American Institutional Exceptionalism And The Trump Presidency

After Donald Trump’s election in November 2016, scholars decried the death of democracy (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018), democratic backsliding (Slater 2018), and the rise of authoritarian tendencies in American politics (Mounk 2018; Snyder 2018). Daron Acemoglu (2017) claimed that American political institutions are incapable of defending against a modern “strongman” like Trump and that civil society is “our last defense” against Trump. Others offered more nuanced insight into how the populist Right’s policies portend the expansion of the government’s coercive authority (Trantidis and Cowen 2020). In the moments up to Trump’s loss in November 2020 (and his subsequent failed legal challenges to certify votes), scholars and commentators too numerous to mention raised the specter of a “coup,” election violence, and state failure. The Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, was dubbed a “coup” by many in the media, though the term insurrection seems to be more appropriate.