Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump: a face over the crowd. Credit:AP It is not just that Donald Trump has threatened to imprison his opponent should he win, nor even that his supporters chant, "lock her up" whenever they gather in his name. Having lost the popular vote in five of six of the last presidential elections and facing the very real possibility of losing another, the leaders of the party are now actively threatening to undermine the very institutions at the heart of American democracy if the electorate does not elect their candidate. A handful of Republicans in Congress - including the chairman of the powerful House Homeland Security Committee - have suggested that should Hillary Clinton win they will move to impeach her for her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state. "This [committee's] investigation will continue whether she wins or not, but assuming she wins and the investigation goes forward, and it looks like an indictment is pending, at that point of time in the Constitution, the House of Representatives would engage in an impeachment trial," Michael McCaul said during an interview on Fox News.

Profile in cowardice: Senator Ted Cruz and the Republican Party. Credit:AP "It would go to the Senate, and impeachment proceedings and removal would take place." And then the kicker. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump: a menace to democracy itself? Credit:AP "I would hate to see this country be thrown into a constitutional crisis because of Hillary Clinton's behaviour."

This is like a bloke in shiny suit telling a shopkeeper, "That's nice new window you have out front, I'd hate for something to happen to it." Despite pushing for Hillary Clinton to be locked up during the campaign, Trump has since back-pedalled on this plan. Credit:Bloomberg The threat is no mistake either. Trump has started inserting the same language into his stump ramble. "If she were to be elected it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis and the work of the government would grind to an unbelievably inglorious halt." While Trump and McCaul are threatening to render the nation ungovernable should they lose the election, their colleagues in the senate are discussing preventing Clinton from replacing the conservative judge on the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia.

Scalia was famously a "constitutionalist" believing it was not the role of judges to seek to interpret the sacred text, but to apply it. In his name elements of the Republican Party are now seeking to scrap it. "You know, I think there will be plenty of time for debate on that issue," Senator Ted Cruz, told reporters when he was asked whether a Republican-controlled Senate should hold votes on a President Hillary Clinton's nominees. "There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices. I would note, just recently, that Justice Breyer observed that the vacancy is not impacting the ability of the court to do its job. That's a debate that we are going to have." Cruz you might remember was the leader of the "Never Trump movement" who was booed at the Republican Party convention for declaring he could not in good conscience endorse the nominee. He has since recovered well from that condition and is actively campaigning for Trump. This obstinence and obstructionism is not the behaviour of a party worthy of government. It is not even the behaviour of a party worthy of responsible opposition. Loading

And it is not only a tragedy for American democracy, but bad news for the world. Imperfect as it is, in the post-war world America has been the driving force for the establishment of an international order based on freedom, democracy, law and trade. As Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper argued this week, the world order can survive minor countries going off the rails. But not America.