The Trump administration also mounted efforts to sideline key players in the political system. President Trump’s rhetorical attacks on critics in the media are an example. His repeated accusations tha...
Sin embargo, existe otra manera de hacer quebrar una democracia, un modo menos dramático pero igual de destructivo. Las democracias pueden fracasar a manos no ya de generales, sino de líderes electos,...
One way of tackling our deepening partisan divide, then, would be to genuinely address the bread-and-butter concerns of long-neglected segments of the population—no matter their ethnicity.
By 1936, Spain’s nascent democracy had degenerated into a civil war.
Backed by a small but growing group of loyalists, Gingrich launched an insurgency aimed at instilling a more combative approach in the party. Taking advantage of a new media technology, C-SPAN, Gingri...
Would-be autocrats often use economic crises, natural disasters, and especially security threats—wars, armed insurgencies, or terrorist attacks—to justify antidemocratic measures.
Two events were critical in this regard. The first was the infamous Compromise of 1877, which ended the 1876 presidential election dispute and elevated Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency...
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...
The second category in our litmus test is the denial of the legitimacy of one’s opponents. Authoritarian politicians cast their rivals as criminal, subversive, unpatriotic, or a threat to national sec...
The Tea Party questioned President Obama’s very right to be president.
Some political scientists worried about the new system. Binding primaries were certainly more democratic. But might they be too democratic? By placing presidential nominations in the hands of voters,...
Senator Joseph McCarthy, who used the Cold War fear of communist subversion to promote blacklisting, censorship, and book banning, enjoyed wide backing among the American public. At the height of McCa...
President Trump also attacked judges who ruled against him.
Most often, the capture of the referees is done by quietly firing civil servants and other nonpartisan officials and replacing them with loyalists.
Knowing how citizens in other democracies have successfully resisted elected autocrats, or why they tragically failed to do so, is essential to those seeking to defend American democracy today.
America’s democratic norms, then, were born in a context of exclusion. As long as the political community was restricted largely to whites, Democrats and Republicans had much in common. Neither party...
A stunning 385 filibusters were initiated between 2007 and 2012—equal to the total number of filibusters in the seven decades between World War I and the end of the Reagan administration.
We know that extremist demagogues emerge from time to time in all societies, even in healthy democracies. The United States has had its share of them, including Henry Ford, Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy,...
Uma coisa que distingue autocratas de líderes democráticos contemporâneos é sua intolerância à crítica e a disposição de usar seu poder para punir aqueles que - na oposição, na mídia ou na sociedade c...
Trump also found new ways to use old media as a substitute for party endorsements and traditional campaign spending. A candidate with qualities uniquely tailored to the digital age, Trump attracted fr...