Trump Poses a Test Democracy Is Failing

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/opinion/trump-democracy-decline-fall.html

No paywall
https://archive.ph/JmavM

Ordinary citizens play a critical role in maintaining democracy. They refuse to re-elect — at least in theory — politicians who abuse their power, break the rules and reject the outcome of elections they lose. How is it, then, that Donald Trump, who has defied these basic presumptions, stands a reasonable chance of winning a second term in 2024?

Milan W. Svolik, a political scientist at Yale, anticipated this question in his 2019 paper “Polarization versus Democracy”: “Voters in democracies have at their disposal an essential instrument of democratic self-defense: elections. They can stop politicians with authoritarian ambitions by simply voting them out of office.”

What might account for their failure to do so?

In sharply polarized electorates, even voters who value democracy will be willing to sacrifice fair democratic competition for the sake of electing politicians who champion their interests. When punishing a leader’s authoritarian tendencies requires voting for a platform, party, or person that his supporters detest, many will find this too high a price to pay.

In other words, exacerbated partisan competition “presents aspiring authoritarians with a structural opportunity: They can undermine democracy and get away with it.”

*snip*

[onecaliberal]

1. They get away with it because some people ARE above the law, and there is ZERO honest media.

[Jim__]

2. To be honest, I would vote for a crooked Democrat over an "honest republican" - if such a thing ...

... exists.