Is American Democracy Really in Peril?
How the holes in the Swiss cheese are lining up
In aviation safety, there’s a well-known model for understanding how disasters occur: the Swiss cheese model. Each slice of cheese represents a layer of defense or a safeguard — when the holes in those layers line up, a catastrophe can slip through.
The same analogy now applies with disturbing accuracy to the condition of American democracy. For the first time since the Great Depression, the holes in the multiple layers of our constitutional guardrails are lining up, creating a moment of extraordinary vulnerability for the republic.
This is not alarmism. It is a sober assessment of a political and institutional convergence that leaves American democracy exposed to a level of risk we have not seen in generations. The guardrails are still there, but many are eroded, weakened, or undermined — often from within.
Let’s begin with the constitutional protections we have long relied upon to preserve the democratic character of the United States.
The guardrails of democracy
The U.S. Constitution was designed with separation of powers and a system of checks and balances to ensure that no one branch of government — or one individual — could accumulate too much power. Congress, the courts, the free press, and federalism itself were all envisioned as structural safeguards against tyranny.
Here are the most critical elements:
- Independent judiciary to interpret the law impartially.
- Free and fair elections that reflect the will of the people.
- A bicameral legislature meant to deliberate, check executive power, and represent both the people (the House) and the states (the Senate).
- Civilian control of the military, with the Department of Defense explicitly under presidential but constitutionally limited authority.
- Freedom of the press and speech, to inform the citizenry and expose government abuses.
- A Department of Justice that operates independently to enforce the law, even against those in power.
These safeguards have been tested before — by war, by economic collapse, and by internal division — but today’s threats are distinct in both their scale and their alignment.
When the holes line up
What makes this moment so dangerous is not just the existence of individual threats, but the way they have begun to converge. Each one is troubling in isolation. Taken together, they form a near-perfect storm.
An autocratic populist president and convicted felon
At the top of the list is the re-election of a president who has been impeached twice, found liable for sexual assault in a civil case, and convicted of felonies. He has openly expressed admiration for dictators, attacked the legitimacy of the press, and demonstrated little to no understanding — or interest — in the constitutional limits of presidential power. His behavior signals a disdain for the very norms that sustain a democratic society. He wants loyalty, not legality.
A deeply divided electorate and stressed economy
The electorate is bitterly polarized, with partisan identity increasingly eclipsing shared values or facts. Meanwhile, rising inflation, stagnant wages, and vanishing job security have placed immense strain on the working and middle classes. Desperate voters are more vulnerable to scapegoating and simplistic solutions, especially when served up by demagogues.
Rapidly increasing wealth inequality
The gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of the country has grown to historic levels. This wealth disparity feeds a sense of injustice and powerlessness. Billionaires shape public discourse through media ownership, political donations, and direct influence over public policy, often with no accountability. A society in which economic power converts so easily into political power ceases to function as a democracy.
The corrupting influence of money and media on politics
Our campaign finance system is fundamentally broken. Citizens United and other rulings have unleashed a flood of dark money into elections. At the same time, partisan media ecosystems have created alternate realities, fueling misinformation and conspiracy theories. When truth becomes subjective, democracy cannot function.
A divided Congress under one-party control
Both chambers of Congress are now controlled by the president’s party, and they have demonstrated little interest in checking his authority. The legislative branch is meant to be a counterbalance, but it now acts largely as an extension of the executive. The filibuster, the impeachment process, and committee oversight have all been rendered nearly toothless through sheer partisan will.
The purge of dissenting voices within the ruling party
There are no longer any significant dissenters within the president’s party. Those who once challenged him have been expelled, retired, or humiliated into silence. What remains is a party in lockstep with a single man, not a platform or a governing philosophy. This is not how political parties in a democracy are supposed to function.
Past impeachments met with partisan acquittals
In his first term, this president was impeached twice — once for abuse of power and once for inciting insurrection. Both times, he was narrowly acquitted — not on the merits, but through strict party-line votes. The message was clear: loyalty to the party, or to the leader, outweighed loyalty to the Constitution.
Control of the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court, now with a solid majority of justices appointed by this president’s party, has taken an increasingly activist role. It has undermined voting rights, blocked congressional investigations, and curtailed the administrative state’s ability to regulate in the public interest. This undermines the court’s perceived legitimacy as a check on executive and legislative overreach.
Capture of the Justice Department and Department of Defense
A president who controls the DOJ and the Pentagon has extraordinary leverage. When those institutions are staffed not by professionals with allegiance to the rule of law, but by loyalists, the capacity for abuse is vast. Investigations can be quashed. Prosecutions can be weaponized. Military leadership can be pressured to act outside the bounds of constitutional limits.
The uniqueness of this threat
No single one of these conditions is entirely new. We’ve had demagogues before. We’ve had economic inequality. We’ve had corrupt officials and partisan courts. But we have never had all of these conditions present simultaneously, and all leaning in the same direction.
This is why the Swiss cheese model is so apt. Each hole represents a potential failure. When they are misaligned, the holes are contained. But today, they are lining up — creating a straight path from constitutional norms to authoritarian rule. The press is weakened. The Supreme Court is partisan. The legislature is subservient. The people are divided and stressed. The executive is emboldened. The safeguards we depend on are either failing, captured, or ignored.
In aviation, when the holes in the Swiss cheese align, a crash is not inevitable — but it becomes disturbingly possible. The same is true of democracy. We still have time to act, but that window is shrinking.
Will we fix the holes?
History does not offer do-overs. Democracies that fall rarely come back intact. Restoring guardrails is far harder than maintaining them. If we wait until the plane is in a nosedive, it will be too late.
What we need now is not just awareness, but courage — among elected officials, among civil servants, and most importantly, among ordinary citizens. Our Constitution is not self-enforcing. It only functions if people demand that it be honored.
The good news is that we are not powerless. But we must stop treating democracy as an inevitability. It is not. It is a system that depends on us to maintain it.
The holes are lining up. It’s time to fix them — before it’s too late.
