Modern Democracy with Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky

Summary

Podcast Summary: Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Episode: Modern Democracy with Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky

Introduction In this episode of Here's Where It Gets Interesting, host Sharon McMahon welcomes Harvard government professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt to discuss the concept of "Tyranny of the Minority" and its implications for modern American democracy. Drawing from their acclaimed works, including How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority, the conversation delves into the current challenges facing U.S. democracy, the structural flaws within the Constitution, and potential reforms to safeguard democratic institutions.

Understanding Tyranny of the Minority Sharon McMahon opens the discussion by highlighting the precarious state of U.S. democracy, prompting Daniel Ziblatt to provide a foundational understanding:

Daniel Ziblatt [04:18]: "We live in a democracy in which it's possible for somebody to get elected president without winning the vote. This exposes a broader problem in our politics, that political minorities often govern over political majorities."

Constitutional Flaws and Counter Majoritarian Institutions The conversation shifts to the Constitutional framework, with Sharon emphasizing both its strengths and vulnerabilities:

Sharon McMahon [05:03]: "Flaws in our Constitution now imperil our democracy."

Steven Levitsky expands on these flaws, explaining how certain institutions limit majority rule:

Steven Levitsky [05:52]: "The Electoral College allows the loser of the popular vote to win the presidency... The US Senate is not a particularly democratic institution. It gives equal representation to every state, regardless of population."

The Importance of Counter Majoritarian Checks Daniel Ziblatt provides historical context, explaining why the framers embedded these institutions:

Daniel Ziblatt [09:04]: "The framers created institutions driven by a fear of the masses and each other, leading to compromises like the Electoral College and equal state representation in the Senate."

Multiracial Democracy and Democratic Backsliding Sharon brings up the concept of a multiracial democracy, noting the strides and setbacks in the U.S.:

Sharon McMahon [14:39]: "If America is not yet a truly multiracial democracy, it is becoming one... But just as this new democratic experiment was beginning to take root, America experienced an authoritarian backlash."

Steven Levitsky discusses the phenomenon of backsliding, highlighting recent trends:

Steven Levitsky [16:37]: "The US has experienced something called backsliding... by about 2020, was less democratic than Romania and Argentina."

International Comparisons: Europe and Brazil Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky compare the U.S. situation with other democracies facing authoritarian threats:

Daniel Ziblatt [23:32]: "European democracies adopt strategies like defensive democracy and form broad coalitions to keep authoritarian forces out."

Steven Levitsky [43:37]: "In Brazil, elected authoritarian leader Jair Bolsonaro faced opposition from his own allies, preventing a January 6th-like event."

Recognizing Rising Authoritarianism Sharon emphasizes the need to identify the subtle signs of authoritarianism beyond overt actions:

Sharon McMahon [28:28]: "We need to make it very plain what the warning signs are."

Daniel Ziblatt outlines key indicators:

Daniel Ziblatt [29:31]: "If a political leader doesn't accept election results, uses violence, or fails to distance from anti-democratic allies, they're a threat to democracy."

Role of Political Leaders in Preserving Democracy Steven Levitsky underscores the responsibility of mainstream politicians in combating authoritarian tendencies:

Steven Levitsky [34:47]: "Political leaders must denounce and isolate authoritarian forces to protect democracy."

Daniel Ziblatt adds that institutional reforms are essential:

Daniel Ziblatt [46:11]: "We need institutional reforms that ensure parties must win majorities to gain power, reducing susceptibility to authoritarian capture."

Proposed Constitutional Reforms As the discussion nears its conclusion, Levitsky and Ziblatt propose several reforms to enhance democratic resilience:

Steven Levitsky [49:37]:

• Abolition of the Electoral College: "Replacing the Electoral College with a direct popular vote would be a democratizing step."
• Constitutionalizing the Right to Vote: "Establishing a constitutional right to vote would counteract state-level voting restrictions."
• Democratizing the Senate: "Representation in the Senate should reflect state populations, not provide equal representation regardless of size."
• Elimination of the Filibuster: "Removing the filibuster would allow for more efficient legislative processes."

Daniel Ziblatt [51:43]: "Eliminating or reforming the filibuster is a crucial starting point for any reform agenda."

Concluding Insights and Hope for the Future Both professors express optimism about the potential for democratic renewal:

Steven Levitsky [53:37]: "If we can consolidate a multiracial democracy, the U.S. can become a model for the world."

Daniel Ziblatt [54:51]: "A vision of success includes having two political parties competing over the broad swath of voters, allowing majority rule to prevail."

Sharon McMahon wraps up by expressing gratitude and encouraging listeners to engage with the authors' works.

Key Takeaways

• Tyranny of the Minority: Minority groups can disproportionately influence governance, threatening majority rule.
• Constitutional Flaws: Institutions like the Electoral College and the Senate's equal representation may undermine democratic principles.
• Backsliding and Authoritarianism: The U.S. has experienced democratic backsliding, similar to challenges faced by other democracies globally.
• Role of Leaders: Mainstream political leaders must actively defend democratic norms and isolate extremist forces.
• Reform Proposals: Abolishing the Electoral College, constitutionalizing voting rights, democratizing the Senate, and eliminating the filibuster are essential steps to strengthen democracy.
• Hope for the Future: Continued efforts and reforms can restore and enhance the democratic fabric of the United States.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Daniel Ziblatt [04:18]: "Political minorities often govern over political majorities, leading to a crisis."
• Steven Levitsky [05:52]: "The Electoral College allows the winner of the popular vote to be denied the presidency."
• Daniel Ziblatt [29:31]: "Politicians committed to democracy must accept election results, avoid violence, and distance themselves from authoritarian allies."
• Steven Levitsky [16:37]: "The US was less democratic than Romania and Argentina by 2020."
• Steven Levitsky [49:37]: "Abolishing the Electoral College would be a major democratizing step."

This comprehensive discussion provides listeners with an in-depth understanding of the vulnerabilities within American democracy, the importance of constitutional reforms, and the critical role of political leadership in safeguarding democratic institutions.

