Democracies survive outright assault, face internal threat

It’s the old horror-movie cliché: front door creaking, shutters banging, windows shattering... when the real danger is the intruder who’s already inside.

But it may also be the best way to understand a recent series of violent, extremist plots against major world democracies: the January 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol and, in the past few weeks, a mob attack on government buildings in Brazil and a foiled scheme in Germany to break into the Bundestag