So, destabilized democracies seems to be the theme of the early 21st century: the UK (Brexit), the US (twice) and now rumbles from Germany. Great
Abandoning a non-functioning government and calling new elections is part of democracies. Just ask the Italians (68 governments in 76 years), or recently the French and the Brits.
When each and every government is non-functioning, I'd say that democracy is already destabilised or broken.
The point though is that we don't have a good mechanism to remove a government that isn't meeting expectations. Impeachment exists, but it is very difficult and has never succeeded at removing a sitting president.
For 50 years Italy was ruled by the same party. Governments changed just to allow more people from the same party to be ministers.
Peaceful transition of power is the most important factor in the long-term stability of any system of governance. Whenever a leader loses legitimacy or dies, there must be a process to select a successor. If the outcome of the process is contested, the system is at a high risk of collapsing in the power struggles of its elites. It's far more common for a state to fail due to internal power struggles than external threats.
To imply that the US is an "unstable democracy" is laughable.
Instability does not mean that a collapse is imminent. It means that further shocks may cause a collapse more easily than in a stable system. It makes a collapse more likely in the long term, which in this context means something like a human lifetime.
> Starting at 11:58, from behind a bulletproof shield, President Trump gave a speech, declaring that he would "never concede" the election, criticizing the media, and calling for Pence to overturn the election results.
Just reading about the whole thing again on Wikipedia is appalling beyond belief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito....
“The electoral ballots have been compromised, Congress is in disarray with its leadership killed. I’m staying in office for the duration of this emergency, and the states will decide on a process to select new electors, or the House of Representatives will elect the next president per its Constitutional authority.”
To be fair it’s not like the mob was that determined and capable to actually murder Pence etc. (at least there weren’t any clear signs of it). They scattered immediately after the first guns were fired (I mean those close enough to witness it). So more people might have died but it would have primarily been the rioters rather than anyone else..