Transcript

[Sharon McMahon]

You know what I love about summer? Everything.

[David Spade]

The sun, the longer days, the energy, but not spending time stuck in the kitchen. That's why I'm all about FACTOR right now. Factor delivers fresh, never frozen meals that are ready in just two minutes. That means more time outside, more time with friends, and more time doing literally anything else besides cooking and cleaning. They've got 45 meals to choose from every week. So whether you're sticking to calorie smart keto protein plus or you just want something quick and delicious, you're covered. I have had their creamy Pablano chicken and the chili Roasted Tofu. Both packed with flavor and seriously satisfying. And let me tell you, these are fantastic if you have pre teens or teenagers and you want to make sure that they are eating something healthy with when you are too busy to cook. Factor isn't just for dinner by the way. They have breakfasts, lunches, snacks, even desserts to keep you going all day long. If you want to enjoy more of summer without sacrificing good food, I recommend using Factor. Get started@Factor Meals.com Hwigi 50 off that's here's where it gets interesting. 50 off and use code Hwigi 50 off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. That's code Hwigi 50 off@Factor Meals.com HwiGi 50 off for 50% off plus free shipping. Factor Meals.com Hwigi50 off Listen, we are all busy and nobody wants to read the Same story from 10 different news sources all day. Like who has time for this? But if we don't read news from a variety of sources, are we living in an echo chamber where we are missing blind spots and important information? Like, let me give you one example. The Supreme Court just heard a case on a parent group in Maryland that objected to LGBTQ content in elementary schools and one headline said the Supreme Court looks Eager to undermine Public Schools and then another headline said Justices Signal Support for Maryland Parents. Same story, completely different take. And I was able to explore both viewpoints on Ground News. Their app and website let you compare how the media is framing any given story and then also get context on the ownership and bias of that source that you're reading the story on. It's not about like I only want to read left leaning sources or right leaning sources. It's about actually understanding the world. So go to Ground News Sharon and get all of the insights you need to consider things like publication ownership and factuality. I love their Blind Spot report that shows stories that basically Only left leaning publications or only right leaning publications are picking up. If you're only reading one or the other, you might be missing stories that are important to people that are your neighbors. Go to Ground News, Sharon, to get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan, which will unlock access to all of their news analysis features. I think Ground News is doing important work and I hope you'll check them out. That's Ground News, Sharon.

[Sharon McMahon]

Hey, friends, welcome. Delighted to have you with me today. My guests are Harvard government professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Zblat. And we are talking about what tyranny of the minority means and do we have it in the United States? Important question, so let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and here's where it gets interesting.

I read your first book, How Democracies Die, and was very excited to read Tyranny of the Minority. Thank you both so much, so much for making time to be here today.

[Steven Levitsky]

Happy to be here.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Great to be with you.

[Sharon McMahon]

You know, the United States democracy has been facing some challenging times recently. Perhaps you're familiar, perhaps this is a topic with which you have some familiarity. Daniel, do you feel overall optimistic about US Democracy at this moment in time?

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Well, it's certainly true that we're living through a political crisis. We're experiencing this directly, and this is something that resonates with what we've researched in other parts of the world. So we wrote How Democracies Die because we've studied how democracies break down throughout history. We saw a similar kind of risk in the United States. But in this book, what we're really trying to do is do a kind of deeper die of a diagnosis of what's going wrong. And just one thing that really is quite striking is that we live in a democracy in which it's possible for somebody to get elected president without winning the vote. And so this exposes a broader problem in our politics, that political minorities often govern over political majorities. And I think in many ways this has led to the crisis. And we elaborate this in the book that we're experiencing today.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah, you mention in the book you say that leads us to another unsettling truth. Part of the problem we face today lies in something many of us venerate, our Constitution. America has the world's oldest written Constitution. A brilliant work of political craftsmanship. It has provided a foundation for stability and prosperity. And for more than two centuries, it has succeeded in checking the power of ambitious and overreaching presidents. But flaws in our Constitution now imperil our democracy and I'd love to hear you elaborate on what some of those flaws are, Stephen, that are imperiling our democracy today.

[Steven Levitsky]

Our Constitution, which is a brilliant document and has been probably the most successful national constitution in world history, was written in the 18th century. It was written at a time when the rest of the world was governed by monarchies, when democracy not only didn't exist anywhere in the world, it wasn't even part of the discussion. So our framers, our constitutional framers, were pioneers. They created what at the time was the most democratic system on earth, really by a good margin. But in the 18th century, political leaders everywhere in the world worried a lot about the masses. It was very rare for people without property to vote. And so this concern, which John Adams, among others, articulated as tyranny of the majority, was an overarching fear for our Founders, really an outsized fear, as it turns out. And so, not surprisingly, our Founders, just like constitutional framers across Europe, created a whole bunch of what we now call counter majoritarian institutions, institutions that limit the power of electoral majorities. And again, at the time, that was totally par for the course. The US Was a real democratic pioneer, but we had a whole bunch of checks, not only on executive power, but on majorities. The Electoral College is one of them, right? The Electoral College allows the loser of the popular vote to win the presidency, or I should put it allows the winner of the popular vote to be denied the presidency. The US Senate is not a particularly democratic institution. It gives equal representation to every state, regardless of population. That was deemed fair to states at the time. But it's not very democratic if Vermont has the same political power in the Senate as California. So those are two obvious ones, obviously, counter majoritarian institutions. Now, one thing, if you look back at history over the last couple hundred years, people in democracies all over the world have constantly pushed to make their systems more democratic. And we did this in the United States, gradually expanding the right to vote, turning what had been an unelected Senate into an elected Senate, establishing the Bill of Rights. So there have been movements throughout our history and throughout the history of all of our European democratic counterparts to slowly make the system more democratic to empower majorities. And the weird thing about the last 50 years is we've stopped. We've stopped doing this work of reforming the Constitution. It's really only the last half century that we've kind of abandoned the American tradition of working to make our Constitution and our political system more democratic.

