Yes, but more directly to modern republicanism's central feature, meaningful separation of powers enabling effective checks and balances, especially as they limit the power of the executive.
And leaders of the left who have been highly applauded by American supporters of Bernie, many of whom have not been in the least shy voicing their contemptuous rejection of our "corrupt and rigged system", are doing at least as much damage as the likes of Duterte and Erdogan.
Bolivia Tells President His Time Is Up. He Isn’t Listening.
Venezuela Calls for Early Elections, and Maduro Aims to Retain Control
Writers in The Times examine the problem in our own country, seeing the emergence of a "win at any cost" mentality spreading among pols of both parties and their popular supporters.
They seem less aware of or concerned with the spreading conviction that Washington is "a swamp", that "the system" - that is, the actual government in DC, the actual republic in being - "is rigged."
A conviction shouted out to and echoed by millions, by candidates Trump and Sanders, equally.
And that this does or would justify not only lawful action hyperbolically labeled "resistance" but real political violence aimed at overturning the results of election.
A further claim supported only, as I recall, by The Duce and, rather shockingly, a number of long-time DC pundits and pols, among them Pat Buchanan.
The Times reports both the wobbliness of the state in America and the rise of authoritarianism, chiefly abroad, with dismay.
Buchanan, reporting the same in a number of his columns, has nearly said "good riddance".
PS.
I see nothing in this piece about the spread of open acceptance of outright infidelity to our actual constitution, by the government and even the courts, among partisans of the left, and how it has shocked the right and nourished the conviction of many rightists that the left, its politics, and its agenda are unconstitutional and illegitimate.
PPS.
To be fair, so far as I know, only The Duce, and not Bernie, has urged illegal police brutality and both the torture of prisoners of war and the intentional murder of the families of terrorists by US military forces.
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