How Democracies Die was written in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the message of that this book sends should not be lost on either the American public and democracy advocates throughout the globe. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt are not two zealots, but rather men who have dedicated themselves to democracy research and the cause of democracy.

This book is more like a diagnostic manual to identify the symptoms of democratic retreat. Sadly in the last half decade or so, the authors have plenty of cases to draw from. This comparative approach, prevents it from being an unadulterated attack on President Trump.

The two authors indicate that the tanks in the street model of autocracy is rare, the more likely autocratic road is lip service to the constitution, even while they seek to undermine it through: de-legitimize opponents, spreading conspiracy theories about opposition, questioning the legitimacy of votes against them. They also seem to encourage violence and basic fact becomes a battleground. But there is hope, democracy can be rejuvenated by an active and engaged citizenry who believes in democratic principles.

A book on democracy that is a blend of caution and hope.

Think about this today. Oh, and READ. THIS. BOOK.

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (Crown, $26).

I know that I recommend a ton of books. More than any normal person would read, in fact. But let me be clear: This is the most important book in the last decade.

Yeah, yeah. But remember, I’m not being paid to say it.

And frankly, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt are a bit too middle-of-the-road in their politics for my tastes. But they support every claim they make with clear-cut examples from history and current events. And the things they speculate about? Many have happened in the time between when this book went to press and now.

So, on to the review.

The main claim here is that the United States is not exceptional, and what happens in other democracies can happen here.

It’s not will it happen. There are specific things we can do to prevent the failure of our democracy–including voting, which I sincerely hope you’ve done today. But it can. We have no magic powers or extra-specialness that makes our constitution unassailable while others fail.

And to prove it, Levitsky and Ziblatt have come up with some specifics about the conditions in which democracy fails.

Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders—presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps.



Let’s start with the reality: Hitler won an election, too. So did Mussolini. And Hugo Chavez, down in Venezuela. Assuming that, because they are elected, our leaders can be trusted with our democracy is a delusion with a very high cost. The reality, they explain, is that most democracies in the post-WWII era have died at the polls.

The people elected leaders who then proceeded to subvert democracy, often under the guise of “improving” it. Some of these subversions include gerrymandering (to ensure single-party rule, or enough of a majority that other changes can be made at will), court-packing, and, in the absence of the ability to do those things, undermining the integrity of the checks and balance system by claiming corruption.

Sound familiar? Sure, it does.

But Levitsky and Ziblatt make clear that it’s not just one party that does this. For example, FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court–and got slapped down, hard. And while President George W. Bush first began the practice of legislating by executive directive, President Barack Obama continued it; its outrageous expansion under the current administration is just one more step along the road.

See, democracy has foes on both sides of the aisle. When “winning” or getting what one party wants becomes more important than democratic norms and constitutional procedures, democracy is in danger. These norms are, according to the authors,

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. … The

erosion of our democratic norms began in the 1980s and 1990s and

accelerated in the 2000s.

They point specifically to the rise of cable news (specifically, FOXNews) and former Rep. Newt Gingrich’s introduction of party discipline and single-mindedness.

They also point out that the period of collegiality that we now remember fondly was the direct result of Northern politicians turning a blind eye to the use of Jim Crow to enforce white supremacy in the South, and that this decorum was bought at the price of terrible harm to Black Americans. President Lyndon Johnson’s support of the Civil Rights Act and Nixon’s “Southern strategy” blew this democratic norm apart–and rightly so–but instead of moving forward, we’ve had win-at-any-cost destruction of all the rest of our democratic norms.

We have entered a very dangerous place for democracy: “extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.”

The most dangerous place is when a

politician 1) rejects, in words or action, the democratic rules of the game, 2)

denies the legitimacy of opponents, 3) tolerates or encourages violence, and

4) indicates a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including

the media.

Remind you of anyone?

The only solution, they argue, are politicians in all parties who are willing to stand up and make common cause against anti-democratic behavior, and they offer plenty of examples from our own history as well as that of other democracies–and former democracies.

Perhaps most terrifying is their use of Brazil as an example of a stable democracy, given that they went to press before the election of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency. His rhetoric–and his political goals–are much less in line with democratic norms.

Although it is depressing, this book is recommended so highly because it puts current events in context. There is, however, one bit of context missing: Some of the pressures that the American people are experiencing right now are going to get much, much worse as climate change continues to alter the planet. For example, our current angst about refugees and migrants will only grow as those displaced by the effects of climate change seek safety.