[Sharon McMahon]

Daniel, for somebody who is new to learning about this topic, can you Elaborate. Why counter majoritarian institutions or were so important to the framers of the Constitution? Because I think many people today feel a little disenfranchised by them.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Yeah, it's a, it's a really important question because if we go back and look at the Constitutional Convention, I mean, sometimes there's a tendency to assume that there was this blueprint that was crafted and everybody was perfectly happy with it. But the Constitutional Convention in the hot summer of 1787 was really not at all like that. I mean, this was a really hard fall fought battle between different representatives of the different formal colonies. They disagreed about a lot. In particular, the main divides were between big states and small states and between slave states and free states. And as they tried to hammer out a deal, they were facing a series of real challenges. You know, there was this threat that France might invade, that Britain might reinvade, that some of the former colonies would break away. And so in a real rush, they needed to cobble together an agreement. So they had to improvise, they had to make compromises. And as with any compromise and improvisation, the results are never perfect. I mean, there was in many ways a lot of second best options adopted. So just to take one example, the electoral College, you know, at that point in world history, nobody had ever established a system where you have a directly elected president. So they had no idea how to do it. So, you know, small states were worried that big states would swamp them because there's just more people in the big states. Slave states were worried that the non slave states would swamp them and eliminate slavery. So they kind of came up with this second third best option at the end of the convention and the effort to kind of establish a compromise. They established these institutions that part were driven by a fear of a mass public, but also fear of each other. And so, you know, at that moment, the Constitution, of course was in many ways very brilliant. But you know, even George Washington, two months after the convention, in a letter to a friend, said, this is an imperfect document. You know, we as the founders have no monopoly on virtue and wisdom and, and it'll be up to future generations to perfect it.

[Sharon McMahon]

Stephen, I would love to hear you touch on this topic just very briefly, because I hear from a lot of people that we don't have a democracy, that the framers never intended for us to have a democracy, that they created a constitutional republic. And this language surrounding the word democracy has become politicized in ways that perhaps it was never intended. When people hear democracy, they think like, oh, mob rule, have you Heard this. Have people told you, like, oh, democracy just means mob rule. And the framers took a lot of steps, as you just mentioned, anti majoritarian institutions to prevent mob rule in which three wolves and a sheep decide what to eat for dinner, and the mob of the wolves wins. What would you have to say to that person?

[Steven Levitsky]

Stephen, That's a great question. Part of it has to do with the, with the language that was used at the time. Again, 1787 was a period where nothing that we would remove remotely call a modern democracy existed in the world. And at the time, democracy was equated, at least in some people's minds, with mob rule or at least sort of tyranny of the minority. Because liberal democracy, the kind of democracy that exists not only in the United States, but in dozens of countries across the world and has existed for a century in dozens of countries across the world that didn't exist yet. But even at the founding, even early on, people like Madison knew the kind of democracy they were creating. They were not creating direct democracy. They certainly were not creating mob rule. They were creating what we call representative democracy. Representative democracy is where the masses freely elect leaders and leaders rule. So in the kind of democracy that has existed in the United States for decades and exists in, in, in Canada and Europe, Australia, et cetera, it's not direct democracy, for better or worse. We elect our leaders and our leaders govern subject to constraints and subject to public input. But it's indirect rule that is representative democracy. Our leaders knew at the time, our founders knew at the time they were creating that. They didn't call it democracy. Madison routinely equated republic with representative democracy. That's what he means. So you cannot, you should not. It would be inaccurate to juxtapose democracy against republic. For Madison and other framers, republic was a democracy. It was a representative democracy. And that's the kind of political system, a system in which we elect our leaders and in which individuals have a wide array of individual rights that are constitutionally protected, in our case, in the Bill of Rights. That kind of democracy, liberal representative democracy, has been widespread, at least in the west, for decades and decades. And that would not be unfamiliar to Madison.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

You know, Madison very much was interested in building a republic. In his framework, this meant a system without a key. That was the goal. He added to that, though, the notion. There's, you know, quotes from Madison where he says the essence of the republican principle is majority rule. He was interested in establishing a system of majority rule. I think he understood, as Steve is saying, and the founders understood that you can't have just pure majority rule. You know, too much majority rule can be a problem. There need to be constraints on majorities. There need to be protections of individual liberties. That's why the Bill of Rights was founded. But it's also very possible to go too far, and Madison was aware of this and some of the other founders as well. Hamilton, sometimes possible to go too far in the other direction to establish a system where majorities can't govern. They wanted to have an effective government, so they wanted majority rule. They wanted simple majorities to be able to govern, you know, provided again that certain basic civil liberties and so on weren't being restricted.

[Sharon McMahon]

You talk about in your book that the United States is becoming a multiracial democracy, that it is not truly one yet, in part because we have things like unequal access to the ballot. And you discuss how difficult multiracial democracy is to achieve. And I don't think there's anybody who could disagree with that. That is a tremendously large and complex undertaking to be able to have such a diverse multiracial democracy. And you say that if America is not yet a truly multiracial democracy, it is becoming one. And you give examples of things like the Voting Rights act that is helping America on its way to achieving this. But just as this new democratic experiment was beginning to take root, America experienced an authoritarian backlash so fierce that it shook the foundations of the republic, leaving our allies across the world worried about whether the country had any democratic future at all. And those were very sobering words, Stephen. It's very sobering thought that our allies around the world begin to wonder, does America even have a democratic future? And you guys have written extensively about how democracies die. And I would love to hear your take on. On whether or not American democracy is on its deathbed, what our place in the world is now, and why we have had such an incredible rise in authoritarianism. Very quick, easy questions to answer so fast.

