Pundits / academics often talk about democratic erosion as if it isn't already present in the US. All that does is defer the responsibility to act, abstract the discussion of what must be done, and frankly pollute readers' minds with a sense of powerlessness. https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1248549064104464384

We're not headed down the path of Hungary, we're headed down our own American Made™ road to competitive authoritarianism, which has distinct resonances with what has happened before on the shores of this country.

Much of the action has been at the state level, which national media disregards as parochial. But US political structures generate ripple effects throughout the polity. Democracy in US can only be as strong as it is in its weakest state. https://medium.com/@philrocco/laboratories-of-what-d68ce29565f4

Further, when you try to code the US as a "case" of democracy, you will necessarily miss plenty of undemocratic episodes.

>Between 1920 & 1930, Congress simply refused to reapportion itself--further biasing power towards rural America. A reaction to urbanization + immigration

>Fragile subnational democracies in the south broke down in the 1890s through racial violence + massive election fraud.
>13 ex-confederate states functioned as authoritarian enclaves
>More than half a century of compulsory sterilization