The American model has been decaying for some time. Since the mid-1990s, the country’s politics have become increasingly polarized and subject to continuing gridlock, which has prevented it from performing basic government functions like passing budgets. There were clear problems with American institutions — the influence of money in politics, the effects of a voting system increasingly unaligned with democratic choice — yet the country seemed to be unable to reform itself. Earlier periods of crisis like the Civil War and the Great Depression produced farsighted, institution-building leaders; not so in the first decades of the 21st century, which saw American policymakers presiding over two catastrophes — the Iraq war and the subprime financial crisis — and then witnessed the emergence of a shortsighted demagogue egging on an angry populist movement.
Up until Jan. 6, one might have seen these developments through the lens of ordinary American politics, with its disagreements on issues like trade, immigration and abortion. But the uprising marked the moment when a significant minority of Americans showed themselves willing to turn against American democracy itself and to use violence to achieve their ends. What has made Jan. 6 a particularly alarming stain (and strain) on U.S. democracy is the fact that the Republican Party, far from repudiating those who initiated and participated in the uprising, has sought to normalize it and purge from its own ranks those who were willing to tell the truth about the 2020 election as it looks ahead to 2024, when Mr. Trump might seek a restoration.
The impact of this event is still playing out on the global stage.
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