Rebuilding democratic norms after a civil war is never easy, and America was no exception. The wounds of war healed slowly; Democrats and Republicans only grudgingly accepted one another as legitimate...
The easiest way to deal with potential opponents is to buy them off. Most elected autocrats begin by offering leading political, business, or media figures public positions, favors, perks, or outright...
The new leader’s threatening words often have a boomerang effect. If the media feels threatened, it may abandon restraint and professional standards in a desperate effort to weaken the government. And...
The plan was reminiscent of the Chávez government’s repeated moves to strip opposition-run city governments of their control over local hospitals, police forces, ports, and other infrastructure. Unlik...
The rhetoric wasn’t limited to Tea Party activists. Republican politicians also questioned President Obama’s Americanness.
These reform measures effectively killed democracy in the American South. Even though African Americans constituted a majority or near-majority of the population in many states, and even though black...
Throughout his life, Washington had learned that he gained power from his readiness to give it up. Thanks to his enormous prestige, this forbearance infused many of the American republic’s other nasce...
To comply with the letter of the law as stipulated in the Fifteenth Amendment, no mention of race could be made in efforts to restrict voting rights, so states introduced purportedly neutral poll taxe...
In the 1950s, married white Christians were the overwhelming majority—nearly 80 percent—of American voters, divided more or less equally between the two parties.
The United States has an impressive record of gatekeeping. Both Democrats and Republicans have confronted extremist figures on their fringes, some of whom enjoyed considerable public support. For deca...
The convention system was an effective gatekeeper, in that it systematically filtered out dangerous candidates. Party insiders provided what political scientists called peer review.
A comparative approach also reveals how elected autocrats in different parts of the world employ remarkably similar strategies to subvert democratic institutions. As these patterns become visible, the...
A second approach is containment. Republicans who adopt this strategy may back the president on many issues, from judicial appointments to tax and health care reform, but draw a line at behavior they...
As constitutional scholar Martin Redish put it, If the president can immunize his agents in this manner, the courts will effectively lose any meaningful authority to protect constitutional rights agai...
As we noted earlier, the chief executive’s constitutional power to pardon is without limit,
But rather than denouncing the coup leaders as an extremist threat, the former president offered them public sympathy—and, with it, an opening to mainstream politics.
Concerned about the court’s history of striking down pro-labor legislation, Perón’s allies in congress impeached three of the justices on the grounds of malfeasance (a fourth resigned before he could...
Democracy’s fate during the remainder of Trump’s presidency will depend on several factors. The first is the behavior of Republican leaders. Democratic institutions depend crucially on the willingness...
Despite their vast differences, Hitler, Mussolini, and Chávez followed routes to power that share striking similarities. Not only were they all outsiders with a flair for capturing public attention, b...
Donald Trump, by contrast, has rarely exhibited forbearance in any context. The chances of a conflict occurring on his watch are also considerable. They would be for any president—the United States fo...
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