Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) “offered more than 200 Republican donors a stark message on the fragility of American democracy during private remarks on Monday night at a fundraiser in Northern Virginia,” CBS News reports.

A new CNN poll finds that 56% of respondents said they have little or no confidence that American elections reflect the will of the people, up from 52% who felt that way in September and 40% in January 2021.

The party breakdown of the skeptical: 74% of Republicans, 59% of independents, and 32% of Democrats.

A new Quinnipiac poll finds 76% of Americans say they think political instability within the country is a bigger danger to the United States compared to the 19 percent who think other countries that are adversaries of the United States are the bigger danger.

Jonathan Bernstein: “Trump wasn’t deterred after the 2020 election by the plain meaning of the law and the Constitution. Had enough Republicans in key positions gone along with him, it’s quite possible he would have successfully remained in office despite losing the election, and that would be even more true in a future scenario in which Trump allies held congressional majorities.”

“Moreover, there’s always a danger of fighting the last war. In 2020, the threat seemed to be in what happened after the votes were counted. Next time, the threat could be in the counting of the ballots, or what happens before the ballots are counted. What this means is that those who support the republic will need to fight for it, and not just through legislative fixes.”

David Remnick: “The edifice of American exceptionalism has always wobbled on a shoddy foundation of self-delusion, and yet most Americans have readily accepted the commonplace that the United States is the world’s oldest continuous democracy. That serene assertion has now collapsed.”

Janan Ganesh: “A year on from the US Capitol siege, there is talk, even among unexcitable scholars, of a second civil war. That remains an epic stretch. Red and Blue America do not map on to contiguous geographic blocs, as the Confederacy and the Union did. The central state is unrecognizably stronger than it was in 1861. There is (for now) no single precipitating issue to equal South Carolina’s declaration of secession.”

“In the medical parlance of today, what is more plausible than war is disorder of a chronic and endemic nature. What is plausible is an “acceptable” level of violence.”

John Harris: “Only in recent years have we seen foundation-shaking political conflict — both sides believing the other would turn the United States into something unrecognizable — with no obvious and easily summarized root cause. What is the fundamental question that hangs in the balance between the people who hate Trump and what he stands for and the people who love Trump and hate those who hate him? This is less an ideological conflict than a psychological one.”

Playbook: “For those who always despised him, feel betrayed by him, or fear his return to power, today is about remembering — never forgetting — his lowest point as president: the day he incited a mob to attack Congress while it affirmed Joe Biden’s clear victory, the final desperate move in a plot to overthrow an American presidential election.”

“For those who love him, merely tolerate him, or crave his return to the White House, today is a media stunt: a contrived anniversary of an insignificant event boosted by Democrats and the press to punish Republicans and cynically advance Biden’s legislative priorities.”

“Americans often have a shared understanding about big traumatic national events. That is not the case with Jan. 6, which is why the cliché about our politics feeling like a civil war has more and more resonance.”

Jimmy Carter: “Our great nation now teeters on the brink of a widening abyss. Without immediate action, we are at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy. Americans must set aside differences and work together before it is too late.”

“A majority of Americans expect a repeat in the next few years of something like the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — and just half say they now have faith in American democracy,” according to a new Axios-Momentive poll.

A new NPR/Ipsos poll finds 64% of Americans say they think American democracy is “in crisis and at risk of failing.”