Given the numbers in this country, the only way to not empower the emerging multiracial majority in this country is through nondemocratic means. ![]() Levitsky: Given the demographics of the country, it’s not hyperbolic at all. Is that hyperbole? Is the choice really that stark? You say in your book that America will either become a multiracial democracy or cease to be a democracy at all. Their comments were edited for brevity and clarity. Levitsky and Ziblatt recently talked to CNN. But, ultimately, they become indispensable partners in democracy’s demise.“ These politicians often tell themselves they are doing what’s necessary to get ahead. They tolerate or condone antidemocratic extremism because it is the path of least resistance. “They do not oppose democracy out of deep-seated principle but are merely indifferent to it. “Many of the politicians who preside over a democracy’s collapse are just ambitious careerist trying to stay in office or perhaps win a higher one,” they write. The authors of a new book say some of the gravest threats to American democracy have occurred since that insurrection. Police attempt to clear protesters trying to breach the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. Yet “democracy’s assassins” always have political accomplices who appear to abide by democratic norms but quietly undermine them, the authors say. The January 6 insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol building and the politicians who use openly authoritarian language are often depicted as the biggest threats to democracy. They direct some of their most pointed criticisms at contemporary politicians who they describe as “semi-loyal’ to democracy because they refuse to work with ideological rivals even when democracy is on the line. Levitsky and Ziblatt write with the same clarity that turned their previous book, “ How Democracies Die,” into a bestseller. The book’s authors say the Founding Fathers were progressive and even radical for their time, but they birthed a now-outdated political system that allows a partisan minority in the US to thwart the popular will and rule over popular majorities. But the “Tyranny of the Minority” makes another argument: The Founding Fathers didn’t intend to create what contemporary Americans would call a democracy. Schools often teach children that the Founding Fathers were political geniuses in powdered wigs who created a democratic system that remains envied throughout the world. Within six years, it would be dead,” the authors write.Ĭould the same fate await the US? This is the question that haunts every page of their impassioned book. “In the absence of accountability for the events of February 6, French democracy was badly weakened. ![]() Roger Viollet Collection/Getty ImagesĪ description of the 1934 riot comes midway through “ Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point,” by Steve Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. Their new book, which argues that the US must reform its Constitution and political institutions because they are dangerously antiquated, offers a chilling postscript to the French insurrection. No one was really held accountable, and politicians who encouraged or justified the insurrection that day remained in power.Ī violent demonstration that almost toppled the French government in 1934 holds ominous lessons for us today, a new book warns. A committee was formed to investigate the insurrection, but right-leaning politicians rejected its findings and constructed an alternative narrative that cast the insurrectionists as victims of overzealous police and true patriots. The French government survived that attack, but the political battle that followed proved to be more consequential. We’re talking, of course, about the insurrection of Februan infamous day when thousands of fascists and militia members tried to topple a democratically elected government in France. Many people were injured, and some killed. As both sides battled one another on that chilly winter day, frightened lawmakers fled their chambers as the mob called for their hanging. The insurrectionists tried to break through the doors to the building where lawmakers met, but riot police stopped them at the barricades. It started as a political protest in the nation’s capital over a disputed election, but it quickly turned into an all-out assault.Īrmed right-wing militia and a mob of enraged demonstrators stormed the building where lawmakers had gathered to vote on a new government.
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