The American democratic system is in no imminent danger of embracing authoritarianism. On the contrary, the United States is in a “chronic legitimacy crisis,” in which the overwhelming majority of Americans are committed to democracy but there are deep disagreements about how democracy ought to be defined. It is extremely difficult to discern which democratic procedures strengthen democracy and which procedures weaken it, because Americans like democracy for very different reasons, and these reasons often conflict with one another. For instance, it is hard to make a democracy dynamic and adaptable if you also want it to be credible and reliable. To make democracy more dynamic, you must make it less credible, and to make it more credible, you must make it less dynamic. Americans also oppose authoritarianism for conflicting reasons. Some are worried that particular people will accumulate too much power, while others are worried that an impersonal system will dominate all people through structural incentives that are too deeply rooted to reform. Fighting the former risks the latter and fighting the latter risks the former. These conflicts over democracy’s meaning make it easy for Americans who are trying to save democracy to appear authoritarian to their opponents.