[Steven Levitsky]

It's important to point out that the US has experienced over the last decade something that's quite shocking to most of us, which is what political scientists call backsliding. When election workers face threats, when the incumbent president tries to use the machinery of government to overturn the results of elections, you have backsliding. And at least according to one international index of democracy, freedom House, the US by about 2020, was less democratic than Romania and Argentina. No disrespect to Argentina and Romania, but that's a surprising place for the United States to be in. And other Western European democracies despite crises, problems did not experience that kind of backslide. So the US Was fairly unique in that regard, but perhaps we should have expected it. If you look back at history, if you look back at other democracies, all major steps towards greater inclusion lead to some sort of backlash. You can't take take steps towards greater democratic inclusion without some pushback, without some reaction. Political scientists, I think most of us were surprised by just how difficult the reaction has been over the last decade. But perhaps we shouldn't have been, because the steps that the United States has taken and is continuing to take towards multiracial democracy are momentous. They're massive now in terms of the future, very quickly, I'm sure Daniel will have more to say. I'm pretty optimistic. I think we're going through a rough period of reaction, but that eventually the United States is going to succeed in consolidating multiracial democracy. And one of the things that gives me optimism is if you look at younger generations, particularly millennials and Gen Z, their attitudes towards the basic pillars of multiracial democracy, their attitudes towards diversity and racial equality are far, far more tolerant than their parents and grandparents generations. So I think young people are going to be the ones who consolidate multiracial democracy in the US.

[David Spade]

This episode of here's Where It Gets Interesting is brought to you by Alloy Women's Health Aging can be, let's be real. It can be crappy. You can have problems sleeping and you can have weight gain and brain fat.

[Sharon McMahon]

Fog and hot flashes.

[David Spade]

Menopause is inevitable, but it's also treatable. I recently learned that almost half of women went three plus years before seeking relief from menopause or perimenopausal symptoms. Why do people do that to themselves? That's because 43% of women reported that their doctors just never mentioned menopause hormone therapy as an option for treatment, and 40% more don't even know where to go for a solution. Aloe is fast, accessible and their treatments actually work from full body relief to radiant skin. Alloy solutions are available by prescription, so you'll need to complete a short medical questionnaire and patient verification. And then you will design your treatment plan with a physician. You'll work with an expert to finalize a personalized plan tailored to your specific needs and then once approved, ALOI ships your prescription directly to your door with automatic refills. Join the 95% of women who tried ALOI and saw relief in the first two weeks. Head to myalloy.com interesting and tell them all about your symptoms and you'll get a fully customized treatment plan and you'll get $20 off your first order. Today head to my a l l o y.com Interesting. And enter code Interesting to get $20 off your first order.

[Dana Carvey]

Hey, what's up flies? This is David Spade.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Dana Carvey.

[Dana Carvey]

Look at I know we never actually left, but I'll just say it. We are back with another season of Fly on the Wall.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Every episode, including ones with guests, will.

[Steven Levitsky]

Now be on video. Every Thursday you'll hear us and see us chatting with big name celebrities.

[Dana Carvey]

And every Monday you're stuck with just me and Dana. We we react to news, what's trending.

[Steven Levitsky]

Viral clips follow and listen to Fly on the Wall everywhere you get your podcasts.

[Sharon McMahon]

You know that feeling when you're doom scrolling and suddenly it's an hour later and you just feel worse? Been there like a few hundred thousand times, but lately I've been swapping that habit for something way better. Masterclass I'll throw on a lesson during my morning walk or while I'm cooking dinner, and it honestly feels like I'm getting smarter without trying. With Masterclass, you can learn from the best to become your best. Get to the truth of our messy sociopolitical moment with scholar Noam Chomsky, add crucial context to the news cycle with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and accelerate your career in creative work with noted generative AI experts. For just $10 a month, billed annually, you can get unlimited access to over 200 classes, whether it's business, cooking, writing, or even Gen AI. 83% of members say they've actually applied what they've learned, and I'm one of them. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual [e-mail] Sharon that's 15% [e-mail] Sharon masterclass.com Sharon Sharon I.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Mean, I think the thing I would add is to add a little bit of historical context, which is that, you know, as we mentioned at the outset, you know, our Constitution was never particularly democratic, and it's the degree to which we have become democratic. It's required. There's a great American tradition, in fact, of amending our Constitution, of doing the hard work to improve our democracy. And, you know, after the Civil War, we have the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments guaranteeing equal rights and voting rights, early 20th century women's suffrage, and the direct election of US senators instead of appointing senators in the 1960s, although not as many constitutional amendments, you know, voting rights and civil rights. There's A great American tradition of working hard to improve our Constitution. Yep. And we just need to remember that because, you know, although we're now in this kind of unusual period and it's a sort of radical experiment and not improving our democracy over the last 50 years, we haven't done that. I think you're absolutely right that we're at the cusp, I would say, of a. Of a new generation of people pushing forward. That will very much be part of a long American tradition.

[Sharon McMahon]

How do other countries, and I would love to hear each of you talk maybe a little bit about your areas of particular expertise. How have other countries dealt with a rise of authoritarianism in their democratic government? It's a conceit to think that, like, well, we're the United States and we have it all figured out. We know what's best. We're the freest and best democracy in the world. I think there's a lot to learn from other places around the world. So I would love to hear from each of you. How are other people dealing with this? Maybe there's something we can glean.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