And under those pressures, will we find the character to insist upon democracy and its norms?

All we can do is be informed and take the very first, primal action of democracy: Vote.

If you are going to read a book to help you decipher the current state of affairs I would recommend Timothy Snyder's work On Tyranny. The short and to the point book aptly make comparisons to what can happen in a dictatorship. He furthermore points out what to look out for, how to prevent it, and how to protect yourself when the worst happens. This is due to his extensive experience researching totalitarian regimes in Europe especially before, during, and after World War II. However, the authors of How Democracies Die try in vain to make comparisons to Latin American democracies, some European democracies and compare them to the current US state of affairs.

I think it would have been better to examine the deaths of democracies in Europe during the Cold War. This book is focused on the current president's destruction of norms and how that weakens our democracy. However, Russian interference in elections has happened since the 1940s and would be a better analogy to work from than what they used. Svetlana Alexievich does a much better job explaining this in her Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets. She also discusses what happened in Ukraine when Russia attempted to influence their election process.

Generally speaking, How Democracies Die simply lays the blame solely on the Republican Party instead of examining all factors. However accurate that fact is, it doesn't provide any kind of assistance or alternatives. One could Read Snyder's On Tyranny, Alexievich's Secondhand Time, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia by Peter Pomerantsev and many others that show past Russia and current Russia. Furthermore, We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates also discusses how race influenced the election and his a core part of the history of the United States.

The biggest fear not touched on by this book is that elections show who we really are, but can we change who we really are?

Compelling. I really appreciated both the historical look at the fall of democracies in other countries, as well as how the US has dealt with its brush against autocrats in the past. Used lots of highlights as I was reading the work and I felt depressed and sad at where we are as a nation as I was reading it.

As a young American, I am always trying to broaden my knowledge on politics and what is going on in the current world today, so I was looking forward to reading this and learning more, getting insight into something I knew little about. You can tell it is well researched and it was a fascinating read. I was a little nervous going in, thinking I wouldn't understand all the political lingo, but it's easily read and held my interest.

Democracies die. We might think that a coup and violence is required to destroy a democracy. But some democracies die at the hands of elected officials who take subtle steps to authoritarianism.

Is American democracy vulnerable? To answer that question, the authors look back in history and examine the demise of democracies. We can learn lessons from events in other countries. We can spot the warning signs. We can also identify what citizens did to prevent the loss of democracy.

This appears to be a very serious time in the history of American democracy. Guardrails that are not specified in the Constitution but have been the norm for centuries are being abandoned. For the first time in American history the U. S. Senate refused to even consider an elected president's nominee for the Supreme Court when President Obama nominated appellate judge Merrick Garland. (Loc 1911/4806) The authors write, “The traditions underpinning America's democratic institutions are unraveling...” (Loc 1911/4806)

The warning signs are there. Attacking the press and accusing them of lying and presenting false news. Threatening one's opponent with jail. Lying to the public. Marginalizing the other branches of government. Denying the legitimacy of an election.

Is American democracy in danger? The authors are concerned. They present possible futures, depending on whether political gate keepers do their job and whether the norms of mutual tolerance and forbearance are restored. We may very well see a future with greater polarization in politics and among citizens. We may even experience a future event that provides an occasion for the president to demand greater powers.

I highly recommend this book. It is a good exploration of what brings about the death of democracies. It is a good evaluation of the events that have led us to this place in our American history. It is a very good wake up call for us all, reminding us how fragile our democracy is.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

“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,” write Harvard political science professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. “You probably would not have thought of the United States.”

So how did this happen here? What led to the election of an authoritarian ruler who “subverts democratic rules, denies the legitimacy of opponents, encourages violence and indicates a willingness to curtain the civil liberties of opponents, including the media”?

According to Levitsky and Ziblatt’s book “How Democracies Die,” it mainly comes down to the erosion of gatekeepers and the dereliction of social and cultural norms that have preserved American democracy since its founding.

It comes down to things like the McGovern-Fraser Commission, which opened the presidential nomination system from party leaders to people who directly voted for Democratic and Republican delegates loyal to presidential candidates in state primaries.

