The only reason he feels betrayed is because he’s taken an unpopular political position and has tried to strong-arm the academic class into adopting his position. When that failed, he began lashing out through a smear campaign, which his wife then immediately became a casualty of. She caught a stray because he didn’t want to back down.
This is a retaliatory smear campaign to remove anyone who disagrees with him. He wants to hire/fire people until academic leadership reflects his worldview. Since he can’t invoke the unpopular politics which led him to these actions, he’s made Plagiarism the cover of his McCarthyist campaign to root out opposition to his political agenda.
Democracy ended when the DNC undermined the Sanders election campaign so that Joe Biden could get the nomination and become president, but that was only the most recent example.
Before that democracy died when George W Bush and his family stole the election from Al Gore.
Before that it was Nixon and watergate.
Before that it was JFK.
On top of all this, the US and its NATO allies were committing acts of terrorism and espionage against leftist political parties in Europe and America throughout the Cold War.
Internationally the US empire has undermined democracies around the world by setting up puppet regimes across Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, and Africa.