In the end, it all revolves around Donald Trump, which is just the way he likes it. He barely reads bullet points, let alone books, so you don’t want to give him too much credit for having a coherent political philosophy, but the question is inescapable: does he support liberal democracy in America, or not?
Just look at the criteria in Monday’s post and the record. This is a man who refers to all of the media who do not support him uncritically as “enemies of the people,” who believes that the job of the Attorney General is to prosecute his political opponents, who supports ongoing GOP efforts to suppress voting by minorities, who is bitterly and openly critical of judges who rule against him, who has advocated discrimination against Muslims, and who insists against all of the evidence and centuries of experience that the “deep state” (i.e., government officials who actually comply with the law) has “rigged” the system against him. What do you think?
I know I write about this all of the time, but it will take less than you think to turn the US into an “illiberal democracy.” History shows that public disbelief that the system can change so dramatically will be Trump’s greatest ally if and when the struggle begins in earnest. Heightening consciousness of the problem on a regular basis is, therefore, a necessity.