A look at the fragility of democracy in the U.S.

Democracy is currently facing considerable challenges in different parts of the world. Books such as 'The Dictatorship of the Minority', by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, both political scientists and Harvard professors, address this situation in depth. In recent years, the reality of a growing tendency towards authoritarianism and the concentration of power by prominent leaders is unquestionable, and this is something that deserves serious reflection by society.

The first point Levitsky and Ziblatt address is the fear of losing power and never regaining it; it is believed that by giving up power one is letting a political project die. Secondly, society has come to a certain condescension with authoritarianism, normalizing it and sometimes even supporting it. Third, it is crucial to recognize that past events can be replicated and that situations can become even more extreme.

Although historical examples from the United States are given, the book offers a global perspective to give an account of the problems facing the democratic system, from the difficulties of democracy in Thailand in the 1990s to the coup d'état in Spain a few years earlier. All in all, 'The Dictatorship of the Minority' returns again and again to the American system, whose 'exceptionalism' has always led it to see itself as a beacon of democracy.

The United States has the oldest constitution in the world. That age speaks of success, but also of the need for some adjustments to the realities of the 21st century. For example, the high school electoral system, which Levitsky and Ziblatt call for abolishing, allows winning the presidency without obtaining a majority of popular votes (the last time it happened was in 2016, in Donald Trump's first victory). Since the 1960s there have been proposals for change, but these have never managed to overcome the filibustering evident in the Senate and which according to the authors is another of the limiting factors of U.S. democracy.

The authors point out as a serious problem the inability of the U.S. political system to reform the Constitution, when this was foreseen by the 'founding fathers'. George Washington said that the Constitution was not perfect and in the future it should be open to changes and interpretations, and Thomas Jefferson warned the same.

The book was written in the wake of Donald Trump's presidency, a time when the stability and permanence of democratic institutionality in the United States was strongly questioned. The radicalization and authoritarian drift was a reality and had its greatest manifestation in the denial of the 2020 defeat by Trump and his followers. The authors indicate that, after losing an election, it is expected that the candidate and the defeated party will open a period of reflection to rethink how to face the next electoral cycle, as the Democrats did after losing three elections in a row in the 1980s, to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. For the most part, however, Republicans have not condemned the January 6, 2021 takeover of the Capitol, and have allowed - when not embraced - Trump's dominance of the party.

Although published before last November's elections, the book looks at the possibility of a Trump return to the White House and warns that people of conservative and Republican tradition, such as former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, daughter of George W. Bush's former Vice President, as well as former senior officials of the first Trump Administration have accused Trump of having fascist leanings.

In times when democracy seems to be weakening and on the verge of collapse in different parts of the world, a work such as Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt's offers a deep and critical vision of the roots of this crisis, which is the best contribution to try to solve it. Recent years have shown that authoritarian and power-leveraging tendencies - responding to primal instincts of fear, greed, banality and lust for power itself - have spread. This does not mean that 'The Dictatorship of the Minority' adopts a pessimistic tone; on the contrary, it is a call to individual and collective attitude, because democracy depends on each citizen.