Yes, Trump poses a very serious threat to the country and its liberal democratic norms, but he is not the root of the problem. His millions of passionate supporters are. Among other things, these voters rallied to Trump because they responded to his message that the country’s political and economic system is rigged against them. Denying the presidency to their preferred candidate after they’d been told for weeks that he prevailed in the election would confirm every conspiracy they ever entertained.

That would be civic dynamite.

Think it’s bad that 200 or so neo-Nazis gathered this past weekend for a celebratory conference in the nation’s capital? Just wait until that number surges into the thousands or more, which is exactly what would happen if Trump’s most committed supporters felt permanently frozen out by the country’s political establishment. Democracies don’t succumb to dictatorship when a handful of bad individuals ruthlessly seize power from out of the blue. They succumb to dictatorship when a large, angry faction of the population throws its support behind a handful of bad individuals and supports them in ruthlessly seizing power. For those who think we’ve already reached that point with Trump, I assure you that it could (and may yet) get much, much worse. Trump’s opponents need to be extremely careful that they do nothing to hasten that eventuality or make it more likely — by, for example, denying Trump the presidency and thereby driving him and his supporters out of the democratic political system altogether.