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The post-1965 realignment also began a process of sorting out voters ideologically. For the first time in nearly a century, partisanship and ideology converged, with the GOP becoming primarily conservative and the Democrats becoming predominantly liberal.
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Steven Levitsky |
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And when the opposition fights dirty, it provides the government with justification for cracking down.
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Steven Levitsky |
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Weakened and discredited, the opposition could not stop the regime's subsequent descent into authoritarianism.
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Steven Levitsky |
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Opposition strategies in Colombia under President Alvaro Uribe were more successful.
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Steven Levitsky |
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2765c26
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Beginning with Ronald Reagan in 1980, the GOP embraced the Christian Right and adopted increasingly pro-evangelical positions, including opposition to abortion, support for school prayer, and, later, opposition to gay marriage.
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Steven Levitsky |
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cc6b0b9
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Protest should be viewed in a similar way. Public protest is a basic right and an important activity in any democracy, but its aim should be the defense of rights and institutions, rather than their disruption. In an important study of the effects of black protest in the l960s, political scientist Omar Wasow found that black-led nonviolent protest fortified the national civil rights agenda in Washington and broadened public support for that..
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Steven Levitsky |
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b71bf8d
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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 secular. The percentage of white Democrats who attended church regularly fell from nearly 50 percent in the 1960s to below 30 percent in the 2000s.
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Steven Levitsky |
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When major businesses join progressive boycotts, they often succeed.
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Steven Levitsky |
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In addition, whereas a narrow (urban, secular, progressive) anti-Trump coalition would reinforce the current axes of partisan division, a broader coalition would crosscut these axes and maybe even help dampen them. A political movement that brings together--even if temporarily--Bernie Sanders supporters and businesspeople, evangelicals and secular feminists, and small-town Republicans and urban Black Lives Matter supporters, will open chann..
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Steven Levitsky |
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930cdb4
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The reforms of the 1960s gave Americans a third chance to build a truly multiethnic democracy. It is imperative that we succeed, extraordinarily difficult though the task is.
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Steven Levitsky |
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Resentment fuels polarization.
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Steven Levitsky |
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f8fc0bb
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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, binding primaries weakened parties' gatekeeping function, potentially eliminating the peer review process and opening the door to outsiders. Just before the McGovern-Fraser Commission began its work, two prominent political scientists warned th..
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Steven Levitsky |
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7138cd6
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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, religious belief, geography, and even "way of life."
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Steven Levitsky |
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a69840d
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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 States appears to be abandoning its role as democracy promoter for the first time since the Cold War. President Trump's is the least prodemocratic of any U.S. administration since Nixon's. Moreover, America is no longer a democratic model.
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Steven Levitsky |
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It is difficult to find examples of societies in which shrinking ethnic majorities gave up their dominant status without a fight.
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Steven Levitsky |
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In Israel, the demographic threat created by the de facto annexation of the West Bank is pushing the country toward a political system that two of its former prime ministers have compared to apartheid.
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Steven Levitsky |
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646d0b2
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Party gatekeepers failed at three key junctures: the "invisible primary," the primaries themselves, and the general election." --
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Steven Levitsky |
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In short, 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, and if, on those grounds, they had endorsed Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump might never have ascended to the presidency.
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Steven Levitsky |
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8ce1489
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Many government efforts to subvert democracy are "legal," in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy--making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process."
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Steven Levitsky |
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a795aa2
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False charges of fraud can undermine public confidence in elections--and when citizens do not trust the electoral process, they often lose faith in democracy itself.
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Steven Levitsky |
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Deberiamos preocuparnos en serio cuando un politico: 1) rechaza, ya sea de palabra o mediante acciones, las reglas democraticas del juego, 2) niega la legitimidad de sus oponentes, 3) tolera o alienta la violencia o 4) indica su voluntad de restringir las libertades civiles de sus opositores, incluidos los medios de comunicacion.
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Steven Levitsky |
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By contrast, a social policy agenda that sets aside stiff means testing in favor of the more universalistic models found in northern Europe could have a moderating effect on our politics. Social policies that benefit everyone--Social Security and Medicare are prime examples--could help diminish resentment, build bridges across large swaths of the American electorate, and lock into place social support for more durable policies to reduce inc..
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Steven Levitsky |
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09380bc
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Democracy is grinding work. Whereas family businesses and army squadrons may be ruled by fiat, democracies require negotiation, compromise, and concessions.
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Steven Levitsky |
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ad07e46
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The simple fact of the matter is that the world has never built a multiethnic democracy in which no particular ethnic group is in the majority and where political equality, social equality and economies that empower all have been achieved.
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Steven Levitsky |
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9727901
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When gatekeeping institutions fail, mainstream politicians must do everything possible to keep dangerous figures away from the centers of power.