It comes down to people like former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who wrote the GOP handbook on aversion to compromise, encouraged Republicans to play “constitutional hardball” and fanned dangerous rhetoric like “traitors,” “pathetic,” “sick,” “corrupt” and “unAmerican” to be applied to their Democratic counterparts. (Extreme partisan politics like how Republican leaders backed Donald Trump and normalized his candidacy over supporting opponent Hillary Clinton contributed to Trump’s presidency, write Levitsky and Ziblatt.)

It comes down to the rise of alternative media sources from cable news to Facebook, which further polarized voters and stripped power away from traditional media gatekeepers.

Mostly, write Levitsky and Ziblatt, it comes down to the decisions of political leaders to forego governing traditions like forbearance, “the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives,” and mutual toleration, “the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals.”

Levitsky and Ziblatt’s book is a systematic explainer of how Trump became the President of the United States and why that’s a danger to American democracy.

“We fear that if Trump were to confront a war or terrorist attack, he would exploit this crisis fully — using it to attack political opponents and restrict freedoms Americans take for granted,” write Levitsky and Ziblatt.

It’s happened before with Hugo Chavez’s in Venezuela, Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Adolf Hitler in Germany and others with leaders dismantling democracies while promising to protect it.

“Would-be autocrats often use economic crises, natural disasters, and especially security threats — wars, armed insurgencies, or terrorist attacks — to justify antidemocratic measures,” write Levitsky and Ziblatt. Then with “no single moment, no coup, declaration of martial law or suspension of the constitution” democracy is dead.

So could that also happen here? Are we living through the fall of the American democracy?

It’s a distinct possibility, write Levitsky and Ziblatt. “People do not immediately realize what is happening. Many continue to believe they are living under a democracy.”

Disclaimer: I received a free ebook of “How Democracies Die” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt from Blogging for Books for this review.

HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE by Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt explores the threats to democracy in several countries including Turkey, Peru, and Hungary. They comment on the Trump presidency and draw several parallels, noting that "America is no longer a democratic model. A country whose president attacks the press, threatens to lock up his rival, and declares that he might not accept election results cannot credibly defend democracy." They also describe the "warrior mentality" and partisan polarization which has been increasing for years. Providing extensive endnotes, Levitsky and Ziblatt cite numerous warning signs (e.g., Republican Senate's refusal to consider Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee; gerrymandering or voter "reform") and forecast increased institutional warfare, creating "democracy without solid guardrails." They also connect with other titles we have recently purchased (bemoaning how Republican politicians are increasingly adopting a white nationalist appeal and how they speak about Black Lives Matter). According to them, a central lesson of HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE is "When American democracy has worked, it has relied upon two norms that we often take for granted – mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance. Treating rivals as legitimate contenders for power and underutilizing one's institutional prerogatives in the spirit of fair play ...." Are you interested in learning more? Read an excerpt or view Q&A with the authors on the publisher's page.

Link to publisher's page: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562246/how-democracies-die-by-steven-levitsky-and-daniel-ziblatt/9781524762933/

When we think of a democracy dying, what comes to mind is usually a military coup or civil war or other sudden violent action. In How Democracies Die, Harvard Government professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt show how countries can lose their democracy more slowly and insidiously, often without a single shot fired.
They assert that, beyond the obvious mechanisms we depend on like free and fair elections and a strong constitution, democracies work best when these mechanisms are reinforced by unwritten democratic norms of mutual toleration of competing parties and forbearance in deploying institutional pregogatives. They also develop a set of four behavioral warning signs to help identify an authoritarian and a litmus test to identify autocrats.
The authors support each of the general principles they put forth with many detailed examples of democracies that fell under autocratic rule and how it happened. These include the countries most likely to come to mind like Hitler’s Germany and others like Venezuela, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Sri Lanka, and Turkey.
After making their case for how democracies die, the authors warn that the United States is not immune from this disease and give good evidence for their assertion. Not surprisingly the Trump administration is their primary example, but there are other recent examples from before Trump took office. As an example of the violation of the civil norm of forbearance (which has been broken by both parties), they cite the Senate’s refusal to consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Until I read this book I had not realized that no president since Reconstruction has been denied the opportunity to fill a Supreme Court vacancy when he nominated someone before his successor was elected. Specific nominees had been turned down, but replacements were considered and someone was appointed in every instance until the Garland nomination. It was also interesting to read about the crucial role that the political parties play in keeping authoritarians on the fringes and to see how the use of primary elections to select nominees, a step most of us see as supporting democracy, could instead make it easier for an authoritarian to gain power.
Not all the examples in the book are negative. It also cites instances where threats to democracy have been foiled, both in the United States and elsewhere. An excellent example was when President Roosevelt tried to neutralize a Supreme Court that was hostile to some of his New Deal by expanding the Supreme Court to 15 members. The bipartisan negative reaction was especially significant given that Roosevelt was extremely popular and had just been re-elected in a landslide. There ARE actions and attitudes that can counter threats.
The book’s theses are well-reasoned and well-documented. Most of the current examples in the United States would be familiar to well-informed readers, and we probably did not need to hear about them to see their relevance to the general principles the authors developed from their examinations of history. It was especially chilling to read about a behavioral warning sign and then to see an example of it in the news. For example the day after I read about “willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media” as a warning sign, President Trump’s lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter to try to prevent publication of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff.
Like most Americans, I react to the thought of losing our democratic way of life with “No, it can’t happen here.” This book has convinced me that it could.
Thought-provoking and alarming
NOTE: I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from Netgalley with a request for an honest review.

