we've been warned

I've stayed more optimistic than many of my academic colleagues when assessing the future of American government, politics, and democracy. I guess because I have witnessed the triumph of good governance [Watergate], of civil rights [1964-65],  of grand budget bargains [1990], of responsible congressional oversight [Hughes-Ryan], I am willing to believe that our system can overcome anger, gridlock, and polarization. After reading the sobering analysis How Democracies Die, by Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, I am far less confident.

Their basic argument is that democracies die far more often from slow erosion than sudden coups. There are usually warning indicators: rejection of or weak commitment to democratic rules of the game; denial of the legitimacy of political opponents; toleration or encouragement of violence; and readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including the media. Even democratically-inclined politicians may morph into autocrats for what they see as higher goals. How easy it often is for them to "capture the referees," buy off opponents, and rewrite the rules of the game.

The key conditions for preserving democracies, the authors argue, are mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance. We are losing the first because more and more voters and politicians say that their opponents are threats who must be stopped at all costs. We are also losing the second as more and more norms of political behavior are tossed aside. Abuse of the Senate filibuster is one example; the repudiation of the filibuster by questionable parliamentary tactics is another.

I used to think that hyperpartisanship and extreme party polarization could be changed only by the voters, by rejecting the rhetoric and tactics of the demagogues. Now I'm persuaded that it requires political leaders who reject the extremists early and often, excluding them from their parties even at the risk of losing an election. Those were the tactics of the few examples Levitsky and Ziblatt give of nations that avoided extremism when their neighbors were succumbing.