Ron Brownstein: “What’s becoming clearer over time is that the Trump-era GOP is hoping to use its electoral dominance of the red states, the small-state bias in the Electoral College and the Senate, and the GOP-appointed majority on the Supreme Court to impose its economic and social model on the entire nation—with or without majority public support.”

“As measured on fronts including the January 6 insurrection, the procession of Republican 2020 election deniers running for offices that would provide them with control over the 2024 electoral machinery, and the systematic advance of a Republican agenda by the Supreme Court, the underlying political question of the 2020s remains whether majority rule—and democracy as we’ve known it—can survive this offensive.”

Three self-proclaimed “sovereign citizens” — individuals who refuse to accept the legitimacy of the U.S. government — were arrested in California after authorities discovered weapons in their possession, including “an improvised military-grade explosive device,” NBC News reports.

“If you look for international parallels to the moment last year when Vice President Mike Pence refused to bow to pressure from President Donald Trump to help overturn their election defeat, something quickly becomes clear,” the New York Times reports.

“Such crises, with democracy’s fate left to a handful of officials, rarely resolve purely on legal or constitutional principles, even if those might later be cited as justification.”

“Rather, their outcome is usually determined by whichever political elites happen to form a quick critical mass in favor of one result. And those officials are left to follow whatever motivation — principle, partisan antipathy, self-interest — happens to move them.”

Hillary Clinton warned that “we are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy.”

A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that “most Democrats (55%) and Republicans (53%) now believe it is ‘likely’ that America will ‘cease to be a democracy in the future’ — a stunning expression of bipartisan despair about the direction of the country.”

“Half of all Americans (49%) express the same sentiment when independents and those who do not declare any political affiliation are factored in, while just a quarter (25%) consider the end of U.S. democracy unlikely and another quarter (25%) say they’re unsure.”

Jonathan Last: “The story of Mike Pence is the negative space in the January 6 Committee investigation. As more details about the machinations of John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Ted Cruz, and others emerge, Pence’s own actions are ever present in the background. Without him, we might not have this committee. Without him, we might not even have this republic.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) told CBS News that there was an “extremely broad” and “extremely well-organized” conspiracy by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election — and that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was just one instance in “an ongoing threat” to democracy.

Said Cheney: “We are not in a situation where former president Trump has expressed any sense of remorse about what happened. We are, in fact, in a situation where he continues to use even more extreme language, frankly, than the language that caused the attack.”

She added: “And so, people must pay attention. People must watch, and they must understand how easily our democratic system can unravel if we don’t defend it.”

Edward Luce: “Unlike the 1860s, when America was neatly split between the slave-owning confederates and the north, today’s separatist geography is marbled. Unlike then, America’s armed forces today cannot be outgunned. Even in a country that, uniquely, has more privately owned guns than people (at more than 400mn), many of which are military-grade, it would be no contest. Yet America, of all countries, knows that asymmetric warfare is unwinnable. Think of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“Think, also, of how America was born — its revolutionary army lost almost every encounter with Britain’s vastly better equipped redcoats. Yet, with the help of the French, America’s guerrilla forces prevailed. Now substitute today’s federal army for the redcoats. Armies have a terrible record of pacifying restive populations. Every casualty breeds 10 more rebels.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland warned about threats to democracy in the U.S. and abroad in a commencement speech at Harvard University on Sunday, Axios reports.

London Review of Books: “If it is a real danger that civil war may threaten democracy, it is also a real danger that democracy may die because its defenders refuse to start one.”

Yascha Mounk: “As someone who lived in many countries—including Germany, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom—before coming to the United States, I have long had the sense that American levels of partisan animosity were exceptionally high. Although I’d seen animosity between left and right in other nations, their hatred never felt so personal or intense as in the U.S.”

“A study just published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace confirms that impression… The authors’ conclusion is startling: No established democracy in recent history has been as deeply polarized as the U.S.”

Jonathan Bernstein: “Let’s get the obvious objections out of the way. I thoroughly agree… that mandatory voting is constitutional.”

“And, no, universal voting isn’t just a partisan plot to benefit Democrats. Or Republicans. Or anyone else. Political scientists have repeatedly found minimal differences between voters and non-voters. Moreover, one of the few really positive developments over the last 20 years or so is that after a brief period in which virtually all the groups most likely to vote tended towards Republican and all those least likely to vote tended toward Democrat, things have returned to normal.”

“The best argument for universal voting has always been that it encourages participation in democracy, thereby generating additional buy-in among the broadest possible group of citizens to the whole idea of a democratic polity.”

Greg Sargent: “The Democratic Governors Association, which oversees Democratic gubernatorial campaigns, is set to announce that it raised over $23 million in the first quarter of 2022, a record, people with knowledge of the numbers tell us. Over 30 percent of the donors were new givers.”

“Several people who raise money for DGA told us GOP attacks on democracy on the state level, and the idea that Democratic governors might represent a firewall against them, has made it easier to haul in funds for Democratic gubernatorial candidates.”