Here is the gauge I am using...it involves watching who Trump pardons and when.
If he pardons at least 90% of the insurrections, all at once, that means we are at the highest level for in your face racist brownshirt militias marching freely in the streets.
If he pardons onle a few, maybe ten percent, that means he is unsure of how much, how freely he and his goons he has appointed to run the military, will be able to shoot demonstrators.
If he actually shows he intends to try and annex Canada, or invade Mexico, well, our democracy just went off the deep end, and we are the Russians are, with a dictator stomping on our Constitution.
Time will tell.
One wonders how one teaches high school civics classes these days, the kids would have questions, but the answers could get the teacher fired.