The internet accelerated the decline by 1) destroying media business models, leading to seasoned editors and fact checkers being replaced by cheaper twenty-something Twitter addicts, and 2) driving consumers into filter bubbles and feeding their confirmation bias.
Yes, that’s the big unknown. It’s hard for any sort of anti-establishment populist to emerge. Trump is an example of this: he basically ran against both parties, was rendered ineffective, and they haven’t stopped trying to bury him. Ross Perot, Ron Paul & Bernie Sanders covered similar ground (albeit from different angles) and hit the same wall.
You’re right, it’s not obvious. And perhaps to strengthen your point, countries with compulsory voting (e.g. Australia) don’t seem to show any particular skew.
Regarding the original point, Pew published some interesting stats on voter preferences:
He initially referred to UV light as a disinfection agent, and then to the "bleach". He was rambling about use inside the body and did mention "injection", but he wasn't specifically advocating something, and when asked to clarify a few moments later he explicitly said he didn't think it should be injected.
Was it loose talk and pretty dumb? Absolutely. Did the media exaggerate and lie about it for years as a political talking point? Of course! Such is life in modern America.
Those facts don't support your conclusion. The popular vote is not even close to "a majority of Americans". Something like 120 million American adults didn't even vote in 2016, versus around 66 and 63 million who voted for Clinton and Trump respectively. Clinton winning would still have been "minority rule" by this measure.
Also, broadly speaking, being progressive means wanting change and being conservative means being more comfortable with the status quo. It seems obvious that of the 120 million people who weren’t motivated to vote, more of those would be latent conservatives. Or at least, it’s very hard to see a progressive majority in there.
There are a lot of cases where a small minority is heavily invested in a topic at the individual level, while the majority (who have an opposing view) are not. The small minority has the incentive, the energy, and the time to keep fighting for their narrative, while nobody in the majority makes the same effort as none of them individually have as much skin in the game. This dynamic plays out all the time on Wikipedia.
How is that relevant? You said: "It does not have a significant retail presence." Meanwhile, CS does have a massive retail presence, in Switzerland, and has done for 150+ years.
CS operates in 50+ countries. All the largest entities have resolution/winddown plans agreed with their regulators. In reality they probably won’t be used because the SNB and Fed will fear contagion.
They are a bit less important than they once were in terms of volume, but they are still massively interconnected with the rest of the system. There is zero chance they‘re just left to implode without governments and central banks stepping in.