Fight Fire with Fire?

Solutions to democratic decline

One of the most incisive analyses of democratic breakdown today is How Democracies Die by Harvard professors of government Daniel Ziblatt and Steve Levitsky. My belief in the “Gatekeeper Theory of Democracy” (essay of August 7, 2022) derives from the study of Greek and Roman history, the American founding era, psychology, and ethics. Ziblatt and Levitsky approach the paradoxes of democracy from the perspective of what has happened to modern democracies in Europe and Latin American since the 1930s.

What is fascinating––and heartening––is that we draw many of the same conclusions. In the end, there may well be “truths” out there about democracy that we can discover and transform into practical reforms that rescue American democracy––or, if not, equip new generations to build better ones in the future. 

Because Ziblatt and Levitsky do a far finer job of outlining remedies to democratic decline than I do, I present here for easy and quick consumption.

One solution the authors propose is directed pointedly to Democrats. It is advice to stay the course of the ethical norms––civility, self-restraint, and fair play––that have sustained American democracy for centuries.  

Fight fire with fire? No, Ziblatt and Levitsky say. Based on evidence from their research, they argue that the surest way to burn down the house of American democracy is for Democrats to join in the dousing. 

Democratic opposition to Republican corruption, they say, “should be muscular, but it should seek to preserve, rather than violate, democratic rules and norms.”

One example the authors give of the destruction of a democracy by two parties engaged in political warfare to the death is that of Venezuela. The party opposing the reign of populist Hugo Chávez finally grew so desperate in the early 2000s that it chose to operate outside the bounds of the congress, courts, and norms. 

Anti-Chávez forces resorted to shutting down the country through indefinite strikes and boycotting elections, strategies that backfired. 

Paradoxically, fighting for democracy through these tactics earned the party a co-equal reputation as antidemocratic. And, as Ziblatt and Levitsky describe, this “handed the government an excuse to purge the military, the police, and the courts, arrest or exile dissidents, and close independent media outlets.”

The anti-Chávez party contributed to a downward spiral of Venezuelian democracy by losing its credibility on the national and international stage:

Weakened and discredited, the opposition could not stop the regime‘s subsequent descent into authoritarianism.

Ziblatt and Levisky worry about what might happen if Democrats in the U.S. do not work like titans to retain and strengthen our ethical norms and institutions:

If partisan rifts deepen and our unwritten rules continue to fray, Americans could eventually elect a president who is even more dangerous than Trump.

None of us want to see that day come. Therefore, Democrats must keep their heads. They must become the party not only of individual freedom, egalitarianism, and ever-expanding democracy but of civility, justice, and relentless ethical stewardship.

It’s hard to see any other way forward to the reinvigoration of our 246-year-old democracy. 

NOTES

https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-democracies-die/oclc/986837776