"But here's why these current hearings should be regarded less as a past judgment than a future warning.
On 6 January, the determination of the pro-Trump forces to subvert a democratic election was not in doubt. They failed only because enough restraints were in place to thwart them, whether it was state-level election officials determined to count the votes, and count them fairly, or a court system that threw out wholly groundless claims of electoral fraud.
But 2024 will not be the same as 2020. Because Republicans have been busy.
Methodically and across the US, Republicans have been working to dismantle the guardrails that keep American democracy on track.
In 2021 alone, at least 19 Republican-ruled states passed measures whose official purpose was tackling (nonexistent) voter fraud but whose practical effect will be voter suppression, making it harder for low-income and minority Americans in particular to cast a ballot " and those efforts are continuing.
More alarmingly, several Republican state legislatures have sought to put themselves or their allies in charge of what used to be non-partisan election machinery, installing Republicans " including "stop the steal" Trump loyalists " in the offices where votes get counted and certified.
Worse, there are moves to make state legislatures the sole authority over elections, cutting out the courts altogether: so the Republicans who dominate, say, the Wisconsin legislature could decide that they and they alone will allocate the state's electoral votes, regardless of who Wisconsin's citizens actually voted for.
Rerun 2020 in this new, altered environment and states that held firm in 2020, giving Biden the victory he had legitimately won, could hand power in 2024 to the loser."
"Murica!"