Depressing! I received this book free from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Written by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, and published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, New York in 2018, the book consists of a detailed and concise account of various democratic governments that have collapsed in relatively recent history, and how they compare to the state of the US government and its political systems and leaders today. It is extremely well-researched. It is also very convincing. Its logic is inescapable. What has happened to other democracies, and what has almost happened on at least two previous occasions in the United States, could easily happen here again. The signs are unmistakable.

Three countries frequently cited in the book as paradigm examples are: Germany under Adolph Hitler, Italy under Benito Mussolini and Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. Even though Chavez was elected by popular vote, while Hitler and Mussolini were not, political insiders helped these men to obtain power by responding to their own thirsts and desires for power or riches (or both).

The authors put forth four signs of authoritarianism: According to them, “We should worry when a politician 1) rejects, in words or action, the democratic rules of the game, 2) denies the legitimacy of opponents, 3) tolerates or encourages violence, and 4) indicates a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media.” Does any of this sound familiar? How about Donald Trump issuing “Executive Orders” when Congress declines to grant his wishes? Or, how about his insistence that Hillary Clinton had no right to be president and should be locked up, or his frequent exhortations to the crowds at his rallies to use violence against protestors and media representatives, telling his supporters that he would pay their legal bills? How about his calls to curtail the news media, and his constant railing about “fake news”? Of course, Fox News Channel, an outlet that never says anything at all critical of Trump, enjoys immunity from his accusations against the media.

Building on the efforts of previous researchers, the authors “have developed a set of four behavioral warning signs that can help us know an authoritarian when we see one. We should worry when a politician 1) rejects, in words or action, the democratic rules of the game, 2) denies the legitimacy of opponents, 3) tolerates or encourages violence, and 4) indicates a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media.” The authors supply details about the four indicators of authoritarianism in the form of questions presented in a table to be found at locations #281 - #313 in the Kindle edition of the book. One example of the questions includes: "Do they attempt to undermine the legitimacy of elections, for example, by refusing to accept credible electoral results?” (Donald Trump telling us that he might not accept the results of the election if he lost.) Another question is: “Do they baselessly describe their partisan rivals as criminals . . . “ Who can forget the chants of “lock her up” frequently heard at Trump rallies, even after he became President. One of the third types of question is: “Have they or their partisan allies sponsored or encouraged mob attacks on opponent?” Have we forgotten the frequent shouts by trump to “throw them out of here”? Or promises that he would pay the legal expenses of anybody arrested for using violence? The fourth indicator can be plainly seen in the answer to the following question: “Have they supported laws or policies that restrict civil liberties, such as expanded libel or defamation laws, or laws restricting protest, criticism of the government, or certain political organizations”? In March of 2017, Trump said: “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” There they are. Questions and answers. Ask yourself this: Is Donald J. Trump an authoritarian? Does he have the potential to become another Hugo Chavez? A Fidel Castro? An Adolph Hitler? Forget Godwin’s Law! It is nothing more than Political Correctness (PC) run amok. The comparison to Adolph Hitler is legitimate to anybody who has studied European History during the first half of the Twentieth Century.

The authors cite the example of strongman Alberto Fujimori manipulating the Supreme Court in a successful attempt to be able to run for an unconstitutional third term in office as President of Peru. How much different is that from US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of KY denying hearings or a confirmation vote on then-President Barack Obama’s nominee for the US Supreme Court during all of 2016. It is really no different from what happened in Peru. The Leader’s actions were certainly undemocratic, yet his supporters love him. Tellingly, they all seem to be Republicans. That’s something we should be thinking about at every election.

