Read on Twitter
I need to see the smart takes on how the people of this country ensure a president will never again incite a violent insurrection against Congress whenever it does something he does not like, or, if they cannot, how we still have a republican form of government.
So far, our elite opinion classes are not coming through.
They may talk about liberal democratic ideals, but what they actually hate is uncertainty and "disorder." They are lost once the instruction manual runs out. If the forms and rituals appear to be functioning and there are not mobs in the streets, they are satisfied.
One can see how the second settlement of Augustus was so effective. In form and legality it was the old republic, with annual elections and regular magistrates and everything. In reality, it was an autocratic military dictatorship. It lasted for centuries.
Reading about it in a textbook, 2,000 years later, one might wonder, "How did the elites fall for this?" They fell for it because they wanted to believe it, and because they were offered substantial political and financial incentives to fall for it.
