And in 2016, the presidency of the United States was captured by the flamboyantly incompetent star of a TV reality show, a man who doesn’t believe in any ideal beyond his own enrichment and aggrandizement. Some shaken observers assured us everything would yet be all right. The institutions of democracy — the courts, the Congress, the news media and the agencies of the federal government — would save America from the worst consequences of one of its worst decisions.
“The Guardrails Hold,” exulted the headline of a piece by the late conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer. He was highlighting acts of resistance to Donald Trump’s bizarre excesses by entities as varied as the Boy Scouts of America and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.