{"id":32981,"date":"2026-07-03T21:02:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T01:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/trumpism-is-undermining-u-s-democracy\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T21:02:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T01:02:26","slug":"trumpism-is-undermining-u-s-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/trumpism-is-undermining-u-s-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Trumpism Is Undermining U.S. Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many Americans are going through the motions, pretending all is well. On Saturday, they will again celebrate Independence Day with \u201cIlluminations from one End of this Continent to the other,\u201d as John Adams predicted<\/a> would happen 250 years ago upon the new country\u2019s declaration of freedom from British rule.<\/p>\n

And much is still going right on the 250th anniversary of what the nation\u2019s first president, George Washington, called<\/a> the \u201cgreat experiment\u201d of the United States of America. The country is still the dominant power on Earth. It enjoys a world-beating economy led by tech and financial sectors that continue to eclipse the rest of the planet, though they have also contributed mightily to the worst income inequality since the Gilded Age<\/a> and a polarized population fed by social media-driven misinformation.<\/p>\n

But there are much grimmer overtones to this year\u2019s semiquincentennial. The United States feels less united than it has for many decades, perhaps since the Civil War<\/a>. Some Americans wonder whether the nation\u2019s cultural and civilizational ties are so strained\u2014and its constitutional restraints so broken\u2014that it won\u2019t see many more big birthdays, at least not as a functioning constitutional republic.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that the current U.S. president has, predictably enough, turned what should be a grand national display of unity into the Donald Trump show. In a Truth Social post, the president has promised<\/a> \u201cthe most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all\u201d on July 4.<\/p>\n

Nor is the problem only that Trump is attempting to reduce one of the world\u2019s oldest constitutional democracies to a totalitarian-style personality cult, ignoring legal constraints in nearly everything he does\u2014including launching wars. Among many other abuses, the president is seeking to prosecute his political opponents, and he is openly enriching his family with the sort of corruption<\/a> that the Founders would have considered impeachable many times over.<\/p>\n

The more disturbing question is whether the U.S. body politic is seriously ill in a way that far exceeds anything Trump has yet done or might still do. Washington is wracked by mistrust and contempt across party lines, and confidence in public institutions is at or near all-time lows. Neither political party seems capable of addressing that problem\u2014and the gulf between them only grows, as evidenced by recent primary-race results<\/a> that suggest Democrats are as much in the grip of the far left as Republicans remain enthralled to the MAGA far right.<\/p>\n

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<\/span>
\n A group of people on a stage in front of a dark background, raising their clasped hands together in celebration. In the center, a man in a dark suit jacket over a blue New York basketball jersey smiles. To his right, a man in a light blue shirt and bright orange tie calls out to the crowd. On either side, other individuals join in holding their hands high. Audience members behind them hold up orange and blue campaign signs.<\/p>\n

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (third from left) joins progressive congressional candidates Claire Valdez, Brad Lander, and Darializa Avila Chevalier at a campaign rally at King\u2019s Theater in New York City on June 18.Michael M. Santiago\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n

As legal analyst Sarah Isgur points out in her new book, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today\u2019s Supreme Court<\/em>, the Supreme Court may be the only branch of government left that the Founders would even recognize as their handiwork\u2014yet even the high court has lost the faith of the public as so many of its decisions appear ideologically driven.<\/p>\n

The drop-off in public confidence has been precipitous. In January 2000, Americans\u2019 satisfaction with the direction of the country was a near-record 69 percent<\/a>, according to Gallup. This January, just 36 percent<\/a> of Americans were satisfied with national conditions\u2014the lowest number since Gallup began tracking its \u201cMood of the Nation\u201d statistics in 2001. Another steep decline: Only 33 percent<\/a> of U.S. adults say they are \u201cextremely proud\u201d to be an American, compared with 55 percent 25 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cLess than half of Americans say they have confidence in the police, the medical system, or schools,\u201d Isgur writes in Last Branch Standing<\/em>. \u201cLess than a quarter trust labor unions, businesses, or the media. And less than 10 percent trust Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, for many Americans, this year\u2019s birthday celebration may be akin to the sort of fake hopefulness one displays at the hospital bedside of a loved one with an advanced disease. Everyone puts on forced smiles and false bonhomie, all the while wondering: Is it terminal?<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s fair to ask: Is the American disease terminal? Perhaps. No one seems to have a good solution to today\u2019s ailments.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s important to note that it has seemed that way many times before. This goes all the way back to Shays\u2019s Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion in the early years of the republic, the Civil War and the hundred years of Jim Crow segregation that followed, the Great Depression, McCarthyism, and a plague of political assassinations through the 1960s. As alarming as today\u2019s political violence<\/a> has been, at least it has not yet cost the life of a president or presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span>
\n A black and white historical photograph capturing a crowd of people on a city sidewalk being sprayed by a high-pressure stream of water from off-camera. Several individuals are huddled down against the brick wall of a building labeled “Record Suppliers” to shield themselves, while others in the background are engulfed in the heavy mist and spray of the water.<\/p>\n

Black Americans are attacked by water cannons during a protest against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, in May 1963. Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n

Larry Diamond, an expert on democracy at Stanford University, told me that the country\u2019s \u201ccurrent very serious democratic dysfunction\u201d is still a long way from a \u201cterminal illness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is true that we have never, since the launch of our constitutional system in 1789, had a president so corrupt, authoritarian, and abusive of democratic and constitutional norms as Trump,\u201d Diamond said. \u201cBut we have also seen considerable resilience in our democratic system, in the mobilization of civil society, the frequent pushback from the federal courts, and the refusal of the otherwise servile Republican majority in the Senate to end the filibuster so that Trump can impose unfair rules across all of the elections in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other experts say history\u2019s jury is very much out. \u201cThis is not 1861, and it\u2019s probably not 1933, but it\u2019s not great,\u201d said Daniel Schlozman, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University and co-author of The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe illness metaphor is pretty good because while we don\u2019t face the problems of a very severe crisis\u2014like the Civil War or Great Depression\u2014as a country we are struggling with the sort of things that come along with old age. There is a real question about the ability of the U.S. body politic to cope with the new strains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Populist insurgencies on both the right and left have deranged traditional U.S. politics, but they haven\u2019t yet reached the levels that toppled republics of the past, historian Thomas Madden writes in his new book, The Fall of Republics: A History From Ancient Carthage to the American Constitution<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Trump \u201cplayed the part of a populist, but lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020. In 2024 he attracted just under 50 percent of the vote. This is not a serious strain on the republic. It is simply loud politics,\u201d Madden writes. Beyond that, \u201cJanuary 6 was a destructive riot, but it had no substantive effect on the functioning of the American Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n

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