“ Most recently, the Erdoğan government in Turkey used security crises to justify his tightening grip on power. Steven Levitsky
“ It was the Civil Rights Act, which Democratic president Lyndon Johnson embraced and 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater opposed, that would define the Democrats as the party of civi… Steven Levitsky
“ It was not just time, however, that healed partisan wounds. Mutual toleration was established only after the issue of racial equality was removed from the political agenda. Steven Levitsky
“ Although Gingrich was succeeded as Speaker by Dennis Hastert, the real power fell into the hands of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Nicknamed the Hammer, DeLay shared Gingrich’s partisan ruthlessness… Steven Levitsky
“ Norms of forbearance are especially important in presidential democracies. As Juan Linz argued, divided government can easily bring deadlock, dysfunction, and constitutional crisis. Unrestrained presi… Steven Levitsky
“ In an act without precedent in U.S. history, House Republicans had politicized the impeachment process, downgrading it, in the words of congressional experts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, to just a… Steven Levitsky
“ In 1993, New York's Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a former social scientist, made an incisive observation: Humans have a limited ability to cope with people behaving in ways that depart… Steven Levitsky
“ If democratic elections continued, political scientist V. O. Key observed, it would have been fatal to the status of black belt whites. Steven Levitsky
“ At a rally in Fort Worth, Texas, for example, he attacked Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, declaring, If I become president, oh, do they have problems. They are going to have such problems. Steven Levitsky
“ But the world had changed by 2016. Now, in a radical departure from historical precedent Senate Republicans denied the president’s authority to nominate a new justice. It was an extraordinary instance… Steven Levitsky
“ Another factor affecting the fate of our democracy is public opinion. If would-be authoritarians can’t turn to the military or organize large-scale violence, they must find other means of persuading a… Steven Levitsky
