How Democracies Die

by Steven Levitsky

Over the past two years, we have watched politicians say and do things that are unprecedented in the United States—but that we recognize as having been the precursors of democratic crisis in other places.

Our Constitution, our national creed of freedom and equality, our historically robust middle class, our high levels of wealth and education, and our large, diversified private sector—all these should inoculate us from the kind of democratic breakdown that has occurred elsewhere.

Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders—presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps.

Democracies still die, but by different means. Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments themselves.

Democratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box.

For the sake of clarity, we are defining a democracy as a system of government with regular, free and fair elections, in which all adult citizens have the right to vote and possess basic civil liberties such as freedom of speech and association.

Isolating popular extremists requires political courage. But when fear, opportunism, or miscalculation leads established parties to bring extremists into the mainstream, democracy is imperiled.

Institutions alone are not enough to rein in elected autocrats.

This is interesting, as this is the common rejoinder given

Democracies work best—and survive longer—where constitutions are reinforced by unwritten democratic norms. Two basic norms have preserved America’s checks and balances in ways we have come to take for granted: mutual toleration, or the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals, and forbearance, or the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives. These two norms undergirded American democracy for most of the twentieth century.

And if one thing is clear from studying breakdowns throughout history, it’s that extreme polarization can kill democracies.

During the 1980s, however, the country’s oil-dependent economy sank into a prolonged slump, a crisis that persisted for more than a decade, nearly doubling the poverty rate. Not surprisingly, Venezuelans grew disaffected.

It all comes down to economics

Despite their vast differences, Hitler, Mussolini, and Chávez followed routes to power that share striking similarities. Not only were they all outsiders with a flair for capturing public attention, but each of them rose to power because establishment politicians overlooked the warning signs and either handed over power to them (Hitler and Mussolini) or opened the door for them (Chávez).

The abdication of political responsibility by existing leaders often marks a nation’s first step toward authoritarianism.

Years after Chávez’s presidential victory, Rafael Caldera explained his mistakes simply: “Nobody thought that Mr. Chávez had even the remotest chance of becoming president.” And merely a day after Hitler became chancellor, a prominent conservative who aided him admitted, “I have just committed the greatest stupidity of my life; I have allied myself with the greatest demagogue in world history.”

This view is wrong. It assumes too much of democracy—that “the people” can shape at will the kind of government they possess.

Although mass responses to extremist appeals matter, what matters more is whether political elites, and especially parties, serve as filters. Put simply, political parties are democracy’s gatekeepers.

Many of Linz’s conclusions can be found in a small but seminal book called The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes. Published in 1978, the book highlights the role of politicians, showing how their behavior can either reinforce democracy or put it at risk. He also proposed, but never fully developed, a “litmus test” for identifying antidemocratic politicians.

We should worry when a politician 1) rejects, in words or action, the democratic rules of the game, 2) denies the legitimacy of opponents, 3) tolerates or encourages violence, or 4) indicates a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media.

Authoritarian Litmus test

What kinds of candidates tend to test positive on a litmus test for authoritarianism? Very often, populist outsiders do.

Unlike the retreating mainstream politicians of Italy and Germany, the Belgian Catholic leadership declared that any cooperation with the Rexists was incompatible with party membership and then pursued a two-pronged strategy to combat the movement.

There is one thing more powerful than the Constitution….That’s the will of the people. What is a Constitution anyway? They’re the products of the people, the people are the first source of power, and the people can abolish a Constitution if they want

I mean I get it, but out of context he's not wrong. Literally in the Declaration

When Wallace’s campaign was derailed by an assassination attempt

2nd tiMe they breeze by this as method to end demagogues

The real protection against would-be authoritarians has not been Americans’ firm commitment to democracy but, rather, the gatekeepers—our political parties.

And assassins apparently

But backroom candidate selection had a virtue that is often forgotten today: It served a gatekeeping function, keeping demonstrably unfit figures off the ballot and out of office.

It was, above all, their risk aversion that led them to avoid extremists.

In parliamentary democracies, the prime minister is a member of parliament and is selected by the leading parties in parliament, which virtually ensures that he or she will be acceptable to political insiders. The very process of government formation serves as a filter.

An overreliance on gatekeeping is, in itself, undemocratic—it can create a world of party bosses who ignore the rank and file and fail to represent the people. But an overreliance on the “will of the people” can also be dangerous, for it can lead to the election of a demagogue who threatens democracy itself. There is no escape from this tension. There are always trade-offs.

