Jon Meacham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who wrote speeches for Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, had a scary prediction on CNN Sunday: That Donald Trump running again for the presidency could be calamitous for the future of America.

That’s not just because Trump was and would once again be a terrible president, although that is definitely part of it. Instead, Meacham says, it could cause a constitutional crisis because of how close America came to “losing the Constitution” on January 6th, 2021.

I think we came as close to losing the Constitution — and when we say democracy, America is not a democracy, America is a republic. So let’s call it American democracy. We came as close that day as we had since Fort Sumter.

Fort Sumter, of course, was the battle that marked the beginning of the Civil War in 1861.

Meacham explained that the GOP’s turn toward extremist politics during the Trump era — although I would argue that it has been since the election of Barack Obama — has created a “trust deficit” within the party and among voters. The Republicans of yesteryear are gone, he argued, and new Republicans whose policies directly contravene the actions and policies of their predecessors have taken their place.

More than that, it’s the inability to deliver on their extremist promises because of the actual democratic nature of our government. In order to, for example, mandate prayer in schools, it would take an unquestionably dictatorial move. Voters would never go for it.

I think it’s about the Republican establishment from Eisenhower through George W. Bush not fundamentally delivering to the base. Who created the Warren Court? Eisenhower. Who appointed the justice who wrote Roe v. Wade? Richard Nixon. Who would campaign on anti-abortion amendments and school prayer?

If Meacham’s correct — if Trump runs and his voters once again will not accept the outcome if he loses — it could be an absolute disaster for the shape of “American democracy” to come.