviousness allowed us to eventually cut those political ties. We were fortunate to have been able to find an unspoiled, resource-rich continent that was populated by persons it was easy to displace for our own gain. In effect, we've been participants in an ongoing, cosmic free-for-all, stopping only to wipe the blood off now and then.
The country will continue. It may change around the edges a bit. The fact that we now turn our backs on the same kind of people who we descend from is truly troubling, but it is what it is. (And apparently has been since the beginning.) Going forward: There will be a lot of "appropriate" things said and done over the current events, and perhaps 1/10th of them will stick as the rest revert back to whatever state they were in "before then" over time. The rest will be relegated to the history books - the ones in the library that nobody reads, not the ones they use in school. There will be pandemics. Unfortunately, our lack of social cohesion will magnify the damage done as there's no "us" to protect, it's everyone for themselves and that will not be helpful. There will be riots. There will be justice in some cases and injustice elsewhere (depending on how one interprets the term in the first place). The media has always had its fingers in things. Now that people can film and upload (with and without context) it will just be "noisier" and fuzzier, until whatever event finally resolves itself after time and cooler heads prevail.
The sun will rise and set. All I can think of that might be even remotely useful to anyone is one of Gandalf's lines in LOTR.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”