How Democracies Die

LftS: How Democracies Die

7/26/2018

We are always at a critical juncture in history. That is one of the deeper lessons of history that you don’t get until you start connecting the dots between major past events and the minuscule things that proceed them. There is more to learn in some cases from the long and peaceful periods of history, aka the boring bits, than there is to learn in the eventful war filled periods. History is fluid, as is the present and the future, ever-changing based on the actions of the present and the perceptions of the future. That being said we find ourselves at a critical juncture in history.

For the last 30 years, we have been engaging in an increasingly hostile political environment that seems to have been pushed over the edge by 2 recent occurrences, the election of Barack Obama and the subsequent election of Donald Trump. Both of these events triggered massive increases in political incivility not seen since the years before the war of succession, and contrary to popular opinion it wasn’t the war that changed politics it was the compromise of 1877. That brings us to the point of this show, is democracy dying, and if it is, why are we so willing to kill it?

A more timely book couldn’t have been produced than the one Steve Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt released in January of this year. A book that at its core takes a look at democracies across the globe and analyzes how they transformed into authoritarian states. It does this in a very comparative and analytical way bringing every discussion back to what we see in America today. In this episode of Lessons from the Screen we will be taking a look at How Democracies Die.