Reassessing US democracy: Stronger, but not out of the woods
Is American democracy more resilient than we thought? Or has it just won a temporary reprieve?
Three weeks after elections in which democracy itself seemed to be on the ballot, those questions still hang in the air.
Before the midterms, warnings of an impending democratic crackup were rife. Most centered on Trump-backed candidates running for offices that oversee elections who said they wouldn’t have certified President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 – raising questions about whether they might do the same in 2024. Under this scenario, the peaceful transfer of power to the winner, a bedrock of democracy, seemed imperiled by the possible elevation of election deniers in states like Pennsylvania and Arizona.
In the end, however, voters mostly rejected these candidates. And having lost, many of them did what former President Donald Trump did not:
