How Democracies Die

At the outset of Chapter 2 Ziblatt and Levitsky describe Benito Mussolini’s theatrical arrival in Rome on October 30, 1922, after an invitation from the Italian king to form cabinet. With this anecdote, the authors illustrate one way many political outsiders came to assume control over government: through invitations from fearful incumbents who’d opened the door.

A little over a decade after Mussolini’s arrival in Rome, another autocrat’s rise to power followed a similar trajectory. After Germany’s elected government collapsed amid the Great Depression, conservatives chose popular outsider Adolf Hitler to lead the government, thinking they could control him—an assumption that proved to be false.

These two cases (as well as other examples, including Hugo Chavez in Venezuela) illustrate how, when democracies are under pressure, establishment politicians often try to co-opt an outsider (and their popular following) to fulfill establishment ends. Such arrangements often benefit the outsiders instead, as it bestows them with the legitimacy they need.

Ziblatt and Levitsky note that other democracies have survived despite the threats posed by charismatic demagogues, but they dismiss the idea that this is because these citizens are more inherently attached to democracy. Instead, these countries managed to identify, isolate, and defeat these individuals, largely through political parties.

The first step in this process is identifying potential authoritarians. While many follow a recognizable pattern—for example, attempted and successful coups—others aren’t obviously antidemocratic. Ziblatt and Levitsky propose a four-point warning system for when a politician rejects democratic rules; casts opponents as illegitimate; accepts or encourages violence; and seems willing to curtail the civil liberties of their opposition. Keeping authoritarians out of power is complicated, since controlling who can run for office is antithetical to democracy. But there are things parties can do, including resisting the temptation to nominate extremists for office, even if they can win votes by doing so; expelling extremist forces from within the party; avoiding alliances with antidemocratic parties and candidates; isolating extremists; and forming a united front against authoritarian forces, even if that means joining with opponents. The authors assert that “united democratic fronts can prevent extremists from winning power, which can mean saving a democracy.” (26)

As an example of successful execution of this, the authors look at Belgium, which was under threat from growing authoritarian forces in the mid-1930s. The conservative Catholic Party removed those with authoritarian sympathies from their own ranks and eventually joined forces with their rivals, the Socialist Party, rather than two far-right parties. In doing so, the Socialists also put their own interests aside. A similar scenario unfolded more recently in 2016, when Austria’s governing center-right party kept a far-right party out of power by endorsing a left-leaning challenger (and their rival). In closing, the authors note that the American political system has traditionally acted to keep extremists out of power—until 2016.

In Chapter 2 Levitsky and Ziblatt turn to America, asking why American democracy has prevailed despite various authoritarian threats. The answer is not a firm commitment in American political culture to democracy, they write. Instead, the protection has come from political parties.

As an example of this, the authors describe an incident from June 1920, when a group of influential figures resolved a deadlocked Republican leadership convention by choosing fourth-place candidate Warren G. Harding. While this episode, with its backroom deals, was not particularly democratic, these behind-the-scenes machinations did serve a gatekeeping function, “keeping demonstrably unfit figures off the ballet and out of office” (38).

Gatekeeping is particularly important in a presidential system because, unlike in parliamentary democracies, there is no natural filter on who can assume control of a country; since the president is, at least theoretically, elected directly by the people, anyone with enough support can become president. The Founding Fathers grappled with this dilemma, wanting a system that would elect presidents who reflected the will of the people while not having full confidence in the people’s ability to choose a suitable candidate. This led to the establishment of the Electoral College, where locally prominent men in each state would choose the president. But as Levitsky and Ziblatt point out, the system was flawed from the outset, as it addressed neither who could seek the presidency nor the question of political parties—and political parties fundamentally changed the way the College worked. Eventually, parties, rather than the Electoral College, became the agents that chose candidates, and therefore the real gatekeeping authorities.

Initially, the way political parties facilitated choosing presidential nominees wasn’t particularly democratic, as party insiders commonly referred to as “organization men” determined who was nominated. This meant many party members—“the especially the poor and politically unconnected, women, and minorities”—were prevented from participating in nominations (42-43). But it also kept unfit candidates—such as Henry Ford, who was unpopular with Democratic Party insiders despite his widespread public support—out of office.

In the late 20th century all this changed. The pivotal moment came in 1968, with the escalating war in Vietnam and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. At the subsequent leadership convention, the promotion of an unpopular candidate, Hubert Humphrey, by party insiders, led to protests and violence, undermining public trust in the old system of backroom deals. Before the 1972 election, both parties adopted a system of binding presidential primaries, whereby candidates were no longer chosen by party insiders but more directly by the public. While political scientists initially warned that this system could increase the risks of extremist candidates, those fears failed to materialize for decades; meanwhile, party insiders continued to exert control, since candidates who hoped to win a majority of delegates still needed party support to have the necessary resources to secure a majority—the so-called “invisible primary.” The authors close the chapter by noting that this pattern held true—until 2016.

In Chapter 3 Levitsky and Ziblatt explore how, after the primary system changed, more outsiders ran for office in American politics, particularly those with enough money and celebrity to circumvent the “invisible primary.” But for many years, these wealthy outsiders were not successful. When Donald Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015, the authors write, it seemed likely he’d follow a similar trajectory.

Yet the circumstances were different in several important ways. First, the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling made it easier for outsider candidates to raise large sums of money; second, the rise of cable news and social media made it easier for outsiders to get name recognition. Finally, in 2016, gatekeeping failed.

The first point at which gatekeeping failed was the invisible primary; at the outset of 2016’s primary season, Trump did not have endorsements from influential Republican politicians. What he did have, however, was support from right-wing media figures like Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter; meanwhile, the controversies he created generated free coverage even from unsympathetic media outlets. Together, these dynamics propelled his candidacy forward, and “the gatekeepers of the invisible primary were not merely invisible; by 2016, they had left the building entirely” (58-59).

The authors then move on to the general election. Despite the fact that Trump’s rhetoric was described by supporters as “mere words,” his conduct in the campaign met all the criteria in the authors’ litmus test for autocrats. Nonetheless, Republicans gatekeepers did not attempt to sideline his candidacy.

The first element of the litmus test is “weak commitment to democratic rules of the game” (61). Trump tested positive for this by suggesting that he might refuse to accept the election results and that voter fraud was being leveraged to support his opponent, Hillary Clinton. The second test is questioning the status of one’s opponents, which Trump did by suggesting Clinton was a criminal. Third, autocrats tolerate or encourage violence, as Trump did by encouraging supporters to attack protesters. Finally, autocrats appear ready to limit the civil liberties of critics. Trump displayed evidence of this in his threats toward media.

However, rather than working together to address the threat to democracy, influential Republicans largely opted not to side with American democracy by backing Hillary Clinton—as ideological rivals did in other countries, such as Austria and France, when faced with an authoritarian threat. Instead, “most Republican leaders ended up holding the party line” (70), normalizing Trump’s candidacy and making it into a standard two-party race. And in this close race—without the Republicans indicating there was anything dangerous about their candidate—Trump won.