You keep doing you. I found the joke funny.

If we’re all too afraid of downvotes to post our true opinions, Lemmy will turn into another echochamber.

I try to stay out of American politics because I get that my views are probably skewed being in Europe, but I do see his approval ratings close to and sometimes above 50% on certain areas.

Without telling you what to do about it, I must admit it scares me to think that there are millions of people agreeing with what he’s doing. It feels like the US is a preassure cooker only just getting started, slowly inching towards a disastrous explosion.

What are the realistic potential outcomes of everything going on?

As a Jellyfin-fanboy: you are right. Plex is easier to deal with out of the box.
Anything else would not make any sense for a paid service.

I’d say though, if you dedicate the time to set it up correctly, it is an equally good solution and it’s free.
If time is a factor in your life, then there is no shame in paying for something that just works. It’s why I have a Synology NAS and not a self-built Unraid or OMV server.

I run Jellyfin on Chromecast with Google TV every day, it works super well.

Unless you mean casting from your phone, then I don’t know.

The ability to watch from anywhere.

Install on the Jellyfin server and share that server (or just the IP with the Jellyfin port) with whoever you want. Now they have access to Jellyfin and Jellyfin only.
That’s how I set stuff up for friends and family.