Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in How Democracies Die, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
American Tyranny
Authoritarianism vs. Democratic Norms
Extremism and Gatekeeping
Polarization and Inclusive Democracy
Global and Historical Patterns
Summary
Analysis
During his first inaugural address in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress for war powers to face the Great Depression. Later, the conservative Supreme Court repeatedly blocked major parts of the New Deal. In response, Roosevelt decided to expand the court to fifteen justices. He would have turned the Supreme Court into a political weapon, like Perón in Argentina and Chávez in Venezuela. But he failed—even many of his allies rejected his plan and voted to preserve checks and balances instead.
While Roosevelt’s expansion of executive authority helped him pass effective national policies, it also marked a clear shift in the balance of power between different branches of the federal government. Much like Fujimori in Peru, he didn’t initially expand executive authority because he wanted to weaken democracy, but because he thought it was the best way to overcome dogged political opposition. However, unlike in Peru, the guardrails of democratic norms held in the U.S., preventing Roosevelt from fully achieving his agenda and packing the Supreme Court.
Themes
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, constitutional hardball was the norm in U.S. politics: the Federalists and Republicans each wanted to eliminate the other party, and they repeatedly changed the size of the Supreme Court to increase their power. Stronger democratic norms formed a few decades later, and figures like Martin Van Buren tolerated and respected their rivals.
While many Americans believe that U.S. democracy has always been strong since the foundation of the republic, this history of constitutional hardball suggests that they are wrong. The truth is far more complicated: democratic and anti-democratic forces have consistently fought for control over the U.S. government. In turn, this means that the conflict and polarization that characterize U.S. politics today aren’t completely unprecedented.
Themes
But in the 1850s, the polarized national debate over slavery destroyed these norms again. Each side accused the other of treason, and congresspeople frequently attacked each other on the House and Senate floors. During the Civil War, Lincoln drastically expanded executive power, and after it, many Americans started questioning the Constitution. For years, both sides continued playing constitutional hardball and viewing each other as enemies and traitors. To stop President Andrew Johnson’s anti-Reconstruction policies, Republicans shrank the Supreme Court and refused to let Johnson appoint new cabinet members. Johnson ignored them.
The destructiveness of the Civil War is a warning for the 21st century. Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that the period from the 1850s through the 1870s was the only time when the American electorate and political system were as stubbornly polarized as they have been since 2000. Like in Chile in the 1960s and 1970s, this polarization slowly but surely broke down democratic norms. Both sides became more invested in winning power than preserving the nation’s democratic rules. Ultimately, bringing the nation back together required strong, practically authoritarian executive actions.
Themes
But again, the parties gradually reestablished mutual toleration. However, this didn’t happen until after Reconstruction ended in the Compromise of 1877 and Henry Cabot Lodge’s legislation to protect the Black vote failed to pass in 1890. White Southern Democrats saw Black civil rights as an existential threat, so they weren’t willing to tolerate Republicans until “racial equality [was] off the agenda.” Soon, bipartisanship was common. And as mutual toleration increased, so did forbearance.
At the end of the 19th century, the U.S. successfully overcame polarization and reestablished democratic norms. This shows that it’s still possible to stop and reverse democratic breakdown today. However, the Compromise of 1877 isn’t a model for how this should be done. In fact, the Democrats and Republicans were only able to compromise after the Civil War because they agreed to run the U.S. as a white supremacist state, in which Black citizens didn’t have the same full rights as white ones. Ironically, then, the U.S. government only followed democratic norms because it was based on deeply anti-democratic racial exclusion. Today, the challenge for Americans is how to build a functioning democracy without repeating these grave errors from the past.
Themes
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In the 20th century, mutual toleration and institutional forbearance allowed the U.S. political system to function smoothly. They kept the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in balance, letting each oversee the others without getting in their way. When partisanship and polarization threaten these norms, they also imperil democracy. In a divided government, each side can play constitutional hardball and prevent the government from functioning unless it gets its way. In a united government, the ruling party can simply refuse to exercise oversight. Both threaten the system of checks and balances by letting leaders freely use their potentially antidemocratic powers.
In this chapter, Levitsky and Ziblatt have shown that the U.S. government hasn’t always functioned smoothly, according to strong democratic norms. But when they discuss restoring American democracy to its previous strength, they are generally referring to the period they mention here: the first half of the 20th century. During this period, both parties agreed on and adhered to the basic rules of democracy. This shows how such norms serve as “guardrails”: both sides preferred democracy to power.
Themes
The president has several extraordinary powers—and they have grown since the early 1900s. Today, presidents can rule by executive order, ignore court rulings, or issue pardons to avoid judicial oversight. Therefore, it’s crucial for them to exercise forbearance. George Washington understood this and set a strong precedent for restraint. He avoided overstepping his authority and seldom used vetoes or executive orders.
These extraordinary presidential powers are all necessary in certain circumstances—for instance, executive orders can be crucial to address crises. This is why the norm of forbearance is crucial: presidents need to avoid using these powers in the majority of situations, in order to save them for the minority of circumstances when they’re truly necessary.
Themes
Through the 20th century, other presidents followed Washington’s lead—including those who wanted greater power, like Theodore Roosevelt. Presidents limited executive orders and pardons, and they respected the courts and congress. They also refrained from legally packing the Supreme Court, whether by impeaching and replacing justices or by expanding the court itself. When Franklin D. Roosevelt tried in 1937, he encountered severe opposition and failed.
