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Opinion | Despite the Trump impeachment trial and State of the Union saga, American democracy is far from broken

  • While last week might have been a dramatic one in American politics, it also shows that the checks and balances written into the Constitution are working
  • Hysterical, dishonest, hyper-partisan politicians, however, threaten the system

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
US President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech in the chamber of the House of Representatives in Washington on February 5. Photo: AP
What a chaotic week for US democracy last week was. An “epic fiasco” – as The New York Times termed it – of an Iowa caucus on Monday. A shredded State of the Union address on Tuesday. A presidential impeachment trial acquittal on Wednesday. Democrats cheering for a Republican senator they loathe on Thursday. And, on Friday, a debate among seven candidates whose salient campaign message is that they’re not Donald Trump.
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Oh, and that they’ll give you the money they take from rich people.

You’d think American democracy is on its last legs if you read the US press. The largely liberal media hate the man in the White House more than anyone since Richard Nixon. Well, OK, since the last Republican president. But they really hate this guy.

Last week’s big story, of course, was impeachment.

Even before Trump took office three years ago, the Democrats and much of the media shifted into jettison mode to get him out. They began using terms like “dictator”, “king” and “fascist” to describe him. These are terms they usually reserve for dictators, kings and fascists, so Americans were understandably alarmed.

Our democracy was at stake, they told us, over and over.

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