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Nov. 9, 2016
Yascha Mounk wrote for Slate about how to preserve the ideals of liberal democracy in the face of a Trump presidency.
The unspeakable has happened: Donald J. Trump has been elected president of the United States. The commander in chief, the most powerful man on earth, the supposed leader of the free world is now a man who holds liberal democracy in contempt.
It’s difficult to say what the next years will bring. For all his venom, Trump is no ideologue. He has not worked out a plan for how to subvert American democracy or destroy liberal institutions, if only because he has not much of a plan at all. So there is an outside chance that he will prove to be a surprisingly conventional—or simply a historically ineffective—president.