Despite @ezraklein's constructive intervention, the great Dem messaging debate is one of the worst in recent memory on the bird site. So many cases of people talking past each other, changing the premises of the argument, attacking straw men, & assuming the worst of others. Sigh
True; many institutions performed well in resisting Trump (state election administrators, the judiciary, the military). But also true that a second term of Trump could pose a more profound threat - look at Orban's Hungary after he regained power.
More fundamentally, I have to admit I don't understand the impulse to rush into contrarianism on this point. Even if Kagan et al. are overestimating the risk of a successful coup or the equivalent, @DouthatNYT grants that such outcomes are possible. Isn't that a case for alarm?
If @DouthatNYT were at the airport and the gate agent said, well, the pilot may try to crash the plane but the co-pilot and the crew probably won't let him get away with it, would he tell everyone to calm down about the risks?
The credibility revolution in soc sci research is important but some humility is in order - DID models misspecified for years, RD estimates often noisy/underpowered and published selectively, and exclusion restrictions in IV models often highly dubious. (Why I like experiments!)
Very true! Experiments are hardly immune to bad methods and selective reporting, especially at tiny sample sizes of past (ugh). But arguably still far more robust as a method - the ATE relies on very weak assumptions compared to, e.g., IV/RD/DID