Democracy Is Vulnerable

Seth Masket: “Many political observers have tried to make peace with the Trump era of U.S. politics by reassuring themselves that there are still guardrails. In his first term, after all, his worst anti-democratic impulses were often constrained by Congress, the courts, law enforcement, public opinion, journalists, and even his own advisors. But in this term we’re largely seeing those guardrails crumble.”

“Democracies have fallen before, of course, and many others have drifted toward authoritarianism. Some find their way back, some don’t. The U.S. was never immune from the challenges built into democracies, and especially presidential systems. But Trump hit U.S. democracy at many of its modern weak spots.”