The authors make some important points. They tell us, for example, that “Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders—presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps.” The authors go on to add that “This is how democracies now die.” The analogy to the frog and boiling water comes to mind when considering this. Americans are being led down the path to authoritarianism, and they don’t even realize it.

Democracies have functioned well in the United States over the years for a simple reason: the application of checks and balances in the form of basic democratic “norms.” One of these is “mutual toleration,” the notion that “competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals.” The other norm is “forbearance,” or the idea that “politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives.” Both of these norms have been seriously undermined, and even abandoned entirely, over the past thirty years, primarily by Republicans. The authors cite an example: “By the time Barack Obama became president, many Republicans, in particular, questioned the legitimacy of their Democratic rivals and had abandoned forbearance for a strategy of winning by any means necessary.” Another way of describing this phenomenon is that the Republicans are playing “constitutional hardball” or “playing for keeps.” “It is a form of institutional combat aimed at permanently defeating one’s partisan rivals. In essence, it means not caring whether the democratic game continues.” The conclusion is: “There are, therefore, reasons for alarm.” I found these sections of the book to be particularly persuasive.

A little further into the book, we are told that the political parties and party leaders are “democracy’s gatekeepers.” And that: “Potential demagogues exist in all democracies, and occasionally, one or more of them strike a public chord.” Whenever this might happen, it is the responsibility of the party to reign them in and prevent their abuse of power. Specific supporting examples are provided. This is something that was not considered by our founding fathers, but it occurred in the U.S. anyway, and it prevented the kind of demagoguery that we have not seen for more than 200 years — until after the 2016 presidential election.

Continuing about gatekeeping, the authors go on to tell us that: “For its part, the United States has an impressive record of gatekeeping. Both Democrats and Republicans have confronted extremist figures, some of whom enjoyed considerable public support. For decades, both parties succeeded in keeping these figures out of the mainstream. Until, of course, 2016.” Unfortunately, this is so obviously true. But, the authors go on to warn us that: “An overreliance on gatekeeping is, in itself, undemocratic—it can create a world of party bosses who ignore the rank and file and fail to represent the people. But an overreliance on the ‘will of the people’ can also be dangerous, for it can lead to the election of a demagogue who threatens democracy itself. There is no escape from this tension. There are always trade-offs.” To our nation’s shame, the election of a demagogue is exactly what happened in 2016. “Republican leaders were forced to face reality: they no longer held the keys to their party’s nomination.” And so, Donald J. Trump is now our nation’s president.

In elaborating on the four traits of authoritarianism, the authors tell us that “No other major presidential candidate in modern US history, including Nixon, has demonstrated such a weak public commitment to constitutional rights and democratic norms.” Donald Trump has accelerated the process begun by Newt Gingrich so many years ago. “The erosion of democracy takes place piecemeal—often in baby steps.” We have seen this process at work for more than thirty years, and it has only moved into high gear after the election of Trump.

Later in the book, the authors tell us how governments must change the rules of the game in order to entrench themselves in power. We saw Governor Scott Walker do it in Wisconsin when he successfully attacked his state’s labor unions, and then fought off an attempt to recall him. Such moves, along with the successful attempts by several states to disenfranchise minority voters, “are often carried out under the guise of some public good, while in reality they are stacking the deck in favor of incumbents.” One example of this is the tremendous push by Republicans to disenfranchise voters by claiming that citizens who are registered in two or more states are committing voter fraud. Let’s take a look at this assertion. I lived in a Midwestern state for more than 21 years. I moved to a Western state, California, where I lived for three years before moving to another Western state. What is the likelihood that I am still registered to vote in those other two states? I might still be registered to vote in all three states. How would I know? Do Republicans really believe that I would jump on an airliner, fly to Chicago, rent a car and drive 90 miles to my polling place to vote, then backtrack to O’Hare, fly back to the West, vote in California, then drive to my current home to vote a third time? How much would that cost? Would anybody really be willing to spend the time, the money, and the effort to do such a thing? For a single vote? It would be insane! And so are the people who believe that such things really take place: Republicans! People move all the time, and this was especially true after the Republican-instigated Great Recession of 2007-2008. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, bothers to contact their local commission of elections to notify them that they are moving away. It just isn’t done.

