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 Hitle...
White evangelicals—who had leaned Democratic in the 1960s—began to vote Republican. In 2016, 76 percent of white evangelicals identified as Republican. Democratic voters, in turn, grew increasingly se...
The whole South—every state in the South—had got into the hands of the very men that had held us as slaves.
The real protection against would-be authoritarians has not been Americans’ firm commitment to democracy but, rather, the gatekeepers—our political parties.
The process often begins with words. Demagogues attack their critics in harsh and provocative terms—as enemies, as subversives, and even as terrorists.
The president may break the law, threaten citizens’ rights, and even violate the constitution without having to worry that such abuse will be investigated or censured. With the courts packed and law e...
The post-1972 primary system was especially vulnerable to a particular kind of outsider: individuals with enough fame or money to skip the invisible primary. In other words, celebrities.
The norms sustaining our political system rested, to a considerable degree, on racial exclusion. The stability of the period between the end of Reconstruction and the 1980s was rooted in an original s...
The first sign is a weak commitment to the democratic rules of the game. Trump met this measure when he questioned the legitimacy of the electoral process and made the unprecedented suggestion that he...
The combination of a would-be authoritarian and a major crisis can, therefore, be deadly for democracy.
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...
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...
Players who cannot be bought must be weakened by other means.
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,...
Norm breaking was also evident at the state level. Among the most notorious cases was the 2003 Texas redistricting plan.
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.
In many ways, President Trump followed the electoral authoritarian script during his first year. He made efforts to capture the referees, sideline the key players who might halt him, and tilt the play...
In February 2010, the Constitutional Court struck down Uribe’s bid for a third term as unconstitutional, forcing him to step down after two terms. The lesson is this: Where institutional channels exis...
If, twenty-five years ago, someone had described to you a country in which candidates threatened to lock up their rivals, political opponents accused the government of stealing the election or establi...
Governments that cannot remove independent judges may bypass them through court packing. In Hungary, for instance, the Orbán government expanded the size of the Constitutional Court from eight to fift...