You’d think a hegemony with a 100-years tradition of upkeeping democracy against major non-democratic players, would have some mechanism that would prevent itself from throwing down it’s key ideology.
Is it really that the president is all that decides about the future of democracy itself? Is 53 out of 100 senate seats really enough to make country fall into authoritarian regime? Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?
I’d never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile.
The voters were supposed to be that check and the Framers were explicit in that it was part of how they designed the Constitution.
Even regarding electing a felon, the Framers didn’t want a case where one state pushed through a a felony conviction quickly to keep someone out of office.
That conviction was nothing like rushed.
That conviction wasn’t rushed. But imagine it was the fall of 2020 and Trump thought there was a decent chance he might lose. Order his attorney general to indict candidate Biden on some random charge, force it through the courts to get a conviction, removing any judges that object or stall. Voila, Biden has a conviction and can’t run against Trump.