So should Democrats scream from the rooftops that they are the republic’s last hope? Maybe not. Enduring electoral stability amid democratic peril suggests that messaging focused on democracy and its vulnerability has limited voter appeal. Tactically, such arguments may come across as too abstract to be motivating, particularly to swing voters, who are disproportionately less engaged with politics than partisans are. A recognition of this reality is clearly what inclined congressional Democratic leaders, in the 2018 midterm campaign, to emphasize Trump-free “kitchen table” appeals such as prescription drug pricing and to initially resist impeaching Trump — to the bewildered frustration of many progressives.

In a more profound sense, many Americans’ commitment to democracy and the principles necessary to sustain it may simply be thinner than commonly thought. Recent survey experiments have confirmed what election results suggest: that Americans just don’t feel all that compelled to punish politicians for transgressing democratic norms, especially if they have to make partisan and ideological trade-offs to do it.

For example, a survey by the organization Bright Line Watch, founded by political scientists concerned about the future of democracy in America, presented participants with hypothetical candidates for “an upcoming election.” The candidates were given randomly assigned genders, policy positions, party affiliations and stances on democratic values (such as a commitment to keeping law enforcement investigations of politicians free of partisan influence), among other characteristics. Respondents were about 19 percentage points more likely to vote for a candidate of their own party than the opposite party, regardless of their stances on policy issues and democratic values.