The most serious ongoing threat to democracy in the United States may not be Donald Trump and his contempt for the rule of law, the Constitution, etc. Rather, it is the deep structural flaws in our political system that have long undermined democratic practices and values. This web project looks at the institutional defects that have plagued our democracy and identifies what we can learn from other major Western countries that enjoy much better democratic systems. For a long time, our key political institutions (the Electoral College, the Senate, our voting system, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution itself) have consistently violated basic democratic norms like fair representation, majority rule, and political equality. These serious problems will persist long after Trump is gone and they need to be addressed. Read the Introduction