I think you are absolutely on the money here, but I also think we didn't benefit and he benefitted greatly from the fact that people jumped to comparing him with one of the worst dictators of all time. Did his personality dispose him to possibly becoming something like that? Had his coup succeeded I'm sure we'd be closer. But he was compared to a mass murderer (conveniently in living memory, no comparisons to Timur or other autocrats) before he'd done anything but say tactless things. That enabled him to paint all criticisms of him as absurd (even though he would have anyway).

If you think that's over, think again. It is not enough to forget; we need to obliviate 45.

We need to understand that 45 is a symptom of a social and political system and not a one-off uniquely bad example.

That is such a true and obvious statement, it was also an (most likely unintentional) trial run for the next one that will be more dangerous.

Wait, what is this "45" exactly?

Trump was the 45th president of the US.