Donald Trump has promised to shake some of the foundations of democracy

WASHINGTON – The American presidential election is the moment when the nation holds up a mirror to look at itself. They are a reflection of values ​​and dreams, grievances and scores that need to be settled.

The results say a lot about the character, future and core beliefs of the country. America looked in the mirror Tuesday and gave Donald Trump a far-reaching victory in its most contested states.

He won for many reasons. One of them was that a huge number of Americans, from different points of view, said that the state of democracy was the main problem.

The candidate they chose campaigned through a lens of darkness, calling the country “garbage” and his opponent “stupid,” a “communist,” and the “b-word.”

Even with Trump’s victory, a majority of voters said they were very or somewhat concerned that Trump’s election would push the U.S. closer to authoritarian status, according to the AP VoteCast poll. However, 1 in 10 voters still supported him. Nearly 4 in 10 Trump voters said they want a complete overhaul of how the country is run.

The economy was in shambles, Trump said, even though nearly every measure suggested otherwise, and the border was an open sore feeding bloodthirsty migrants while actual crossings plummeted. All this happened in his signature language of catastrophism.

Trump’s victory demonstrated his keen sense of what triggers emotions, especially the feeling of millions of voters that they have been left out – whether because someone was cheated, or received special treatment, or otherwise came under the ravages of an enemy within.

Thus, a centuries-old democracy handed power to a presidential candidate who gave fair warning to voters that he could destroy the fundamental elements of that democracy.

After Trump had already tried to derail the peaceful transfer of power following his defeat in 2020, he wondered if he would be justified if he decided to seek “the repeal of all rules, regulations and articles, even those contained in the Constitution.”

One rough measure of whether Trump means what he says is how many times he says it. His direct threat to try to repeal or suspend the Constitution was largely a one-off.

But the 2024 campaign was filled with his vows that, if implemented, would upend the basic practices, protections and institutions of democracy as Americans knew it.

And now, after his victory, he says: “I will govern by a simple motto: promises made, promises kept.”

On the campaign trail, to thunderous applause, Trump vowed to use the presidency’s power over the justice system to prosecute his personal political opponents. He then upped the ante further by threatening to use military force against such domestic enemies—“enemies within.”

It would destroy any semblance of independence of the Justice Department and pit soldiers against citizens in ways unseen in modern times.

He has vowed to hunt down and deport immigrants in large numbers, raising the possibility of using military means or military-style resources to do so.

Spurred by his fury and denial of his 2020 defeat, Trump supporters in some state governments have already developed changes to voting procedures. These efforts are based on the false notion that the last election was rigged against him.

In his sights is another pillar of the system—the non-political civil service and its political masters, whom Trump collectively calls the “deep state.”

He means the generals, who did not always listen to him last time, but this time they should.

He’s referring to the people at the Justice Department who refused to condone his desperate attempts to gather votes he didn’t get in 2020. He is referring to the bureaucrats who stalled parts of his first-term agenda and whom Trump now wants to purge.

But if some or all of these principles of modern democracy collapse, it will happen in the most democratic way possible. Voters chose him—and by extension, him—over Democrat Kamala Harris, the vice president.

And according to preliminary estimates, these were clean elections, just like in 2020.

Eric Desenhall, a scandal management expert who has followed Trump’s business and political career, said it’s not always easy to know what Trump is actually going to do and what might be bluster. “There are certain things he says because they come into his head at a certain moment,” Desenhall said. “I don’t attach much importance to it. I have a preference for themes, and there is a theme of revenge.”

Voters also gave Trump’s Republicans clear control of the Senate, so the majority decides whether to confirm loyalists Trump nominates to top government positions. Trump controls his party in a way he did not in his first term, when major figures in his administration repeatedly thwarted his most ambitious ambitions.

“The fact that a once proud people twice chose to humble itself before a leader like Donald Trump will be one of the great cautionary tales in history,” said Cal Jillson, an expert on the constitution and presidency at Southern Methodist University whose new book “ Race” “Ethnicity and American Decline” foreshadowed some of the existential issues of the election.

On the political left, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont wasn’t thinking about any threats to democracy when he launched a scathing attack on the Democratic campaign.

“It is not surprising that the Democratic Party, which abandoned working people, would find that the working class has abandoned them,” he said in a statement. “Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? ?

He concluded: “Probably not.”

The fences remain. One is the Supreme Court, whose conservative majority has loosened its grip on the president’s conduct by ruling to expand his immunity from prosecution. The court has not yet been fully tested on how far it will go to accommodate Trump’s actions and agenda. It is not yet known which party will control the House of Representatives.

Among voters under 30, just under half backed Trump, an improvement from his performance in 2020, according to the AP VoteCast poll of more than 120,000 voters. About a third of voters said they want a complete overhaul in the way the country is governed.

At least they’ll get it, Trump says.

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AP Poll Editor Amelia Thomson DeVoe contributed to this report.