The fragility of our democracy today is not what many feared when Donald Trump was elected in 2016. The good news is that two of the three pillars of American democracy — liberty and the rule of law — have withstood the test, even if they, too, have been hit hard. But the threat to the third pillar — free and fair elections — is far more serious than my fellow democracy experts predicted.
Despite liberal concerns, America is not mired in fascism. The president has repeatedly called to "lock up" or arrest his political opponents, but the Justice Department has never complied -- no matter how compromised its top brass are.
Despite Trump's endless denunciations of the news media as "the enemy of the people," America's vibrant liberal media continues to expose scandal after scandal in the White House. And civil society organizations remain free to advocate for civil rights, environmental protection, and other causes. Liberty remains essentially intact.