In Europe, at least I could speak about Europe. There's very similar kinds of movements, radical right, anti immigrant groups and parties, some of whom are more democratic, slightly more democratic, some of whom are threats to democracy. But these political parties across Europe usually gain around 20, 25, 30 at the max percent of the vote. And so in that way, you know, it's actually, if you kind of look at the kind of equivalent base in the United States, there's a kind of equivalent demographic in the United States that supports these kinds of parties. And so that's very similar challenge. But what's so striking is that really nowhere in Western Europe has one of these parties ascended to the heights of power, unless in coalition in that sense, you know, because these are parliamentary governments, since they only have 30% of the vote, in order to gain power, they need to form coalitions. And so we have a similar kind of challenge, but the responses have been very different. I'll just very quickly mention three kinds of responses. There's three types of responses. Number one, what a lot of European democracies do is adopt a strategy of what's sometimes called defensive democracy or sometimes militant democracy. And what that means is that within many constitutions, as particularly the German constitution, if there's a group or a political party that seems to be attacking the constitution, then there's often processes of investigation opened into them. And we can kind of think of this as the equivalent of this famous Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which has come up in the US after the Civil War, there was a kind of equivalent thing where if you engaged in insurrection, you shouldn't be able to hold federal office. So many European democracies use that. It's a strategy that has certain attractions because you can kind of keep the bad guys out. The danger of it, of course, is that it can be very easily abused and the democracy won't have the free flow of free competition of ideas. So that's one strategy. A second strategy, very briefly, is that the democratic minded politicians get together in broad coalitions and keep out threats. They don't allow people who are going to attack democracy into power. So people can vote for whoever they want. But at the end of the day, people who are parties who may be rival socialists, Christian Democrats who disagree on a lot, they will often form coalitions to govern and to kind of get through a momentary crisis. This has happened and served European democracies very well. The equivalent in the US Is to sort of think, you know, again, we don't have coalition governments, but it's the kind of equivalent of, let's say, Republicans who are frightened of the Republican candidate for president joining forces with Democrats, or if the threat came from the left, Democrats joining with Republicans. So it's when political rivals get together. And then the third and final thing, and this is really the proposal and solution that we settle on, is over the course of the 20th century, European democracies have made themselves more democratic. They've made it harder and harder for a minority force, authoritarian minority, to take over a political system. And the way you do that is by making it easier to vote, by eliminating special protections, let's say again, unelected upper chambers, by making our judicial system more democratic. And I think by opening that, there's a famous quote from an American reformer, Jane Addams, in the early 20th century, and she said that, you know, the cure to the ills of democracy is more democracy. And that has been really the strategy in much of Europe. And I think that is something we can learn from.

[Sharon McMahon]

Stephen, I'd love to hear your take on what perhaps some other countries who have faced rising authoritarianism have done.

[Steven Levitsky]

I think one of the central lessons we've learned, and this is an argument put forward by the great Spanish political scientist Juan Linz half a century ago, is that mainstream politicians have a huge, really, really crucial role to play when an anti democratic extremist force emerges, either on the left or the right. The experience that we get from looking at Europe and the interwar period Looking at South America in the 1960s and 70s, is that the choices of mainstream politicians are crucial. And for Linds and Daniel and I agree with this and write about this in the book, a politician who is loyal to democracy, when a threat like that emerges, is very, very clear in denouncing and distancing her or himself from those authoritarian forces. So even if a violent force or an anti democratic force emerges in your own political camp, on your own political wing, it is incumbent on mainstream politicians not to remain silent, not to kind of speak out of both sides of their mouth, not to kind of protect or enable or condone their behavior, but to unambiguously denounce authoritarian and violent behavior, to hold accountable those who commit that sort of behavior, and to isolate and defeat them politically. And where mainstream politicians do that, where they engage in what Lyn's called loyal democratic behavior, democracies tend to survive the emergence of these extremist groups. Where mainstream politicians fail to do that, where they fail to break with authoritarian or anti democratic forces on their own flank, that's when democracies get in trouble.

[Sharon McMahon]

I think we need to talk for just a moment about what rising authoritarianism actually looks like. Because so often people become attached to a politician that they're very enamored with. They love their policies, they love their personality, whatever it is, and they think that anything they do is for the betterment of the country. That person knows what's up. That person would not lead us wrong. Everybody who's saying they're wrong, they're just hurt over how much power they've been able to gain. I think we need to actually explicitly tell people what authoritarianism looks like on the rise. We think it's Hitler and all, like, well, we don't have a holocaust, so we're doing okay. And it's sometimes difficult for people to conceptualize what backsliding in a democracy actually looks like. I think it's time to actually make it very plain what the warning signs are. Do you want to start, Daniel?

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Yeah, sure. It's a really, absolutely important question. At some point, some level, it's very simple. If you're a political leader who's committed to democracy, you absolutely must do three things. Number one, you have to accept the results of elections, win or lose. Number two, you absolutely have to eschew the use of violence, avoid the use of violence, and trying to gain power.

[Steven Levitsky]

Or to hold power.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Democratic politicians do not do that. And then, number three, and this is the more subtle point, is that politicians who are committed to democracy must Absolutely distance themselves, renounce expression explicitly, and hold to account anybody who engages in those first two actions. And this is especially the case if it's an ally. And it's much more difficult if it's an ally, if it's somebody you think you might agree with. Now, people who do those three things are loyal and committed to democracy, and they are essential for democratic survival. Now, there's a term for people who break some of these rules and to sometimes even maybe look like they're abiding by democratic. That term is semi loyalty. This is what in our book we call semi loyalty. So if you have a politician who, you know, wears a suit and tie, he's not wearing military fatigues, you have a politician who's not running into buildings armed with weapons, but, you know, is sort of acting as a democratic participant, it's sometimes easy to think that they are committed to democracy. But if this kind of figure either downplays violations of these first two things, not accepting election results and avoiding the use of violence, if they downplay it on their own side, if they talk, as Steve said, out of both sides of their mouth, if they try to justify it, if they try to turn the other eye or quietly cooperate with these figures, these people are semi loyalists, and they are a real threat to democracy. I mean, the breakdown of democracy around the world, we've seen time and time again. You know, certainly people violence in the streets is a problem, but the thing that really gets democracy into trouble is when semi loyalists abdicate in their responsibilities and enable these kinds of actors, it's then that democracy gets of trouble.

[Steven Levitsky]

Just to recap, Daniel, because those are the indicators that we use in the book. If you want to know whether a political party or a politician is loyal or committed to democracy, that politician will always accept the results of fair elections. That politician will never encourage or support or justify the use of violence, and that politician will systematically break away from allies who engage in anti democratic behavior. And if a political party or politician does not do those three things, then they begin to enter the category of anti democratic.

