For a long time, the US viewed itself as an exemplary democracy: A country other nations could look to when building their own democracies after gaining independence or shedding authoritarian regimes.

That idea is manifested in the "city upon a hill" metaphor. Politicians from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama have referred to the US as a glowing beacon, drawing everyone's eyes. In 1961, President-elect Kennedy said the world was still looking to the US and its democracy, and that "our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill."

On January 6, 2021, the world's eyes were on the US. That day, a mob of right-wing extremists, encouraged by then-still-president Donald Trump, stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to interrupt the democratic transfer of power after the 2020 election.

And in a 2023 poll by the Associated Press news agency in cooperation with the University of Chicago, only 10% of participants said that democracy in the US was working extremely or very well.

So what is the state of US democracy today, ahead of the 2024 presidential election?

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"I think it's fair to say Americans don't have a lot of trust right now in governmental institutions," Michael Berkman, director of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy and a political science........

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