People were convinced Trump was going to turn the US into an authoritarian/fascist state well before he even proposed any actual practical policies. They continue to despite the fact he has failed to pass any meaningful legislation beyond congress/courts months after getting into office. With the exception of dropping out of the largely non-binding Paris accord.

Sadly I doubt this will be dependent on what he actually does vs other politicians. It's entirely about perception.

This Russia congressional hearing is getting 10x the amount of coverage than the CIA torture hearing - if that's any indication of perception vs national priorities.

The blatant criminality and anti-American behaviour by the CIA and the executive branch was far more obvious in that case going into the hearing. They openly destroyed 92 videos tapes of interrogations at a black site which would have provided direct evidence of abuse [1] which not a single person got punished for.

Yet Jeff Session refusing to answer a few questions about private conversations with Trump got more scrutiny than the CIA did when they refused to release a 10,000 page report on their torture practices, using the same legal basis as Sessions did citing executive privilege during Obama's administration.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_d...