Photograph courtesy of Harvard Kennedy School. In 2021, the United States failed for the first time in its history to achieve a peaceful transfer of presidential power. The events of January 6, observes conservative commentator William “Bill” Kristol ’73, Ph.D. ’79—and the enabling political rhetoric and lies that preceded that day, and that continue now—have left him concerned for the future of American liberal constitutional democracy. “One of our two major political parties (or at least a good chunk of the party),” says Kristol, who is a Fellow this spring at Harvard Kennedy School’s (HKS) Institute of Politics (IOP), “is not really committed to democracy, to elections, to not perpetrating a big lie [about President Donald Trump’s electoral defeat], and to certain basic standards of civility and decency.”