Gotta admit it. My faith in democracy is badly shaken (though not broken)

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. I can see that perspective

and agree in part. But we came close to not having a Democratic President, the nature of the electoral college cuts against us, and had Trump not totally botched the response to the pandemic, or had it not happened in the first place, I think he would have been reelected. We hold the barest majorities in Congress, and if the typical political past is precedent, we can lose the House in the mid terms. Republicans have done all of those things you mention, and they have not yet been thoroughly disgraced and discredited to any where near the degree that their behavior warrants.

Democracy has held, as you rightly point out. I said my faith in it is shaken, not broken. But when autocrats are allowed to take over the helm of a functional democracy they frequently destroy it from within so that the field is rigged to keep them in power from there on out. That threat is not yet over.