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
After Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in early 2016, Republican senators refused to consider Obama’s replacement candidate, Merrick Garland. This was an unprecedented break with the Senate’s tradition of forbearance. As soon as Donald Trump came into office, the Republican-led Senate pushed through his conservative nominee Neil Gorsuch instead. But this is only part of a much longer process of unraveling democratic norms in the U.S.—which started long before Donald Trump.
While it’s technically legal for the Senate majority to leave a Supreme Court seat open indefinitely, it clearly violates the spirit of the law—which is that the Senate is supposed to actively confirm qualified justices and reject unqualified ones, regardless of partisan affiliation. Levitsky and Ziblatt start with this extraordinary moment of anti-democratic behavior in Congress, then pivot to looking at the historical context that brought U.S. democracy to such a fragile place. This is similar to their plan in the book as a whole: they start with Trump’s election, but then spend the book explaining the context that made his assault on democratic norms possible.
Themes
Newt Gingrich won election to the House on his third try, in 1978. He viewed politics as “a war for power.” While establishment Republicans still held to norms of bipartisanship and civility, Gingrich attacked the Democrats with exaggerated rhetoric, claiming they were “trying to ‘destroy our country.’” He founded a political action committee to encourage other Republicans to use the same tactics. As he rose up in the ranks to become Speaker of the House, the rest of his party started to closely resemble him.
Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that by putting Gingrich on the ballot, the Republican Party clearly failed in its gatekeeping responsibilities. Gingrich’s view of politics is at odds with the norms of toleration and forbearance, which sustained American democracy through most of the 20th century. Toleration relies on viewing one’s opponents as legitimate rivals for power who also have the country’s best interests in heart—and not enemies who will “destroy our country.” Forbearance depends on treating politics as a fair, democratic game, and not “a war for power.” By spreading these extreme tactics, Gingrich clearly contributed to the decline in democratic norms in the U.S.
Themes
Gingrich was taking advantage of a new extreme in public polarization. During his rise, politicians started viewing the other side as immoral and illegitimate. During Bill Clinton’s administration, Republican senators dramatically expanded use of the filibuster and started investigating presidential scandals that didn’t exist.
Levitsky and Ziblatt emphasize that, like many authoritarian and anti-democratic figures throughout history, Gingrich was responding to real historical pressures. He didn’t come out of the blue. Polarization justified his anti-democratic tactics. But, of course, his anti-democratic tactics also worsened polarization. These are the conditions that have created “death spirals” in other democracies, like Chile in the 1960s and 1970s.
Themes
When Republicans won a landslide election and Gingrich became Speaker of the House in 1994, the party completely abandoned forbearance in the hopes of stopping Democrats any way they could. They politicized the impeachment process by impeaching President Clinton without meeting the traditional standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” After Gingrich left office, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay continued Gingrich’s tactics. For instance, he created “a pay-to-play system” for lobbyists to buy legislation.
Gingrich and DeLay’s obstructionist strategies were very popular and extremely effective, at least in the short term. This shows why anti-democratic tactics can be very attractive for parties that care more about winning power than preserving democracy. This leads to the difficult question at the heart of Levitsky and Ziblatt’s book: how can Americans decide to put democracy above power, when they have no clear incentives to do so and no guarantee that the other side will cooperate?
Themes
Get the entire How Democracies Die LitChart as a printable PDF.
Even though President George W. Bush promised unity and bipartisanship, polarization only increased during his term. He moved further to the right, and the Democrats filibustered Republican legislation and rejected Bush’s judicial appointments. The Republican-led House refused to exercise oversight of Bush’s actions. While states ordinarily redraw congressional districts every ten years (after each Census), Republicans decided to gerrymander Texas’s House districts in 2003. Democrats organized two unsuccessful walkouts, and Republicans won six new seats in Texas during the 2004 midterms.
While Bush didn’t have the same authoritarian tendencies as Trump, Congress increasingly embraced all three parts of the authoritarian playbook during his term. First, the Republicans tried to capture the referees by using their congressional oversight power for partisan purposes, not democratic ones. Second, the Democrats tried to sideline the opposition by rejecting Bush’s appointments. Finally, the Republicans tried to tilt the playing field to their advantage through gerrymandering, which promised to give them legislative majorities even if they continued to represent a minority of voters.
Themes
Mutual toleration also broke down during the Bush administration. After 9/11, conservative media commentators like Ann Coulter accused Democrats of treason and anti-Americanism. In 2008, conservative media painted Barack Obama as a treasonous, communist, Muslim terrorist. Troublingly, Republican politicians started echoing the same intolerant ideas.
