The Authors of “How Democracies Die” on the New Democratic Minority

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

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Politics, Obama, News, Wnyc, Washington, Barack, President, Lizza, Wickenden

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🗓️ 18 November 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

American voters have elected a President with broadly, overtly authoritarian aims. It’s hardly the first time that the democratic process has brought an anti-democratic leader to power. The political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who both teach at Harvard, assert that we shouldn’t be shocked by the Presidential result. “It’s not up to voters to defend a democracy,” Levitsky says. “That’s asking far, far too much of voters, to cast their ballot on the basis of some set of abstract principles or procedures.” He adds, “With the exception of a handful of cases, voters never, ever—in any society, in any culture—prioritize democracy over all else. Individual voters worry about much more mundane things, as is their right. It is up to élites and institutions to protect democracy—not voters.” Levitsky and Ziblatt published “How Democracies Die” during Donald Trump’s first Administration, but they argue that what’s ailing our democracy runs much deeper—and that it didn’t start with Trump. “We’re the only advanced, old, rich democracy that has faced the level of democratic backsliding that we’ve experienced. . . . So we need to kind of step back and say, ‘What has gone wrong here?’ If we don’t ask those kinds of hard questions, we’re going to continue to be in this roiling crisis,” Ziblatt says.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the political scene. I'm David Remnick. Early each week, we bring you a conversation
0:11.5	from our episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David
0:19.5	Remnick. For months, years even, Democrats and even some Republicans have worried about the day after the election. Donald Trump gave no sign that he would ever accept a loss. So we spent time worrying about the security of our elections. We worried about state officials
0:38.4	who would intervene to skew the result, about a Republican Congress refusing to certify the result.
0:44.7	Above all, we worried about another January 6th or worse. Statements from Trump like,
0:50.8	in four years it'll be fixed and you won't have to vote again, that was concerning,
0:55.4	to say the least. So was his repeated threat to punish his political opponents, and on and on.
1:02.6	But in the end, the election was peaceful and apparently fair, and Donald Trump won the popular
1:08.7	vote as well as the Electoral College.
1:12.1	This is not the first time in the history of the world that a democracy has brought an
1:16.2	anti-democratic leader to power. As we try to see where America is going now, I called up
1:22.5	two keen observers of our politics, Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Zibla.
1:28.0	They're both political scientists, and they co-wrote the books,
1:31.0	How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority.
1:36.3	Your book, How Democracies Die, was published in 2018,
1:39.9	which is in the teeth of the first Trump administration.
1:43.8	But our troubles didn't start with Donald Trump.
1:47.1	How would you assess the condition of our democracy now?
1:50.8	I assume you're telling us that it's in considerably worse shape
1:55.0	than when you published your book, How Democracy's Die in 2018.
1:59.2	It is in considerably worse shape.
2:02.3	Just about every international organization that measures the level of democracy annually
	...

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