A poll taken prior to the 2012 presidential election found that 71 percent of Mexicans believed that fraud could be in play.
The changing media landscape had a stronger impact on the Republican Party. Republican voters rely more heavily on partisan media outlets than do Democrats.
Most Republican leaders ended up holding the party line. If they had broken decisively with Trump, telling Americans loudly and clearly that he posed a threat to our country’s cherished institutions,...
You’re fighting a war. It is a war for power….This party does not need another generation of cautious, prudent, careful, bland, irrelevant quasi-leaders….What we really need are people who are willing...
With tactics like these, the Republicans had begun to behave like an antisystem political party. By the end of the Obama presidency, democracy’s soft guardrails were becoming dangerously unmoored.
Under President Trump, America has been defining political deviancy down. The president’s routine use of personal insult, bullying, lying, and cheating has, inevitably, helped to normalize such practi...
To better understand how elected autocrats subtly undermine institutions, it’s helpful to imagine a soccer game. To consolidate power, would-be authoritarians must capture the referees, sideline at le...
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 process often begins with words. Demagogues attack their critics in harsh and provocative terms—as enemies, as subversives, and even as terrorists.
The primary process had failed in its gatekeeping role and allowed a man unfit for office to run as a mainstream party candidate.
The Electoral College, made up of locally prominent men in each state, would thus be responsible for choosing the president. Under this arrangement, Hamilton reasoned, the office of president will sel...
The 1990–2015 period was easily the most democratic quarter century in world history—partly because Western powers broadly supported democracy. That may now be changing. Under Donald Trump, the United...
Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is t...
Seeking to diminish minority groups’ influence in the party—and we cannot emphasize this strongly enough—is the wrong way to reduce polarization.
Public support is a useful tool in this regard. When an elected leader enjoys, say, a 70 percent approval rating, critics jump on the bandwagon, media coverage softens, judges grow more reluctant to r...
Over the last quarter century, Democrats and Republicans have become much more than just two competing parties, sorted into liberal and conservative camps. Their voters are now deeply divided by race,...
Many Americans are justifiably frightened by what is happening to our country. But protecting our democracy requires more than just fright or outrage. We must be humble and bold.
I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money….So that when the New York Times writes a hit piece, wh...
It is difficult to find examples of societies in which shrinking ethnic majorities gave up their dominant status without a fight.
Isolating popular extremists requires political courage. But when fear, opportunism, or miscalculation leads established parties to bring extremists into the mainstream, democracy is imperiled.