By viewing Democrats as treasonous enemies—and not fellow Americans with different ideas about what is best for the country—conservatives like Ann Coulter encouraged Republicans to view more extreme, anti-democratic tactics as necessary to save their country. Crucially, mutual toleration largely broke down around race, ideology, and religion. Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that these same identities became the basis for partisan polarization after the 1960s. Right-wing media figures viewed Islam and communism as un-American because they defined Christianity and capitalism as essential parts of American identity. This reflects the demographic shifts that have led Republicans to build their politics around white Protestant identity since the 1960s.
Themes
After the 2008 election, both Obama and his Republican opponent John McCain encouraged Americans to embrace civility and unity. But they didn’t heed the call: the Tea Party formed, largely to oppose Obama’s right to the presidency. It argued that Obama threatened American democracy and wasn’t a “real American” (meaning a white Christian). Republican politicians like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Rudy Giuliani openly questioned whether Obama loved his country.
Obama and McCain’s failures to build unity show how, once basic democratic norms break down, reestablishing them is incredibly difficult. It requires broad political consensus because, when norms aren’t functioning, politicians who break them will always have an edge on those who follow them. According to Levitsky and Ziblatt, the idea that only white Christians are “real Americans” reflects how the Republican Party’s platform continues to center on racial exclusion. But this kind of exclusion has a long history in the U.S. It was the norm from independence to the Civil War, and then again from the Compromise of 1877 until the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Themes
Meanwhile, the “birther movement” started questioning Obama’s citizenship. Its most famous proponent was Donald Trump, who learned how intolerance could win him political support. Extremists like Henry Ford and Father Coughlin have challenged presidents’ legitimacy throughout U.S. history, but the attacks on Obama were the first to win wide acceptance among American voters and major party leaders.
By condoning Donald Trump’s intolerant, unsubstantiated “birther” attacks on Obama, the Republican establishment normalized Trump’s extremism and gave him a legitimacy that previous figures like Ford and Coughlin never won. In other words, as the Republican Party became more extreme, it stopped gatekeeping effectively. This shows how strong democratic norms also support strong party gatekeeping.
Themes
During Obama’s second term, the Republican Party increasingly embraced the Tea Party. It rejected mutual toleration by arguing that Democrats threatened the existence of the U.S., and it used this threat to justify rejecting forbearance, too. During the Great Recession, Republicans banded together to obstruct Obama’s entire legislative agenda. They filibustered as many bills between 2007 and 2012 as the Senate did between 1919 and 1979, and they rejected as many Obama court nominees as possible.
The Republican Party’s move toward the Tea Party shows how “fateful alliances” end up threatening the establishment. Namely, establishment figures often expect extremists to become more moderate, but actually, the establishment tends to become more extreme. This worsened polarization across the whole political system. Republicans’ behavior in Congress is a clear example of how, when politicians abandon forbearance, checks and balances actually grind the government to a halt rather than keeping it functioning smoothly.
Themes
The Democrats and President Obama responded by breaking more norms. The Democrats banned filibusters for most presidential nominees, and when Congress wouldn’t pass legislation, Obama started ruling through executive actions, which violated forbearance. Republican-led state governments started simply ignoring these orders, undermining the federal government’s authority.
Levitsky and Ziblatt emphasize that the Democrats are also responsible for helping degrade democratic norms in the U.S. They largely justified their behavior as responses to Republican overreach, further weakening democratic norms rather than rebuilding them. This points to another enduring challenge in struggling democracies: is it possible for pro-democracy parties to govern effectively and reinforce democratic norms when their opponents are willing to go to any possible lengths to win power?
Themes
Levitsky and Ziblatt cite three key events that show how severely forbearance collapsed during the Obama administration. First, in 2011, Republicans decided to freeze debt ceiling negotiations and threaten defaulting on the nation’s debt as leverage to pass wide spending cuts. Second, in 2015, forty-seven Republican senators wrote to the Iranian government to try to sabotage the nuclear deal Obama negotiated. Finally, the Senate refused to consider Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland for the open Supreme Court seat. This hasn’t happened once since Reconstruction. In short, the Republicans were taking the guardrails off American democracy.
In all three of these examples, the authors argue that the Republican Party prioritized its own political interests above the U.S. government’s functioning. In each case, Congress tried to override an unfavorable executive. This shows how, even though the Constitution sets up checks and balances, they can break down in practice when government leaders no longer believe in their value. In other words, beaucse half of the government gave up on democratic norms, those norms essentially stopped functioning.
Themes
Extreme polarization is the underlying condition that has enabled this extreme breakdown of democratic norms. Democrats and Republicans aren’t just two parties: they’re now two different “way[s] of life.” Many partisan Americans wouldn’t want their children to marry someone from the other party, and most are afraid of the other party.
