January 12, 2025
Republicans Saved Democracy Once. Will They Do It Again?
In the coming weeks and months, after Donald Trump takes the oath of office for the second time, Democrats are going to take every opportunity to mobilize voters and coordinate with civil society groups to thwart anti-democratic actions and win power back. Elected Democrats will vote against Trump’s proposed legislation and try to block his executive orders in court. That, after all, is what opposition parties and civil societies are supposed to do.
But this time it’s Republicans who will bear primary responsibility for protecting U.S. democracy.
Despite different political and historical contexts, the playbook these personalist leaders use to dismantle democracy has been identical.
We’ve 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’t come from opposition parties or pro-democracy activists. It comes from the ruling party — and particularly the powerful elites in that party — and their efforts to constrain their own leader.
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 — 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’s through gradual democratic decay or a rapid collapse.
Read the full article on POLITICO.
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