The convention system was also criticized for being closed and undemocratic, and there was no shortage of efforts to reform it. Primary elections were introduced during the Progressive era; the first was held in Wisconsin in 1901, and in 1916, primaries were held in two dozen states.

On the other hand, the convention system was an effective gatekeeper, in that it systematically filtered out dangerous candidates. Party insiders provided what political scientists called “peer review.”

Consider Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor Company. One of the richest men in the world in the early twentieth century, Ford was a modern version of the kind of extremist demagogue Hamilton had warned against.

Now thats interesting

….Nobody denies the amount of Ford sentiment among the masses of the people—Democratic and Republican. Every Democratic leader knows his State is full of it—and he is afraid of it. He thinks, however, that because of the machinery of selection of delegates there is little likelihood that Ford will make much of a showing.

“How can a man over sixty years old, who…has no training, no experience, aspire to such an office?” he asked. “It is most ridiculous.”

Goes without saying

In the conclusion of their history of radical-right politics in the United States, The Politics of Unreason, Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab described American parties as the “chief practical bulwark” against extremists. They were correct. But Lipset and Raab published their book in 1970, just as the parties were embarking on the most dramatic reform of their nomination systems in well over a century. Everything was about to change, with consequences far beyond what anyone might have imagined.

The Chicago calamity triggered far-reaching reform. Following Humphrey’s defeat in the 1968 election, the Democratic Party created the McGovern–Fraser Commission and gave it the job of rethinking the nomination system. The commission’s final report, published in 1971, cited an old adage: “The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.”

There were differences between the parties, such as the Democrats’ adoption of proportional rules in many states and mechanisms to enhance the representation of women and minorities. But in adopting binding primaries, both parties substantially loosened their leaders’ grip over the candidate selection process—opening it up to voters instead.

The Democrats, whose initial primaries were volatile and divisive, backtracked somewhat in the early 1980s, stipulating that a share of national delegates would be elected officials—governors, big-city mayors, senators, and congressional representatives—appointed by state parties rather than elected in primaries. These “superdelegates,” representing between 15 and 20 percent of national delegates, would serve as a counterbalance to primary voters—and a mechanism for party leaders to fend off candidates they disapproved of.

The Republicans, by contrast, were flying high under Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. Seeing no need for superdelegates, the GOP opted, fatefully, to maintain a more democratic nomination system.

Some political scientists worried about the new system. Binding primaries were certainly more democratic. Bu...

And openness is always double-edged.

In the twenty-three years between 1945 and 1968, under the old convention system, only a single outsider (Dwight Eisenhower) publicly sought the nomination of either party. By contrast, during the first two decades of the primary system, 1972 to 1992, eight outsiders ran (five Democrats and three Republicans), an average of 1.25 per election; and between 1996 and 2016, eighteen outsiders competed in one of the two parties’ primaries—an average of three per election. Thirteen of these were Republicans.

Trump had switched his party registration several times and had even contributed to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Lol

Party gatekeepers were shells of what they once were, for two main reasons. One was a dramatic increase in the availability of outside money, accelerated (though hardly caused) by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling.

The other major factor diminishing the power of traditional gatekeepers was the explosion of alternative media, particularly cable news and social media.

This was particularly true on the Republican side, where the emergence of Fox News and influential radio talk-show personalities—what political commentator David Frum calls the “conservative entertainment complex”—

By the time Trump rolled to victory in the March 1 Super Tuesday primaries, it was clear that he had laid waste to the invisible primary, rendering it irrelevant.

Many Republicans latched on to the saying that whereas Trump’s critics took him literally but not seriously, his supporters took him seriously but not literally. His campaign rhetoric, in this view, was “mere words.”

According to historian Douglas Brinkley, no major presidential candidate had cast such doubt on the democratic system since 1860. Only in the run-up to the Civil War did we see major politicians “delegitimizing the federal government” in this way.

In other words, three out of four Republicans were no longer certain that they were living under a democratic system with free elections.

With the exception of Richard Nixon, no major-party presidential candidate met even one of these four criteria over the last century.

Had these statements been made by House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and former President George W. Bush, or perhaps a trio of such prominent senators as John McCain, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, the course of the 2016 election would have changed dramatically.

Would it have? Just said McCain and Romney spoke out strongly. But voters dont/didnt care