As the 2016 presidential campaign grinds to its momentous conclusion, a profound and disturbing question hovers over the American republic: has the country entered a crisis of the regime that is sending it into a downward spiral from which it may not be able to recover? Few Americans want to confront such a question, of course, because it contains ominous ramifications. And yet it seems difficult to avoid the fear that the country is in uncharted—and potentially very dangerous—territory.

All governments face crises from time to time, of various types and dimensions—economic dislocation, enervating wars, domestic unrest born of powerful civic anxiety or class conflict, scandal at the top of governmental circles. Healthy governments manage to shake off these crises over time and get the nation back on track.

A crisis of the regime is different. It is intrinsic to the regime itself, spreading dysfunction and ultimately decay. A powerful example was the hundred-year crisis of the regime that engulfed the Roman republic, from the time of the Gracchus brothers to the emergence of Julius Caesar. Through those decades, the politics of the regime became so intense and intractable that they began to eat away at the foundations of the civic system itself. Ultimately, the citizenry lost faith in the legitimacy of the regime and in the sanctity of the leadership succession regimen. At that point, the only solution was Caesarism, the greatest threat looming over any democratic system of government.

Most likely, America, so sound and resilient through its relatively brief existence as a republic, will find its way through the current crisis and resume its proud march through history. Most likely, it will prevent the crisis of our time from becoming a regime crisis, threatening the very foundations of our government.

But the nature of the current presidential campaign should sound alarm bells in the consciousness of Americans. Never have we seen a campaign that raises such profound questions about governmental legitimacy and the soundness of our succession system. And not since the 1850s has the country been so powerfully split as to its national identity and definition. It’s inconceivable that this election, whatever its outcome, will dispel the crisis and return the country to its moorings within any reasonable time span.

Let’s begin with Hillary Clinton. One simply shakes one’s head in wonderment at the folly she has visited upon her country, born of her self-absorbed need to operate in stealth and fashion her own rules. The poor judgment she exhibited in operating as secretary of state with her own private email server is one thing, forcing her to dance upon the precipice of legality. But the selfishness reflected in her behavior is something else entirely, since she placed her country upon that precipice as well. If she wins the election, she will carry with her into the Oval Office a constitutional crisis of the first magnitude, as she will be the subject of ongoing criminal investigations. This is unprecedented.

Then we have the spectacle of FBI Director James Comey, whose stewardship of his agency, coupled with Justice Department behavior, has dealt a blow to any sense that our politics remains untainted. Only partisan fervor could prevent a person from concluding that the initial investigation of Clinton’s handling of classified information left an appearance of a whitewash. This is not to argue that Comey or the Justice Department consciously set out to whitewash the outcome, but certainly the appearance is unavoidable—no grand jury; the granting of limited immunity without anything of substance in exchange; the permitting of computer destruction; the lackadaisical interrogation of Clinton herself; the provocative tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, just before Comey announced he wouldn’t recommend an indictment; President Obama’s signal that there was no basis for proceeding with the case and his scheduling of a campaign event with Clinton even before the Comey announcement.

For millions of Americans, all this undermines the legitimacy of the election. The specter of special treatment hovers over the campaign and will hover over the outcome if she wins.

But then Comey expanded the potential legitimacy crisis by announcing he was reopening his email investigation on the basis of new information that may or may not be pertinent to the matter. And he did so just eleven days before the election, a lapse in both policy and judgment.

In case all this weren’t enough to raise questions about the solidity of the campaign system, there’s the Clinton Foundation, an unprecedented powerhouse of political perpetuation operated behind a façade of international good works. It is an instrument of oligarchy, a testament to the reality that for decades now more and more political power in America has been seeping upwards toward well-entrenched elites that dominate the terms of debate and the administrative state that operates in Washington, increasingly impervious to voter sentiment. It also, not coincidentally, served as a vehicle of quick riches for the Clintons.