Polarization destroys mutual toleration because different sides don’t empathize with one another or view the other side as part of their in-group. Levitsky and Ziblatt therefore clarify the chain of cause-and-effect that has badly weakened American democracy: polarization has destroyed mutual toleration, which has weakened forbearance and paralyzed the government. (Later, they explain how demographic changes actually underlie this polarization.) However, even though some links in the chain precede others, they can still reinforce each other. For instance, even though intolerance preceded the breakdown in forbearance, the authors have argued that, when forbearance breaks down, this further weakens mutual toleration. This can also operate in the opposite direction, however: even though intolerance came before the breakdown in forbearance, fixing forbearance can also help restore toleration.
Themes
This “intense partisan animosity” is a result of how the parties have realigned since the 1960s. In the past, both parties used to be “big tents” that included diverse groups and ideologies. They disagreed on some policy issues, but when it came to race—the most volatile issue in U.S. politics—both parties had pro-civil rights and pro-segregation factions. Then, President Johnson embraced the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and Presidents Nixon and Reagan campaigned on thinly veiled racial rhetoric. Many Southern white voters switched to the Republicans, and many newly enfranchised Black voters and Northern white liberals started going for the Democrats.
“Big tent” parties are used to tolerating internal disagreement, so it becomes easier for them to navigate external disagreements with other parties, too. Specifically, because each party represented a racially and ideologically diverse coalition, people in each party could relate to people in the other who resembled them. When one party became pro-civil rights and the other became anti-civil rights, it became easier for the parties to see one another as enemies who would only govern for themselves (and not for all Americans).
Themes
This realignment has created regional, ideological, racial, and religious divisions between the parties, where there used to be overlap. The South became reliably Republican and the Northeast reliably Democratic. Conservatives became reliably Republican and liberals reliably Democratic, and each side became more ideologically extreme and less willing to compromise. But mutual toleration has particularly eroded because the parties now represent different “social, ethnic, and cultural bases.” Enfranchised Black voters and new immigrants since the 1960s almost all support the Democratic Party, while white evangelical Christians have become a key Republican constituency. Race and religion are often more polarizing than policy issues like taxes.
These are the partisan divisions that characterize the U.S. electorate today. Now that the two major political parties represent completely different constituencies, it’s easier for politics to become a “war for power” between these two groups (just like Newt Gingrich proposed in the 1970s). Notably, while Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that the parties’ different “social, ethnic, and cultural bases” have driven them apart, this doesn’t mean that the only way to promote toleration is by creating a more ethnically homogenous society or party system. Either one can come first: mutual toleration can create interracial cooperation, or interracial cooperation can build mutual toleration.
Themes
Levitsky and Ziblatt ask why the Republicans have broken political norms far more often than the Democrats. Partisan media like Fox News and talk radio are more powerful on the right, and conservative commentators help support the Republican party line by attacking politicians who reject it. Conservative interest groups like Americans for Tax Reform force Republican congresspeople to pledge extreme positions (like never to raise taxes). Money from billionaires like the Koch family has flooded into such groups, many of which reject compromise.
Conservative media and money in politics are the same key forces that enabled Donald Trump to bypass the “invisible primary” and win the Republican nomination in 2016. These structural changes are the result of a different kind of failure in gatekeeping: party leaders lost control over their party’s structure, messaging, and resources. Because Republican leaders didn’t control their organizational structure, other groups (like the Tea Party and Americans for Tax Reform) started to mobilize voters. Because they lost control of their messaging, independent media started setting the conservative agenda. And when billionaire money flooded into politics, Republican leaders lost control over their own party coffers, leading candidates and voters away from their policy stances and toward wealthy extremists’.
Themes
The GOP’s key constituency—white Protestants—used to be the dominant group in American politics and society, but is now a shrinking minority. Feeling that their status is under threat, white conservatives increasingly embrace a hostile, apocalyptic political style. They define themselves as “real Americans,” unlike Democrats, which explains why they want to “Take Our Country Back” and “Make America Great Again.” Republicans have learned that it’s advantageous for them to abandon norms of toleration and forbearance and instead treat politics as a war against their Democratic enemies.
In Levitsky and Ziblatt’s view, preserving American democracy requires understanding how anti-democratic behavior is rooted in demographic change. Their key question is how to change that anti-democratic behavior without trying to manipulate demographics (or disenfranchise certain racial or ethnic groups). They see the Republican Party as essentially proposing a return to the white supremacist system set up in the Compromise of 1877. Fighting this exclusionary, anti-democratic political agenda requires building interracial solidarity—or getting Americans (and especially Republicans) to view people of different races as part of their social, cultural, and political communities.
Themes
