Trump loyalists attacking the Capitol, January 6, 2020. Photo: Leah Millis/REUTERS From the beginning, the danger presented by Donald Trump was so insultingly obvious it hardly required analysis: Here was an unfit leader driven by contempt for democratic rules and norms. From this observation, the conclusion was equally simple: Supporting the political opposition — i.e., the Democratic Party — was the only responsible course of action.
The debate came to a sudden end last week, when Trump directed a mob to storm the Capitol, in an attempt to pressure Mike Pence and the Senate to carry out a wild plan to nullify the results of the election.
What frightened so many scholars of democracy about Trump was the danger of eroding the health of the system along a broad array of fronts, from encouraging political violence to undermining the legitimacy of elections. Their fear was less a sudden plunge into dictatorship than a slow process of democratic backsliding of the sort engineered by authoritarian leaders in places like Hungary and Turkey.
Trump demanded, and received, a level of personal deference from his party that no president has ever been granted. His subordinates slathered him with rituals of praise that seemed almost North Korean. He gleefully ended the careers of numerous Republicans, both in politics and media, who had dared defy him. Every time Trump crossed a new line, Republicans had to decide whether speaking up against it was worth the likelihood that they would never work in politics again.
jonathanchait
jonathanchait Idk plenty of them including SenatorTimScott still saying this.
jonathanchait Risk? They think he’s all that can save it.