From the day former president Donald Trump took office, political analysts and Democratic leaders worried his presidency would erode democratic norms and safeguards. But even after a democratic crisis as violent and alarming as January 6, America’s democratic institutions held up. But are Trump’s guilty verdicts in the New York hush money case an even bigger threat to our democracy?On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer asks former US attorney Preet Bharara and New Yorker columnist Susan Glasser what the conviction means for the 2024 US presidential election and America’s political institutions moving forward. Both Glasser and Bharara warn that the unprecedented shattering of democratic norms can have huge implications for the health of democracy as a whole, and just America’s institutions survived crises like January 6 doesn’t guarantee they’ll remain intact in the future.
“Having crossed the Rubicon [of January 6],” Glasser says, “I think that the idea that we’re just treating this as a normal election between two warring tribes with different ideologies is really what history is going to remember about this moment, unfortunately.”
“We’ve grown accustomed to the luxury of repeated, peaceful transfers of power,” Bharara adds, “There’s nothing that guarantees that just because the US has been a great democracy, it will persist in being democratic.”
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
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