Agree or Disagree? “Liberals should recognize the stone-cold truth – that *liberal* democracy is dead. Really. We had a chance to save it. We lost. It’s gone.”

Is there a serious counterargument to this thread, by John Stoehr of The Editorial Board? If so, what is it? Because so far at least, what I’ve seen from Democrats, the media, the business community, etc, etc. is a combination of a “deep sense of denial” (as Stoehr puts it); ” a good deal of magical thinking in this denial, as if the criminals who shot their beloved will soon come to justice, and once they do, their beloved will rise again, good as new”; “patronizing solace”; concern about “self-regard, group-esteem and pleasure-seeking more than duty, sacrifice and the common good”; etc. Also, of course, tens of millions of Americans obviously SUPPORT Trump’s authoritarianism, cruelty, etc. And then there are tens of millions more who are mostly just checked out from politics, “the news,” etc. As for the media, they’re busy groveling to Trump, “sanewashing” and “normalizing” him, etc. Horrible.

But back to Democrats: do they actually believe that, going forward, democracy’s just going to proceed along its usual course, that winning back power is just an election (free-and-fair, of course) away, etc? If so, what are Democrats basing this belief system on? Simply because it’s worked that way in the past? Same thing, by the way, with the assumption that with Trump in the White House, Democrats should cruise to victory in the Virginia elections this November and in the midterms in 2026. Again, is that just based on mindless “whatever happened in the past will inevitably happen again in the future” thinking? Because, sure, it’s POSSIBLE those historical relationships could still hold, but what if they don’t? Is anyone even considering that as a serious possibility, and responding accordingly? Uhhhh…