How Democracies Die: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

In Philip Roth’s novel The Plot Against America, the media-savvy aviator, political outsider, and Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh gets elected president in the 1930s, causing widespread violence around the country. Many people have compared the novel to the 2016 election, which leads Levitsky and Ziblatt to ask why something like this didn’t happen in the 1930s, during the Great Depression.

There have been right-wing extremists in the U.S. for centuries. Just in the 1930s, the pro-fascist priest Father Charles Coughlin reached forty million Americans per week via his radio show, and Louisiana governor Huey Long ran his state like a dictatorship, disregarding the state constitution and bribing officials left and right to get his way. Joseph McCarthy, the senator who blacklisted and censored alleged communists in the 1950s, was also extremely popular. In 1968 and 1972, the segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace ran for president on a racist, anti-democratic platform, supporting violence and deriding the Constitution. It’s been common for such figures to get 30-40% support in the U.S. Only political party gatekeepers have prevented them from winning power.

During the 1920 Republican National Convention, after four days of deadlock in the vote for a presidential nominee, party leaders chose the longshot candidate Warren G. Harding in a backroom deal. While such backroom dealing is anti-democratic, it’s also an example of good gatekeeping: risk-averse party leaders prevented “demonstrably unfit” candidates from getting nominated. Parliamentary systems also have gatekeeping built-in, because the elected parliamentarians choose the prime minister. But presidential systems like the U.S.’s are more complicated, because anyone can enter and win an election.

The framers of the Constitution recognized the need for gatekeeping. They wanted the president to represent the popular will, but also didn’t trust the people, who often elect tyrants. They originally created the Electoral College to ensure that prominent men would elect the most competent candidates. But in the 1800s, political parties formed, and they became the new gatekeepers. Parties have to both choose the candidates who represent their voters and filter out candidates who are unfit for office. At times, these obligations conflict—like when the popular favorite is a demagogue. Parties always have to balance gatekeeping with openness.

American political parties have generally relied too heavily on gatekeeping. Originally, congressmen chose the presidential candidates. Starting in the 1830s, the parties elected delegates from each state to a national convention—but these delegates could vote for whomever they wanted, so they usually chose insider candidates who had party leaders’ support. In the early 1900s, states started holding primaries, but delegates didn’t have to honor the result, so little changed. While this gatekeeping system was incredibly undemocratic—wealthy, well-connected white men held all the power—it did effectively screen out unfit candidates.

For instance, Henry Ford—the wealthy, popular, politically inexperienced businessman and antisemitic conspiracy theorist—repeatedly tried to run for public office. At one point, he even led in the national polls. But party leaders rejected him, so he had no chance of winning the nomination. Huey Long died before his planned presidential run, but he would have run into the same problem. Similarly, George Wallace had 40% approval in 1968—the same level as Trump in 2016—but Democratic Party gatekeepers wouldn’t give him the nomination, so he had no chance of winning the presidency. In fact, Philip Roth had a point in The Plot Against America: in the 1930s, Lindbergh was extremely popular and planning a presidential run. But Republican Party gatekeepers made sure that he never had a chance.

 However, this all changed in the 1970s. In 1968, after prospective Democratic nominee Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, the party nominated the deeply unpopular vice president Hubert Humphrey instead. Protestors marched on the Democratic National Convention, the police attacked them, and then fights broke out within the convention itself. In response, both parties restructured the nomination process. Ever since 1972, state primaries have determined the nominee.

As a result of these changes, it’s become possible for candidates to win without party gatekeepers’ support. But still, few outsider candidates succeeded from the 1970s until the 2000s. To win primaries across the whole U.S., candidates would need plenty of money, publicity, campaign staff, and powerful allies. In practice, to get all these resources, candidates still need support from the party establishment—political scientists call this the “invisible primary.”