In November, the world's most powerful democracy elected as its next president a man who schemed to overturn its last presidential election.
A month later, South Koreans swarmed their legislature to block their president's attempt to impose martial law. The contrast sums up a year that tested democracy on all sides.
Incumbent parties and leaders were battered in elections that covered 60 per cent of the world's population, a sign of widespread discontent in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
It also was a sign of democracy working well, as it continued its core function of giving citizens the opportunity to replace the people who govern them.
That has made 2024 a year in which the state of democracy is both a glass half full and half empty.
From Asia to Africa to the Americas, it produced examples of democracy working and citizens standing up against attempted coups or authoritarians.
At the same time, some of the new regimes ushered in are taking a distinctly authoritarian tack.
United States voters in November agreed to give Donald Trump another term in the White House, even as he increasingly embraced authoritarian leaders and pro-mised to seek retribution against those who defended democracy in 2020.
Voters didn't heed warnings about Trump's threat to democracy and were driven more by frustration at inflation and a surge in migration during President Joe Biden's term.
That, of course, is democracy in action: Voters can choose to throw out an incumbent party even if the establishment warns that it's dangerous.
Indeed, the glass-half-full position on Trump is that his win was entirely democratic.
Trump's victory helped trigger turmoil in Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government was rocked this week by the resignation of his prominent finance minister over disagreements on handling Trump's threatened tariffs.
And Germany's government collapsed ahead of elections next year, less than two weeks after a similar political meltdown in France.
The returning US president is part of a wave of new leaders who have gained ground in Western countries.
Some of them, analysts warn, are anti-democratic, even if popularly elected, because they seek to dismantle the system of checks and balances that has made it possible for voters to replace them or halt potentially dangerous policies.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is an icon of this movement after he revamped his country's judiciary, legislative maps and media to make it almost impossible for the opposition to win.
Analysts warn that Slovakia's leftist, pro-Russian prime minister Robert Fico, is headed in that direction.
Conservative populist parties also gained ground in the European Union Parliamentary elections in June.
Trump also highlights another worrying trend for democracy — a surge in violence around elections.
The billionaire candidate, controversial for his own rhetoric urging violence on protesters or migrants, was the target of two assassination attempts.
According to Washington, DC-based Freedom House, 26 of the year's 62 elections across the world featured violence, including attacks on local candidates in Mexico and South Africa and violence at polling places in Chad.
Slovakia's Fico was targeted, as well.
That comes as there is a notable dip in enthusiasm for democracy.
A Pew poll of 24 countries released earlier this year found widespread dissatisfaction with democracy worldwide.
Still, there is a clear silver lining for democracy.
The same Pew poll that found its appeal slipping, also found that it remains by far the preferred system of government worldwide.
South Korea was not the only foiled attempt to disband democracy. In Bolivia in June, the military tried to replace President Luis Arce, with armoured vehicles ramming through the doors of the government palace.
But the troops retreated after Arce named a new commander who ordered them back.
In Bangladesh, protests over limits on who can work for the government expanded into public frustration with the 15-year reign of Sheikh Hasina as prime minister, toppling her regime and forcing her to flee the country.
In Senegal, the country's president tried to delay its March election, but was overruled by the
nation's top court, and voters
replaced him with a largely unknown opposition leader who had just been freed from prison.
In Botswana and South Africa, parties that had ruled for decades stepped aside or shared power without incident after losing elections.
Democracy isn't static. Its health always depends on the next election.
The writer is from AP