I don’t think a discussion on the Patriot Act can not not be political. What people don’t realize is that Trump’s transparency of character didn’t allow him to snake through bills like the Bush administration (I’m oddly suggesting the man was too honest to succeed in politics long term). A competent Trump could have orchestrated messaging similar to what the neocons did. Just look at the name of this thing, ‘Patriot Act’, whereas Trump’s initiatives failed so hard at messaging that things got called ‘The Muslim Ban’, which many could argue the Patriot Act might as well have been called initially. We lucked out that this guy was more into his own schtick than actually being part of deliberate cohort with an agenda.

If someone on the right-wing gets the messaging right, intermixed with competent political infrastructure, we could easily see more bills like the Patriot Act in the future, especially since Trump showed there is a massive appetite for some of the toxic rhetoric in this country. Anyone that can package those ideas in a palatable way can snake in nasty bills named ‘Totally not nasty and very good Act’.