A YEAR INTO HIS SECOND TERM, Donald Trump has proved transformative: He has transformed America’s proud liberal democracy into virtual one-man rule, tearing down checks and balances constructed over more than two centuries to block exactly this.
Trump will not be president forever. And when he goes, Democrats will face a defining choice: exploit the executive machinery he has exposed, or dismantle it. The temptation to exploit it will be enormous—and yielding to that temptation would be a historic mistake. If post-Trump America is to be a post-authoritarian one, it will have to embark on a Second Reconstruction, and Democrats will need to lead it.