[Sharon McMahon]

So just to use the United States as an example, a lot of people believe that there were issues with the 2020 election. And so they view this situation differently than when you say you need to accept the results of a fair and free election. You don't try to seize power, you don't get your buddies to get guns and seize control of the state House. You don't do that to many Americans, to tens of millions of Americans, there was no fair and free election. And you can point to as many facts as you would like about the number of court cases, the 60 plus court cases that were heard, the number of Republican election officials who counted and counted and recounted and recounted and recounted and were like, listen, I voted for you. I wanted you to win. You came up short this time. I'm very sorry for your loss, that this happened, you know, many times over throughout the country. I think one of the challenges here is not just that there is not an acceptance of a fair and free election, but that the public has begun to believe that there was no fair and free election and in order to save democracy, they should do something about it because the election is corrupt.

[Steven Levitsky]

So the problem here, Sharon, is not the public. There are always members of the public, at least some of them, who adhere to conspiracy theories, who don't believe the results of elections. My dad thought the 2004 election was stolen. The issue here is the behavior of political leaders. Because there may be many, many people in the public who truly believe that the election was stolen. I think that number is actually a little lower than polls suggest. Meaning a lot of people know better than what they're saying. But we know for sure that political leaders, they know the election wasn't stolen. They know because they say it in private. They're the ones who are responsible for putting our democracy at risk, first of all in their behavior. But second of all, because their discourse either convinces their followers or sort of creates a permission structure for their followers and for many activists to continue to either believe or semi believe or at least repeat the words that the election was stolen. If all major Republican leaders all accepted the results of the election once they're announced, the problem of the public not believing the election was fair would be much, much.

[Sharon McMahon]

You're right. Yeah, absolutely. If that had not been the forward facing rhetoric from on high, January 6th would have never happened.

[Steven Levitsky]

Yeah.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

You know, there's violence all the time in societies. There's violence on both sides. There's radicalism, there's extremism. The thing that really matters, and that's what we're interested in in particular in our book, is what do political leaders do? What is the right thing for political leadership? What role do they play in this? And certainly between November 2020 and January 6, there was a permission structure created by our political leaders questioning the legitimacy election. And there were many Republican leaders saying, well, we know that this is just a lot of venting. It's not really consequential, but words matter. Words matter. Actions of political leaders matter. And so in the absence of that, it's true that I think maybe January 6th wouldn't have happened. It wouldn't have taken the scale that it did it. And similarly after January 6th, I mean, we saw in a very brief moment afterwards, there was a kind of moment of clarity where everyone recognized the threat that this was. And then very quickly that was abandoned. An open investigation, you know, bipartisan investigation was blocked and a true investigation was blocked. And in addition to the impeachment, there was an effort to impeach the president. And Republican leaders said, you know, President Trump was morally and practically responsible and yet we're not going to vote for impeachment, which would have prevented candidate Trump from ever running again. And they knew that this was a real threat, but they thought the problem would go away. And our point again is really that political leaders, one of the importance of political leaders, they need to step up and draw hard lines and say certain kinds of behaviors are unacceptable. And if they don't, they put all of us at risk.

[David Spade]

Are you feeling overwhelmed with all of the supplements out there? It is overwhelming. I mean, if you go to the wellness section of any store, the choices are overwhelming. There are also a lot of fake claims out there. And that's why Groons took the time to understand what proper dosing to ensure nutrition is optimized and safe. Are you currently taking multiple supplements a day? Groons is not a multivitamin, a greens gummy or a prebiotic. It's all of those things and then some at a fraction of the price. And it tastes great. As we are wrapping up winter and looking ahead to the fresh start of spring, maybe it's time to ditch the clutter.

[Sharon McMahon]

Whether that's the physical clutter of the.

[David Spade]

Overload of supplements or also the mental clutter of having to make so many decisions, this very simple, effective wellness routine can be more enjoyable than swallowing handfuls of pills. And that can make it more sustainable. There are eight gummies in each daily snack pack. Because you can't fit the amount of nutrients you need into just one Gummy plus, it's like a fun little treat. And great. Rune's ingredients are backed by over 35,000 research publications. You wanted a supplement you could enjoy. This is not a chore. It's something you can look forward to get up to 45% off using the code. Interesting. Life moves fast with work and kids and errands. It just never stops.

[Sharon McMahon]

And then somehow you're supposed to eat.

[David Spade]

Well in the middle of all of that. That's where great tasting Bavarian Meats Lager Snack Sticks come in they are naturally fermented, slow smoked for bold flavor, packed with 9 grams of protein and have zero sugar and zero carbs. It's a snack that keeps up with your day. Whether you're racing between meetings, school drop off, or just trying to finish your to do list, take a moment to savor something delicious for you. And did we mention that they are portable? Like just toss them in your gym bag or your glove box wherever you want to carry them. Pick up a pack today at your local grocer or stock [e-mail] podcast Bavarian meat snack sticks great taste.

[Sharon McMahon]

Zero sugar Bitcoin might sound complicated, but the Gemini Credit Card makes it so simple. Use it like any credit card, buy lunch, gas or your weekly groceries and you'll earn up to 4% back instantly in Bitcoin or one of over 50 other cryptos straight to your account, no annual fee. And right now you can grab a $200 bitcoin intro bonus. It's the easiest way to start building your bitcoin stash. Go to gemini.com card to learn more. Terms Apply Issued by Webbank in order to Qualify for the $200 crypto intro bonus, you must be approved by June 30, 2025 and spend $3,000 in your first 90 days. Terms apply. Some exclusions apply to instant rewards in which rewards are deposited when the transaction posts this content is not investment advice and Trading Crypto involves risk for more details on rates, fees and other Gemini credit card terms, see Rates and Fees.

To ask a question that I know many people will wonder about, what if a political leader truly believes that the election was rigged against them? I'm not saying that that is the reality, but what if somebody is like, what the heck just happened? I can't believe they pulled off that crazy heist. Is it incumbent on that political leader to sacrifice their candidacy on the altar of democracy to preserve the democratic institution? Or what should they do?

