{"id":16644,"date":"2025-03-06T13:13:36","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T13:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=16644"},"modified":"2025-03-06T13:13:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T13:13:37","slug":"republicans-saved-democracy-once-will-they-do-it-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=16644","title":{"rendered":"Republicans Saved Democracy Once. Will They Do It Again?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“We\u2019ve studied democratic erosion in countries around the world, and our research has found that the most important bulwark against an elected leader undermining democracy doesn\u2019t come from opposition parties or pro-democracy activists. It comes from the ruling party \u2014 and particularly the powerful elites in that party \u2014 and their efforts to constrain their own<\/em> leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The danger to democracy is particularly acute in political systems led by parties where leaders wield disproportionate influence relative to the political parties that back them \u2014 as is now the case in the Republican Party. Our data on all democratically elected leaders around the globe in the 30 years since the end of the Cold War show that where leaders dominate the parties they lead, the chances of democratic backsliding increase, whether it\u2019s through gradual democratic decay or a rapid collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the United States, we tend to assume that constitutional checks and balances, including the powers vested in Congress or the Supreme Court, play the central role in constraining a rogue executive and any power grab they might attempt. But we\u2019ve found that institutions can do so only if the members of the president\u2019s party inside those institutions are willing to use their authority in the face of executive abuses or overreach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason that often doesn\u2019t happen is because when a political party becomes dominated by the leader as an individual, party figures view their political fates as directly tied to that of the leader, not to the long-term reputation of the party, and so they are unwilling to push back against the leader\u2019s actions. In these \u201cpersonalist\u201d political parties, the party elite are even willing to go along with a leader\u2019s abuse of power if they see that doing so is advantageous for keeping their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact affects more than just the political class. When prominent party figures tolerate \u2014 or indeed even support \u2014 a leader\u2019s anti-democratic actions, it fosters public acceptance of those actions among party supporters, as people take important cues from their elected officials. High levels of polarization and the resulting disdain for the other side only make matters worse, as partisans are willing to accept abuses of power if it means keeping the other side out of office. Indeed, even when there remains a high level of public support for democracy, our research shows that societies can slide down a non-democratic path simply because they don\u2019t want the other side to win.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/01\/12\/republicans-save-democracy-trump-00197613<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We\u2019ve studied democratic erosion in countries around the world, and our research has found that the most important bulwark against an elected leader undermining democracy doesn\u2019t come from opposition parties or pro-democracy activists. It comes from the ruling party \u2014 and particularly the powerful elites in that party \u2014 and their efforts to constrain their own leader.
\nThe danger to democracy is particularly acute in political systems led by parties where leaders wield disproportionate influence relative to the political parties that back them \u2014 as is now the case in the Republican Party. Our data on all democratically elected leaders around the globe in the 30 years since the end of the Cold War show that where leaders dominate the parties they lead, the chances of democratic backsliding increase, whether it\u2019s through gradual democratic decay or a rapid collapse.<\/p>\n

In the United States, we tend to assume that constitutional checks and balances, including the powers vested in Congress or the Supreme Court, play the central role in constraining a rogue executive and any power grab they might attempt. But we\u2019ve found that institutions can do so only if the members of the president\u2019s party inside those institutions are willing to use their authority in the face of executive abuses or overreach.<\/p>\n

The reason that often doesn\u2019t happen is because when a political party becomes dominated by the leader as an individual, party figures view their political fates as directly tied to that of the leader, not to the long-term reputation of the party, and so they are unwilling to push back against the leader\u2019s actions. In these \u201cpersonalist\u201d political parties, the party elite are even willing to go along with a leader\u2019s abuse of power if they see that doing so is advantageous for keeping their jobs.<\/p>\n

The impact affects more than just the political class. When prominent party figures tolerate \u2014 or indeed even support \u2014 a leader\u2019s anti-democratic actions, it fosters public acceptance of those actions among party supporters, as people take important cues from their elected officials. High levels of polarization and the resulting disdain for the other side only make matters worse, as partisans are willing to accept abuses of power if it means keeping the other side out of office. Indeed, even when there remains a high level of public support for democracy, our research shows that societies can slide down a non-democratic path simply because they don\u2019t want the other side to win.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/01\/12\/republicans-save-democracy-trump-00197613<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1104,864,542,429,431,660,570,1268,694,222,1034,528],"class_list":["post-16644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-authoritarianism","tag-autocracy","tag-congress","tag-constitution","tag-democracy","tag-dictatorship","tag-parties","tag-political-parties","tag-power","tag-president","tag-presidential-power","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16645,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16644\/revisions\/16645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}