How Democracies Die

by Steven Levitsky

Instead, the election was normalized. The race narrowed. And Trump won.

The strength of the American political system, it has often been said, rests on what Swedish Nobel Prize–winning economist Gunnar Myrdal called the American Creed: the principles of individual freedom and egalitarianism.

In an important study of the effects of black protest in the 1960s, political scientist Omar Wasow found that black-led nonviolent protest fortified the national civil rights agenda in Washington and broadened public support for that agenda. By contrast, violent protest led to a decline in white support and may have tipped the 1968 election from Humphrey to Nixon.

Anti-Trump forces should build a broad prodemocratic coalition.

An effective coalition in defense of American democracy, then, would likely require that progressives forge alliances with business executives, religious (and particularly white evangelical) leaders, and red-state Republicans.

A broad opposition coalition would have important benefits. For one, it would strengthen the defenders of democracy by appealing to a much wider sector of American society. Rather than confining anti-Trumpism to progressive blue-state circles, it would extend it to a wider range of America.