Levitsky and Ziblatt talk about the “guardrails of democracy,” and they tell us that there are both hard guardrails and soft guardrails. The guardrails define the limits beyond which the government, no matter how radical, might travel. But when mutual toleration between ideologies and the politicians who espouse them exceed the norms of democratic politics, “[t]he result is politics without guardrails—what political theorist Eric Nelson describes as a ‘cycle of escalating constitutional brinksmanship.’” Forbearance was abandoned in 2016 by the leadership (Mitch McConnell) of the U.S. Senate. “. . . For the first time in American history, the U.S. Senate refused to even consider an elected president’s nominee for the Supreme Court.” “Since 1866 every time a president had moved to fill a Supreme Court vacancy prior to the election of his successor, he had been allowed to do so.” Until 2016, that is. McConnell refused to allow a vote on the confirmation of President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court: Merrick Garland. The Republicans changed the rules in 2016, and further contributed to the erosion of democracy.

The authors have identified a major factor in the increasing divide between the political parties: racism. They point out that “as the Democrats have increasingly become a party of ethnic minorities, the Republican Party has remained almost entirely a party of whites.” These whites overwhelmingly support Donald Trump. “All but one Republican senator voted with President Trump at least 85 percent of the time during his first seven month in office.” Alarmingly, “[u]nwilling to pay the political price of breaking with their own president, Republicans find themselves with little alternative but to constantly redefine what is and what isn’t tolerable.” Those of us who have been paying attention have already seen this. The authors’ conclusion is that “This will have terrible consequences for our democracy.” I’m sad to say that I agree with their conclusions.

Continuing with their observation about Trump, the authors tell us that “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. . . . A country whose president attacks the press, threatens to lock up his rival, and declares that that he might not accept election results cannot credibly defend democracy.”

At this point in the book, the authors offer what, to my mind, are soft, mushy, and unrealistic suggestions for curing our nation’s ills. They criticize Progressives who believe that the Democrats should adopt the same tactics as the Republicans, but their alternative is not the least bit likely to be successful, IMO. They tell us, for example, that: “Reducing polarization requires that the Republican Party be reformed, if not refounded outright. First of all, the GOP must rebuild its own establishment.” How unrealistic is that? Never gonna happen! They say that a new coalition needs to be built to unite “Bernie Sanders supporters and businesspeople, evangelicals and secular feminists, and small-town Republicans and urban Black Lives Matter supporters” that will “open the channels of communication across the vast chasm that has emerged between our country’s two main partisan camps.” What have these guys been putting in their coffee? Many Americans currently believe that the Black Lives Matter organization does more harm than good, that Bernie Sanders and his supporters are out of touch with reality, and that small-town Republicans would NEVER agree with anybody in either of the other two groups about anything. This sounds like more of what Republicans derisively call “Kumbaya.”

Oh, wait! Maybe they mean that what our country REALLY needs is a new, third political party. Call it the Independent Party, or call it something else. Organize it around the principals of democracy put forth by our founding fathers. It might take a while, and it might cost a lot of money, but it could be done. Look how well Ross Perot did in the presidential elections of 1992 and 1996. He ran as an independent in 1992, and as the candidate of the Reform Party in 1996. All that would be needed is a charismatic leader — one who could command the respect of the American people, and who could successfully solicit contributions, but NOT Bernie Sanders. ☺ This party should not limit itself to presidential elections, but should run candidates in all elections at all levels. It would be a slow, painful process, but the alternative offered by the authors is simply too unrealistic.

The final conclusion of the authors, presented at the end of the book is: “Ultimately, then, American democracy depends on us—the citizens of the United States.” They are spot-on with this conclusion. The question is: How do American citizens fix a broken political system? In my opinion, the evil and corruption that has infused politics and governments in recent years can be largely attributed to the massive failure in its mission by the First Estate: the clergy, and especially the Christian clergy. The news media has also played a role. The authors, however, do not mention the ultimate root causes of our nation’s descent into authoritarianism. They discuss the behavior of the American people, but not the reasons why they behave the way they do.

Most of the conclusions drawn by the authors are well-reasoned and compelling. To anybody who is fully conscious, who is alert and paying attention, who is not living in a state of delusion watching the Fox News Channel, or who has not been asleep in front of the TV set for the past thirty years, the parallels between the United States and those nations that were once democratically governed and have now fallen into authoritarianism, is inescapable. The United States of America is traveling down the same path. The prospect is scary, and it is depressing. Read this book.