[Steven Levitsky]

First of all, let's make a distinction. Because, yeah, you know, it's possible that there's a completely ambiguous election in which we really do not know if it was stolen or not. But Sharon, that's extraordinarily rare. There are two types of election. There are elections that are truly fraudulent, truly stolen. Many examples we can find from across the world. If an election is truly stolen, then our requirement that politicians accept the results of election that goes out the window. Of course politicians should resist stolen elections, objectively stolen elections. But the United States hasn't had any objectively stolen elections. Most established democracies don't have objectively stolen elections. And the thing about authoritarians is they almost invariably invent things like stolen elections. They justify their authoritarianism by pointing to some kind of invented threat or undemocratic act on the other side. So we could list for you dozens of autocrats who justified their seizure of power or their violence in unsubstantiated claims of fraud or authoritarianism on the other side. So saying I really believe the election was stolen when there's no or very little credible evidence that the election was stolen. That doesn't generate much sympathy with me because it's an act that I've seen over and over and over again committed by authoritarians.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah, people think that an authoritarian is going to wear a name badge at the door and be like, vote for me the authoritarian. You know, like, like a man's going to show up with a tiny mustache and identify himself as a dictator. And then that's how we'll know not to vote for them. But authoritarians almost always come to power with convincing arguments. What they say sounds like things people want to hear. It makes sense in their mind that we should blame X group for Y problem and that this leader has a solution to that. It, I think, behooves us to remember that they don't wear a name badge and they always have reasons for their authoritarianism that sound plausible to some and that sound like good ideas.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Absolutely. And you know what often happens? People get elected through democratic elections. And then one of the things we describe in our book is a process that we call constitutional hardball, which we develop this point a bit in the book where we describe where, where politicians will often try to entrench themselves into power. So often not even breaking the law, but trying to limit participation, trying to make a fair competition more difficult. And so it's harder and harder to dislodge them. And this is, once in office, this is authoritarian action because they're essentially trying to make the playing field uneven so they can't lose. And so, you know, it's politician, very, you know, normal looking politicians, Victor Orban in Hungary and other politicians around the world. Again, you know, what's important is this kind of response. And maybe Steve could tell the story about Brazil because I think this is really a revealing story of how sometimes people say the election was stolen and not everybody goes along with it. I mean, not all the allies go along with it. And actually Brazil is a case just in the last year where this is exactly has happened where, where the politicians have stood up and basically done the right thing.

[Steven Levitsky]

So as many of your listeners will know, Brazil had a Trump like figure, Jair Bolsonaro, who got elected two years after Trump. And in many ways Brazil just replicated the US story. Just two years later, Brazil just seemed to be mimicking the United States. A far right authoritarian figure, more openly authoritarian even than Trump was elected, behaved very similarly in office as, as Trump, got in some political trouble because he responded to Covid in a way very similar to Trump, did not respond well to Covid, lost public support and lo and behold, had a tough reelection battle, lost his reelection like Trump and planned, attempted to try to overturn the election. But in Brazil, all of his allies refused to go along. All the major right wing politicians in the country, people who had been allies of Bolsonaro, major governors, major governor elect, the president of Congress, all of these figures on election night accepted that Bolsonaro's opponent Lula had won the election and pledged to work with the new government as sort of the norm dictates. And when supporters of Wilson Auto tried to replicate January 6th, it's kind of odd to try to copy a strategy that doesn't work in another country. Usually you copy strategies that work. But supporters of Wilsonado stormed all three branches of government in Brazil, not just the Congress, but the presidency and the Supreme Court as well. All major right wing politicians not only denounced that violence, but supported an investigation into that violence. It supported a holding to account those who were behind that violence and ultimately went along with a decision by the judiciary in Brazil to ban Jair Bolsonaro from politics for the next eight years. That's how you save a democracy.

[Sharon McMahon]

So in your mind, this entire situation with January 6, with the 2020 election debacle, the blame cannot just be put on the shoulders of one man. This is a broad failure of leadership.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Yeah, no, it's absolutely the case. And all democracies require at least two political parties, democratic political parties that can compete and win. And so what we are very interested in and what our book is about is proposing a set of institutional reforms that will help the Republican Party. And so in order to do that, what we really think is that there needs to be a system in which one needs to win majorities in order to win power. If a party doesn't need to win majorities to win power, as we've said, you know, happens in the Electoral College, the Senate, then there's a great vulnerability that one of two America's political parties can be captured by a kind of authoritarian minority. And so we think that, you know, we need to re. Embrace this American tradition of constitutional reform to get the Republican Party there, because until they are there, we'll be, continue to be vulnerable to these, these kinds of crises in the future.

[Sharon McMahon]

You brought up such an important point, Daniel, that the United States and all, all democracies need multiple, viable, healthy political parties whose ideas compete in the marketplace of ideas because one political party is not a democracy.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Absolutely. And you know, it's not partisan to say that we want to have a system in which the party that wins the most votes wins. Again, drawing on history, we can see around the world that when you don't have two parties that compete, then the party who does dominate the system will entrench itself in power. And the genius of democracy is in many ways a kind of process of self correction that each party competes for power and they have to adjust to what voters want. And when they fail, they get thrown out of office. And if this kind of system of self correction requires to political, at least, at least two, at least two other democracies, of course, have more. But you know, we run the risk in the United States today of really having only one party that's fully committed to democracy. And the problem with that is that each national election, you know, people are nervously looking forward to 2028 and the presidential election and all that that that's going to bring. The idea that each national election is going to feel like an existential emergency every four years is no way to lead our political lives.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah, totally. I can't tell you the number of people who message me so many of which express extraordinary anxiety over any upcoming election. If it was the 22 midterms, the 24 election, the amount of anxiety it produces makes people want to vomit. That is how they feel.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

And I think that is the direct result of our failure to continue to update our Constitution. Again, as I said at the beginning, we're engaged in this radical experiment where we are not continuing to make our system more democratic. I think that this kind of sense of crisis and anxiety that people fear reflect our government's inability to get stuff done, which is, you know, stuff gets killed by the filibuster, gun control, climate change legislation. If we want to make our system work better, we need to allow for the majority that's out there to be able to speak.