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gate-keeping-of-democracy
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Steven Levitsky |
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370e08e
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Collective abdication--the transfer of authority to a leader who threatens democracy--usually flows from one of two sources. The first is the misguided belief that an authoritarian can be controlled or tamed. The second is what sociologist Ivan Ermakoff calls "ideological collusion," in which the authoritarian's agenda overlaps sufficiently with that of mainstream politicians that abdication is desirable, or at least preferable to the alter..
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authoritarian
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Steven Levitsky |
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a5245a2
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Huq and Ginsburg recently warned that "the constitutional and legal safeguards of [American] democracy...would prove to be fairly easy to manipulate in the face of a truly antidemocratic leader."
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Steven Levitsky |
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7408b6f
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Democracies do have written rules (constitutions) and referees (the courts). But these work best, and survive longest, in countries where written constitutions are reinforced by their own unwritten rules of the game. These rules or norms serve as the soft guardrails of democracy, preventing day-to-day political competition from devolving into a no-holds-barred conflict.
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no-holds-barred
rules
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Steven Levitsky |
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dcab6be
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If Democrats do not work to restore norms of mutual toleration and forbearance, their next president will likely confront an opposition willing to use any means necessary to defeat them. And if partisan rifts deepen and our unwritten rules continue to fray, Americans could eventually elect a president who is even more dangerous than Trump.
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Steven Levitsky |
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If partisan animosity prevails over mutual toleration, those in control of congress may prioritize defense of the president over the performance of their constitutional duties.
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Steven Levitsky |
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Democracies work best--and survive longer--where constitutions are reinforced by unwritten democratic norms. Two basic norms have preserved America's checks and balances in ways we have come to take for granted: mutual toleration, or the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals, and forbearance, or the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives. These two..
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Steven Levitsky |
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f82570e
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Convinced that "something must finally give," a cabal of rivalrous conservatives convened in late January 1933 and settled on a solution: A popular outsider should be placed at the head of the government. They despised him but knew that at least he had a mass following. And, most of all, they thought they could control him."
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Steven Levitsky |
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Norms of forbearance are especially important in presidential democracies. As Juan Linz argued, divided government can easily bring deadlock, dysfunction, and constitutional crisis. Unrestrained presidents can pack the Supreme Court or circumvent Congress by ruling via decree.
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Steven Levitsky |
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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.
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Steven Levitsky |
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Even well-designed constitutions cannot, by themselves, guarantee democracy. For one, constitutions are always incomplete. Like any set of rules, they have countless gaps and ambiguities. No operating manual, no matter how detailed, can anticipate all possible contingencies or prescribe how to behave under all possible circumstances.
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perfection
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Steven Levitsky |
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c479fbd
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Sin embargo, existe otra manera de hacer quebrar una democracia, un modo menos dramatico pero igual de destructivo. Las democracias pueden fracasar a manos no ya de generales, sino de lideres electos, de presidentes o primeros ministros que subvierten el proceso mismo que los condujo al poder.
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Steven Levitsky |
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la muerte de la democracia es inmediata y resulta evidente para todo el mundo.
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Steven Levitsky |
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b1f5dba
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Despite their vast differences, Hitler, Mussolini, and Chavez followed routes to power that share striking similarities. Not only were they all outsiders with a flair for capturing public attention, but each of them rose to power because establishment politicians overlooked the warning signs and either handed over power to them (Hitler and Mussolini) or opened the door for them (Chavez).
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Steven Levitsky |
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7fd5ba8
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To find comparable behavior in this hemisphere one must look at Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela or Rafael Correa in Ecuador.
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Steven Levitsky |
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In his two-volume masterpiece, The American Commonwealth (1888), British scholar James Bryce wrote that it was not the U.S. Constitution itself that made the American political system work but rather what he called "usages": our unwritten rules."
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Steven Levitsky |
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676cfc6
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Even if Donald Trump does not break the hard guardrails of our constitutional democracy, he has increased the likelihood that a future president will.
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Steven Levitsky |
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65e7aeb
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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 in exchange for a promise to remove federal troops from the South. The pact effectively ended Reconstruction, which, by stripping away hard-fought federal protections for African Americans, allowed southern Democrats to undo basic democratic r..
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Steven Levitsky |
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a289868
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It is difficult to overstate the tragic significance of these events. Because civil and voting rights were regarded by many southern Democrats as a fundamental threat, the parties' agreement to abandon those issues provided a basis for restoring mutual toleration. The disenfranchisement of African Americans preserved white supremacy and Democratic Party dominance in the South, which helped maintain the Democrats' national viability.
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Steven Levitsky |
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e49aa4b
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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 establishing a dictatorship, and parties used their legislative majorities to impeach presidents and steal supreme court seats, you might have thought of Ecuador or Romania. You probably would not have thought of the United States.
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Steven Levitsky |