Democracy's Assassins and Mainstream Politicians
How vulnerable is our democracy?
Accomplices to the deaths of democracies often include mainstream politicians.
"Individual autocrats, even popular demagogues, are never enough to wreck a democracy. Democracy’s assassins always have accomplices among mainstream politicians in the halls of power," political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt wrote in a Friday New York Times op-ed, "Democracy’s Assassins Always Have Accomplices."
Looking at historical examples where democracies died in Europe and South America, Levitsky and Ziblatt found that it was the politicians who appeared to support democracy on the surface but failed to oppose the rising authoritarianism, people they call "semi-loyal democrats," that played a key role in killing democracies.
Rather than severing ties to antidemocratic extremists, semi-loyalists tolerate and accommodate them. Rather than condemn and seek accountability for antidemocratic acts committed by ideological allies, semi-loyalists turn a blind eye, denying, downplaying and even justifying those acts — often via what is today called whataboutism. Or they simply remain silent. And when they are faced with a choice between joining forces with partisan rivals to defend democracy or preserving their relationship with antidemocratic allies, semi-loyalists opt for the latter.
It is semi-loyalists’ very respectability that makes them so dangerous. As members of the establishment, semi-loyalists can use their positions of authority to normalize antidemocratic extremists, protect them against efforts to hold them legally accountable and empower them by opening doors to the mainstream media, campaign donors and other resources. It is this subtle enabling of extremist forces that can fatally weaken democracies.
Sound familiar?
This is why every Republican politician has a responsibility to speak out against the rising authoritarian views and impulses in their party today. But too many, whether out of ambition or cowardice, either publicly defend the anti-democracy forces or remain silent.
Relatedly, one of the few Republican leaders who has shown courage, Mitt Romney, announced his retirement yesterday. The Atlantic published an excerpt from McKay Coppins’ forthcoming biography of Romney*.
Coppins recounted Romney struggling with the very issue Levitsky and Ziblatt describe:
“A very large portion of my party,” he told me one day, “really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.” He’d realized this only recently, he said. We were a few months removed from an attempted coup instigated by Republican leaders, and he was wrestling with some difficult questions. Was the authoritarian element of the GOP a product of President Trump, or had it always been there, just waiting to be activated by a sufficiently shameless demagogue? And what role had the members of the mainstream establishment—people like him, the reasonable Republicans—played in allowing the rot on the right to fester?
Levitsky and Ziblatt also authored 2018's best-selling book, How Democracies Die. A follow-up to that book was published this week — Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point*.
In an interview for that book, I was surprised to learn that the authors who helped bring attention to President Donald Trump's authoritarianism, and the fact that our democracy is more fragile than we realize, were shocked at the events of Jan. 6, 2021. "We never imagined we’d see [insurrections] here. Nor did we ever imagine that one of America’s two major parties would turn away from democracy in the 21st century," they told Michelle Goldberg.
In an interview on Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski, asked if the Republican Party was a cult.
"No, no, it's not a cult," Levitsky said, seeming to surprise Brzezinski with his answer.
Levitsky argued the Republican Party became more extreme because it was able to gain political power without winning national majorities.
"If the Republican Party had to win national majorities to win elections, it would be a less radical party. Party leaders would be under much more pressure to reach out to a broader set of the electorate, and I think we would have less of a problem today," he said.
Levitsky and Ziblatt are pointing to the ways in which our democracy is anti-majoritarian. This is partly by design, such as with the Electoral College and the composition of the US Senate, and partly by accidents of history, such as the Senate's filibuster rules. This is important to consider because if the causes are tied to the structure of our government, at least in part, then we can also look to structural change as part of the solution.
Watch the whole interview here.
Do Christian Nationalists Go to Church?
In a Religion and Public blog post, political scientist Paul Djupe takes a Daniel Williams essay in The Atlantic to task for arguing that the worst forms of Christian Nationalism occur among those with weak ties to churches.
Among his findings: 1) there are few who score high on a Christian Nationalism index and don't attend church, 2) Christian Nationalism is tied to support for Trump but frequency of church attendance doesn't make a difference in that relationship, 3) partisan polarization is highest among those who score very high or very low for Christian Nationalism and, again, church attendance doesn't matter, and most importantly, 4) church attending Christian nationalists are more likely than non-church attending Christian nationalists to agree with these two statements:
“When I think about our political and social institutions, I cannot help thinking ‘just let them all burn.’”
“I fantasize about a natural disaster wiping out most of humanity so a small group of people can start all over.”
Djupe concludes,
The bigger concern that seems to flow from these investigations is the decline of religious influence that could mitigate these anti-social and anti-democratic orientations. For one, it’s not clear that many clergy are trying and, two, I doubt they would have much influence if they did. We should study that directly instead of drawing out arguments based on dubious assumptions about a pro-social church and without systematic evidence.
At the same time, in a Tuesday article for Politico, political scientist Ryan Burge pointed out that non-church attending Republicans were a source of strength for Trump in the 2016 primaries. Trump's support among both church-going Christian nationalists and non-church-going Republicans will likely contribute to his strength in the 2024 primaries.
Two thoughts:
1) Forces of political extremism are absolutely in our churches. The polling doesn't surprise me because in my position here at AVC, I hear the stories often. For my fellow church-going Christians, this means we need to understand the problem and to fight it.
2) Djupe's impression that there aren't many clergy working against those pushing Christian Nationalism, authoritarianism, and a politicized gospel is incorrect. Here at AVC, we're working alongside many pastors and other Christian organizations who are doing just that. If you're a pastor or you know a pastor who would like to join our network, sign up here.
What Else We're Reading
“Where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Delivers His Fringe Views: Not on the Trail”
In large public forums like Congress, Mr. Kennedy, 69, has moderated his extreme views, while continuing to advocate them in other settings. At campaign stops in Iowa, Vermont and Virginia this summer, he spoke about the environment, foreign policy and the war in Ukraine, according to The Times’s review. He did not mention vaccines and limited his comments on Covid to criticism of pandemic lockdowns.
Yet during that same period, Mr. Kennedy appeared on more than two dozen podcasts hosted by personalities popular with the right wing, such as Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan, as well as in online meetings and video streams where he brought up a variety of fringe ideas. At times, he made unfounded claims about vaccines and questioned whether chemicals in the water supply were causing “sexual dysphoria” among children in the United States.
What Else We're Watching
Does Romans 13 Say We Have to Obey the Government?
Join Our Book Club
If you missed out first meeting on Monday, there is still time to join the AVC Book Club. We’ll be discussing chapter 2 of Russell Moore’s Losing Our Religion* on Monday, 8pm eastern on zoom. Sign up here.
*AVC's Amazon affiliate links help support our work. The price is the same but AVC earns a small commission when you use it.
 | A guest post by
|