[Sharon McMahon]

All right, Stephen, let's talk very briefly as we wrap this up. Let's talk about what would you propose? What kind of reforms does the Constitution need to shore up democracy to make it so that we are not having an existential crisis for two out of every four years. Because it's not just the immediate election, right? It's the two years prior that we need to worry about it, talk about it, watch it on the news 24 7. Like, we can't live in this constant state of, like, anxiety and trauma. We need to go back to a position of relative equilibrium where we can actually potentially think about moving forward. What constitutional reforms do we need, Stephen?

[Steven Levitsky]

So we list 15 reforms in the final chapter of our book. I'm just going to mention a couple. And then one that's not in the Constitution, but the simplest reform, the most straightforward reform, I think would be the abolition of the electoral college. No other presidential democracy on earth has an electoral college, and no other presidential democracy on earth can the loser the popular vote in the presidency. Argentina was the last country in the world outside the United States to have an electoral college. They got rid of it in 1994. So replacing the electoral college with a direct popular vote would be not only a democratizing step, but a step towards avoiding the kind of election year crisis that you and Daniel were just talking about. A second really basic constitutional reform that we would recommend would be constitutionalizing the right to vote. The right to vote for all citizens was never included in the Constitution, is still not the Constitution. It is not federal law or constitutional law that we have a right to vote. And if we had a constitutional right to vote, as most democracies do, it would eliminate a lot of the efforts that we see at the state level to restrict the right to vote, which has been a source of conflict and anxiety and a real threat to democracy, frankly, over the last decade. A third, much, much more difficult, in fact right now, impossible constitutional reform would be to democratize the Senate in the sense that representation in the Senate should be according to population of each state, not equal across each state. That requires the consent of all 50 states to adopt a more proportional system of representation in the Senate. So it is borderline impossible, but it would be a major step towards building more democratic Senate. But in the short term, one final reform which is not constitutional would be elimination of the filibusters, so that you only need 50, 51 votes to pass regular legislation in the senate rather than 60.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

I think Steve has named the highlight, certainly. But, you know, one of the things to think about, you know, in some ways the filibuster is the lowest hanging fruit in the sense that it doesn't require a constitutional change. All of the Other important reforms that Steve mentioned require constitutional amendment. The filibuster is this kind of choke point in our national political system where, you know, 60 votes are required to pass any legislation. No other democracy has such a strict rule. One idea, and this discussions came up in the Senate just last year to do or two years ago to eliminate the filibuster or at least to reform it. I mean, there's other reform ideas out there require people that kind of, you know, Mr. Smith goes to Washington reform, where people actually have to stand there and talk. I mean, that's not even required any longer or lower the threshold even further. It used to be actually 2/3 in the 1970s went down to 60 votes. You know, you can make it a 52 vote, let's say, limit. These are against things that US senators themselves can agree upon. This doesn't require constitutional amendments. Another kind of reform idea that people have left out that have mentioned is, you know, let's say if something passes, gets a majority vote in the Senate and two successive Senates, for instance, then it passes and this overcomes the filibusters or as we advocate, just eliminate it outright. Now, a lot of people are fearful, well, you know, if we eliminate the filibuster, this means if the guy I don't like comes into power, we're going to give up this tool of obstruction. And so I can understand that fear. But, you know, we have to remember that no other democracy has this and they're all fine, number one. Number two, to fail to act out of fear is not the way to proceed. We should really instead act with hope and an understanding that this, that entrust the American public, that in fact, if politicians overreach in the absence of the filibuster, voters will punish them. I think so. You know, I think in the end, you know, that's a major choke point. And if a filibuster were eliminated or reduced, this would kind of build a coalition of enthusiasm and build momentum for further reforms and, and make it easier to get reforms through the Senate. So I think that's really the starting point for any kind of reform agenda.

[Sharon McMahon]

I would love to hear very quickly what each of you hopes the reader will take away. Like when they have finished the book, they close it. What is something you hope that they like, just took into their pocket and like never let go? What would your hope be, Stephen, for the reader?

[Steven Levitsky]

Going back to a point we made a couple of times in this interview, Americans have a long tradition of making their system more democratic. We've been doing this throughout our history. It's only in the last half century, it's only during most of our lifetimes that we've just stopped doing that. We've given up and we've stopped doing the work of thinking about how to make our system better and more democratic. That's one really important message. The other one is that we're actually not that far from becoming, once again, the model democracy that many of us hope that we can be. I think maybe the United States was never quite the model democracy that many Americans thought in the past, particularly before 1965. But if we can manage to overcome the reaction today and consolidate a multi, truly multiracial democracy, we'll be a model for the world, something we can be proud of, a democracy we can be proud of.

[Sharon McMahon]

Daniel what do you hope?

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Yeah, I agree with those two, and those are almost a great point to end on. But I would just add to that that a kind of vision of success, again, to come back to something we've mentioned before is one in which we have two political parties competing over the broad swath of voters and where either party can win power by winning majorities.

[Sharon McMahon]

I love this. Thank you both so much for your time. I absolutely loved reading both of your books. I appreciate your work work and I'm really grateful that you are here today.

[David Spade]

Thank you.

[Daniel Ziblatt]

Thank you so much.

[Steven Levitsky]

Thanks for having us.

[Sharon McMahon]

You can buy Stephen Levitsky and Daniel.

[David Spade]

Zablatt's book Tyranny of the Minority wherever.

[Sharon McMahon]

You get your books. And you might try [e-mail] to support independent bookstores.

[David Spade]

Thanks for being here today. Thank you so much for listening to here's where it gets interesting. If you enjoyed today's episode, would you consider sharing or subscribing to this show that helps podcasters out so much? I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck Parks and our audio producer is Craig Thompson. We'll see you soon.