As I see it, our democracy was fundamentally betrayed in December 2000, when a shamelessly partisan majority of the Supreme Court validated the blatant theft of an election in Florida. Once faith had been broken in the integrity of our electoral process, it was only a matter of time before a toxic bacillus like Trump arose to demolish the basic civility that is a prerequisite to democratic governance. As I see it, there is a direct causal link between December 12, 2000 and January 6, 2021.