Trump's most dangerous political legacy

One of the core things that separates liberal democratic government from other, less stable and fair political alternatives is the regular, lawful, peaceful transfer of power. This norm is itself grounded on the trust that every electoral loss will be followed by a future opportunity (another election) when it will be possible to try again. And underlying that trust is an even deeper presumption — namely, that living temporarily (until the next election) under the rule of the other side won't be intolerable. It might be irritating and require accepting policy initiatives that one's own side considers seriously wrong. But that error doesn't render one's opponents politically illegitimate. But what happens when this most fundamental liberal democratic presumption fades away and disappears? When one side becomes convinced that its political opponents represent a genuine threat to country, it finds itself tempted to change the rules of the game to advantage itself and disadvantage those opponents. And when that happens, the other side receives confirmation that its opponents are manipulating the system in their own favor, jeopardizing the legitimacy and trustworthiness of future contests for power. The United States is well into just such a cycle of mutual recrimination right now.