Author: Reporter

In the follow-up to their 2018 bestseller “How Democracies Die,” authors Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky write about three rules that political parties must follow: accept the results of fair elections, reject the use of violence to gain power and break ties to extremists. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, they write, only one U.S. political party “violated all three.” January 6, 2023 marked the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and Donald Trump, the former president, is far-and-away the leading Republican candidate in 2024. He still refuses to acknowledge his earlier loss...

Pastor Charles Hundley opened his worship service on a cold Sunday in northeast Des Moines with a prayer that made it clear one endorsement above all will matter in Iowa’s caucuses just around the corner. “We thank you for the upcoming election, Lord — or caucus, as we call it in Iowa,” said Hundley, speaking from the sanctuary of his evangelical Christian church in his slight Texas drawl as his parishioners bowed their heads. “It doesn’t matter what our opinion is,” he went on. “It’s really what’s your opinion that matters. But you’ve given us the privilege of being...

Members of far-right extremist groups. Former police officers. An Olympic gold medalist swimmer. And active duty U.S. Marines. They are among the hundreds of people who have been convicted in the massive prosecution of the January 6, 2021, riot in the three years since the stunned nation watched the U.S. Capitol attack unfold on live TV. Washington’s federal courthouse remains flooded with trials, guilty plea hearings and sentencings stemming from what has become the largest criminal investigation in American history. And the hunt for suspects is far from over. “We cannot replace votes and deliberation with violence and intimidation,”...

Over the past three years, the world’s oldest democracy has been tested in ways not seen in decades. A sitting president tried to overturn an election and his supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the winner from taking power. Supporters of that attack launched a campaign against local election offices, chasing out veteran administrators and pushing conservative states to pass new laws making it harder to vote. At the same time, the past three years proved that American democracy was resilient. Former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results failed, blocked by the constitutional system’s checks...