How America Works... and Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the U.S. Political System

by William Cooper

the rule of lenity, which requires ambiguous statutes to be read in defendants’ favor.

Donald Trump’s malfeasance surrounding the 2020 presidential election was the worst behavior of any president (or former president) in American history. He attacked America’s election system. And in the process, he likely broke the law.

For criminalizing politics isn’t just unfair. And it doesn’t just destabilize the government. It’s the logical and inevitable precursor to something much worse. The last step before political violence is having the government eliminate political opponents for you by imprisoning them. And the first step after political violence is war.

America’s 45th president embraced a hallmark of third-world dictators clinging to thrones in banana republics: irrespective of the facts, if he lost the election he was going to say it was rigged.

many Republicans don’t want the American experiment to succeed. Their populist anger and tribalism are so extraordinary that what they really want is to tear the system down.

Bannon doesn’t hide his intent: “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” These sentiments, more than anything else, explain the Trump phenomenon. For what better vessel is there in the entire world for accomplishing this goal—for bringing everything crashing down—than Donald J. Trump?

Trump has come. And he will go. But what does it say about the underlying state of the American polity that a politician whose central platform is lying about elections is the unrivaled champion of one of the two major political parties? Something broad and deep is afoot. Something pernicious. Something likely to last.