You’d think a hegemony with a 100-years tradition of upkeeping democracy against major non-democratic players, would have some mechanism that would prevent itself from throwing down it’s key ideology.
Is it really that the president is all that decides about the future of democracy itself? Is 53 out of 100 senate seats really enough to make country fall into authoritarian regime? Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?
I’d never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile.
There’s been a political theory that the alt right of today is only emboldened due to the south never really being “punished” for seceding from the union. They didn’t have to pay reparation and it took literal gunpoint for them to fully integrate blacks into schools.
(Aside: the north is guilty of segregating blacks from whites but using capital power, not political power but let’s keep to the point)
As an example, many Confederate statues were erected not shortly after the civil war but in the 1950-1960s, right when civil rights were being decided and enforced. Defensive democracy would have stopped these from being erected.
You have to remember that these people only want democracy so long as it aligns with their goals.