The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States—a man who has praised dictators, encouraged violence among supporters, threatened to jail his rival, and labeled the mainstream media as “the enemy”—has raised fears that the United States may be heading toward authoritarianism. While predictions of a descent into fascism are overblown, the Trump presidency could push the United States into a mild form of what we call “competitive authoritarianism”—a system in which meaningful democratic institutions exist yet the government abuses state power to disadvantage its opponents.
But the challenges facing American democracy have been emerging for decades, long before Trump arrived on the scene. Since the 1980s, deepening polarization and the radicalization of the Republican Party have weakened the institutional foundations that have long safeguarded U.S. democracy—making a Trump presidency considerably more dangerous today than it would have been in previous decades.
There is little reason to expect Americans’ commitment to democracy to serve as a safeguard against democratic erosion.
Paradoxically, the polarizing dynamics that now threaten democracy are rooted in the United States’ belated […]
The US has never been a democracy.
If it was the people would vote directly on legislation.
For decades we have been ruled by a corrupt duopoly that will only be removed by the gradual die-off of it’s members.
As the fall harvests all over the Northern Hemisphere come up short, this duopoly will be faced with a challenge they may not be able to deal with, so change may come quickly.