Theodore Roosevelt’s restraint and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s failure to pack the Supreme Court are both key examples of how forbearance protects democracy. Specifically, it wasn’t the Roosevelts’ forbearance that protected democracy, but rather the fact that forbearance was already a strong norm before they took power. Neither president wanted to exercise forbearance, but they had to do so because the rest of the government required them to. The norm of forbearance deterred Theodore Roosevelt’s potential authoritarian behavior and stopped Franklin D. Roosevelt’s.
Themes
Congress also has extreme powers. In particular, the Senate was designed to foster deliberation and protect minority rights, so its rules (like the filibuster) often let minorities block the majority’s will. These powers are important to check majority and presidential power, but senators can also abuse them to completely stop any bill from passing. For centuries, though, senators didn’t abuse them—they exercised forbearance instead. Political scientist Donald Matthews argued that this was based on norms of courtesy and reciprocity. Courtesy meant avoiding insults and separating political conflicts from personal feelings. Reciprocity meant that senators could expect proportional retaliation to their attacks—so they avoided attacking the other side at all.
Although it’s typically less unified than the executive branch, the legislative branch can also abuse its powers. This means that democratic norms are also essential in order to restrain it. Courtesy and reciprocity were simply the more specific norms that underlay the general norms of toleration and forbearance. Because the Senate has extreme powers like the filibuster, the U.S. government cannot function smoothly if senators abandon forbearance. This paradox actually protects democracy: senators couldn’t try too hard to pass their agenda, or they would break the rules of courtesy and reciprocity that made it possible for them to pass that agenda in the first place.
Themes
Through courtesy and reciprocity, senators avoided using their most extreme powers. They rarely used the filibuster until the 1960s. Using its “advice and consent” power, the Senate could technically block all presidential appointments, but it only blocked nine between 1800 and 2005. Senators approved most eligible Supreme Court nominees, regardless of their political ideology, and never prevented the president from filling an open Supreme Court seat between 1866 and 2016. Finally, Congress can easily use its greatest power, impeachment, to undermine elections. Paraguay and Ecuador’s congresses did this to remove presidents Fernando Lugo and Abdalá Bucaram. But in the U.S., Congress has refrained from weaponizing impeachment in this way.
The filibuster, advice and consent, and impeachment are the three extraordinary powers that Congress (and particularly the Senate) can use to obstruct democracy. Their proper use depends on democratic norms. For instance, senators are supposed to exercise forbearance by using the impeachment power only against presidents who criminally abuse their power—and not against partisan rivals. When the Senate abuses the impeachment power, it destabilizes the government by weakening the executive, which incentivizes future executives to abuse their power, too. Actually, it gets worse: by abusing the impeachment power, the Senate also corrupts it in the future, giving criminal presidents an excuse to portray legitimate impeachment proceedings as partisan attacks. Levitsky and Ziblatt start to hint at how these norms have degraded over time in the U.S. (particularly by the 2000s).
Themes
While mutual toleration and institutional forbearance predominated in the 20th century U.S., they also broke down in three key moments. First, Franklin D. Roosevelt discarded forbearance: he tried to pack the courts, issued an unprecedented number of executive orders, and served four terms. But the two parties worked together to reestablish and reinforce democratic norms where he abandoned them.
Roosevelt attacked forbearance by using all available presidential powers to try and pass his agenda without congressional or judicial support. This shows how the Constitutional guarantee of checks and balances isn’t enough to protect democracy: rather, those in government have to enforce checks and balances through democratic norms. They succeeded: even Roosevelt’s congressional allies put democracy above party loyalty.
Themes
Second, during the Cold War, Republican senator Joseph McCarthy dispensed with mutual toleration by pushing to purge known and suspected communists from the government. But in less than five years, his own party turned against him and gave up red-baiting.
McCarthy used communism as an excuse for portraying his political opponents as anti-American traitors. But democratic norms successfully contained him, just as they did Roosevelt.
Themes
Finally, Richard Nixon portrayed Democrats as traitorous enemies, used intelligence agencies against them, and famously tried to sabotage them in the 1972 election. But Congress investigated his abuses of power and started impeachment proceedings, leading him to resign.
Whereas Roosevelt and McCarthy used the law as a political tool, Nixon actually broke the law in his attempts to consolidate power. But Congress’s swift, robust response enforced, restored, and strengthened democratic norms.
Themes
In each of these examples, “the guardrails held.” Democratic norms prevailed, keeping the U.S. out of a “death spiral” of intolerance and polarization. But Levitsky and Ziblatt also point out that these democratic norms were based on the antidemocratic “original sin” of racial exclusion. The two parties only got along because, after the Compromise of 1877, they agreed to let white supremacists govern the South and disenfranchise most Black Americans. When the U.S. shifted toward racial inclusion in the 1950s and 1960s, polarization started to increase and democratic norms started to weaken.
Again, the measure of a democracy isn’t whether authoritarian-leaning politicians challenge the system—it’s whether they ultimately succeed in undermining it. Roosevelt, McCarthy, and Nixon’s failures show why democratic norms act as “guardrails.” All three men pushed up against the guardrails by tempting other politicians to choose intolerance, play hardball, and put party over country. But those other politicians didn’t take the bait. Still, Levitsky and Ziblatt emphasize that, in the U.S., political harmony has long depended on the anti-democratic norm of racial exclusion, as well as the democratic norms of toleration and forbearance. In the 21st century, they argue, the U.S. has to repent of this “original sin” and create a functioning democracy based on the norm of racial inclusion instead.
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