One of the most consistent themes in this year’s presidential election campaign was the warning by Democratic Party leaders and grassroots activists that America risks becoming a dictatorship under a second Trump presidency. Those worries account for some of the despondency on the left since Trump’s decisive win last week. Now we wait to see whether those fears will be realized or not.

It is quite possible that I am overly optimistic about the strength of American democracy and the durability of its institutions. But I am pretty sure that my faith is justified. I have argued previously that today’s America is nothing like the Germany of the 1930s, where fascism took hold easily when the Nazi Party rose to power. Trump may well be a wannabe dictator but he is highly unlikely to become a real one, no matter how hard he tries. Almost certainly, he will try to do things that are either unconstitutional or break longstanding norms. Many past American presidents have been thwarted by Congress and the courts when they have attempted to infringe on the Constitution. While they may not have done so as egregiously as people fear Trump might, America happens to be the one nation on the planet that is best equipped to deal with such violations. This country, while deeply divided, is not as vulnerable as it sometimes appears on the surface.

The hardcore Republican base did not single-handedly return Trump to office in last week’s election. His comprehensive win was due in part to substantial numbers of independents and moderate Republicans who were highly dissatisfied with the direction of the country and opted to vote for him, despite their misgivings about his character. Those people are simply looking for commonsense solutions to some of America’s most basic problems, not clamoring for a radical remake of American society. If the next administration starts going down a path that this voting bloc doesn’t like, the pendulum will quickly swing back.

We of course need to keep a close eye on the level of influence that the architects of Project 2025 will try to exert on the president-elect and his team. Given the chance, those conservative warriors could indeed do a lot of damage to our institutions. And some of Trump’s cabinet picks thus far are certainly worrisome. It is the president-elect’s prerogative to choose who he wants to serve in his administration, but let’s wait and see what the Senate thinks about those appointments. If that chamber fails to fulfill its advice-and-consent responsibility properly, I am quite sure the same people who helped elect the incoming president will have something to say about that. No matter how wobbly the guardrails may become due to partisanship in the U.S. Senate and the Supreme Court, Washington is highly unlikely to turn into Caracas.

Deflated Democrats might want to take a moment to reflect and realize how lucky they are to live in a functional democracy. In countries where real dictators rule, the sort of pain that people on the left are feeling now tends to be permanent. That is because when the strongmen—and sometimes women—gain power, they don’t relinquish it. In such places, there are no meaningful institutions to check the rampant abuses that inevitably ensue. The sadism usually increases with the passage of time, and quite often, citizens end up having to pick from one of two unpalatable choices: suffer in silence, or emigrate.

The mid-1980s Ghana that I left as a young man to study abroad was a dictatorship. I got a taste of the pervasive sense of fear that takes hold in such societies. Leaving the country did not bring much relief for me either because I was traveling to the Soviet Union, the epicenter of the autocratic world. I was actually fortunate in one sense. As a foreign student, I was largely spared from many of the rigid rules that the natives had to live under. In spite of that, I found the environment as suffocating as the one I had left in Ghana.

Because of those lived experiences, I cringe whenever I hear some people in this country say that they are disillusioned with democracy and would rather have strongman rule. A recent Pew Research Center survey showed that 32 percent of Americans would prefer some form of authoritarian government—rule by either a strong leader or the military. The poll also revealed that 38 percent of Americans under age thirty favor such nondemocratic alternatives.

It is perhaps not too surprising that many of these young Americans feel that way. They have only known freedom throughout their lives so it is easy for them to take it for granted. But they should be careful what they wish for. The Trumpian dictatorship that they are fretting about so much is in name only. They might want to learn a bit more about the conditions that ordinary citizens in places like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela live under.

Based on my readings, the majority of those who have this dim view of democracy happen to be young progressives. Members of this cohort should realize that the bitter taste they have in their mouths following Trump’s victory is something that their counterparts elsewhere live with every day of their lives. Unfortunately for those people, unlike us, they don’t get the opportunity every two or four years to do something about it.