The New York Times editorial board wrote in a New Year's Day op-ed that former President Donald Trump's movement poses an "existential threat" to the future of the United States.

"In short, the Republic faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to achieve its ends. No self-governing society can survive such a threat by denying that it exists," wrote the board of the prominent newspaper.

Trump and his Republican allies continue to claim that the 2020 election was "rigged" or "stolen" to install President Joe Biden in the White House. The conspiracy theory has been consistently discredited and debunked by leading election experts, and no evidence has emerged substantiating the allegation. Nonetheless, the misinformation is believed to be factual by the majority of conservative voters, according to numerous polls.

On January 6, 2020, hundreds of Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in an apparent effort to prevent the formal certification of Biden's Electoral College victory. The rioters were largely animated by Trump's false claims of widespread fraud in the last presidential election, carrying out the attack after he urged them at a nearby rally to head to the Capitol and "fight like hell."

Although hundreds of the Trump supporters have been arrested and prosecuted for their actions, the former president has repeatedly defended the events of that day as "a protest."...

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