It wasn’t many generations ago when such a thing would have been utterly inconceivable in the American polity, an affront to the now-quaint idea that our leaders emerged from among us and returned to us after they had served. Think Harry Truman, who returned to his modest home in Independence, Missouri, following his presidency to read books and issue an occasional mild pronouncement on the course of events. He lived in near poverty. Even Richard Nixon was aghast when his successor, Gerald Ford, accepted a few moderately robust speaking fees after his presidency. But that was peanuts compared to the grand scheme conceived and constructed by Bill Clinton—enhanced in its financial standing (as was he), we now learn, by the ministrations of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her minions.

Add to this the millions of dollars that flowed into the foundation, and the Clinton bank account, from foreign governments, many far removed from U.S. standards of governance, and the whole thing becomes all the more unsavory. What kind of patriotism lies at the heart of efforts to get rich at the behest of foreign governments?

This isn’t the way it used to be in America. There was a presumed sanctity in the system then, and people were scandalized at even mild encroachments upon that sanctity, which served as a kind of protective shield against open corruption and gaming the system for personal and political gain. That protective shield is gone now, as evidenced by the current campaign.

Nor can we ignore the contribution of Donald Trump, whose rhetoric surpasses that of every presidential candidate in American history in its brutality and crudity. He rails against “Crooked Hillary,” says she should be in jail and vows to put her there if elected. Yes, she has placed herself in this vulnerable position, much to the detriment of her country, but that is a matter for the criminal justice system. Presidents and presidential candidates traditionally have avoided such encroachment upon that system, for good reason: such behavior serves to taint and unbalance the delicate equilibrium of justice.

Further, Trump refuses to say he will accept the electoral outcome, which amounts to a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the system. There’s no reason he shouldn’t bring into the arena such matters as the monolithic liberalism (and anti-Trump fervor) of most major media outlets, or the power of the nation’s elites in setting the national agenda and narrowing the terms of debate. But those are political matters, ripe for a clean political assault.

But, in questioning the legitimacy of the electoral system itself, he runs the risk of defining a crisis within the regime as being a crisis of the regime. This is irresponsible and dangerous politics. It can’t help but undermine the confidence that Americans have in their government and their system of electing leaders.

Nearly a quarter century ago, the great academic thinker and U.S. senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, wrote an article in the American Scholar, entitled “Defining Deviancy Down.” He argued that what society had once considered deviancy—crime, drugs, broken homes, births out of wedlock, and the “manifest decline of the American civic order” spawned by such things—was accepted increasingly by society as not deviancy at all but more or less normal. Society, he suggested, sought to avoid the pain of such civic chaos through denial. “Societies under stress, much like individuals,” wrote Moynihan, “will turn to pain killers of various kinds that end up concealing real damage.”

Now the phenomenon of deviancy being defined downward has infected our presidential politics, and the question is whether the kinds of politicians and rhetoric and behavior dominating the political scene today will come to be regarded as merely normal. Back in 1900, after the Spanish-American War, the country thrilled to the brilliant and gallant naval exploits of Commodore George Dewey (soon thereafter Admiral Dewey). He was feted at huge rallies and elegant dinners throughout the nation; his visage appeared on flags, posters, paperweights, pitchers, cups, plates, butter dishes, shaving mugs and teething rings. A new chewing gum was dubbed “Dewey Chewies.” The admiral was celebrated in song and verse. And inevitably, he was touted as a powerful prospect for the presidency of the United States.

Then, in an interview with the New York World, the political novice allowed as how “the office of the President is not such a very difficult one to fill, his duties being mainly to execute the laws of Congress.” He could do that, he said, as faithfully as he had executed the orders of his superiors over a long naval career.

That was it for the admiral’s presidential prospects. The American people instantly saw that he was unequal to the job and turned away from him with quiet finality. No vote was needed, no attack ads necessary to drive home the point. Dewey simply didn’t measure up, and everyone knew it, however fine a man and brilliant an admiral he might have been.

Those were days when the standards of presidential acceptability were high, and that reality was reflected in the men who occupied the office—McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower. Now we have Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. No doubt the republic will survive either, but the question is to what extent they will diminish the republic and sap its civic health.

Robert W. Merry is a contributing editor at the National Interest and an author of books on American history and foreign policy.

Image: View of north front of the White House, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons/Francisco Diez