Democracy's survival depends on fighting demagogues. The GOP is embracing them
The House select commission's investigation of the Jan. vi coup has hammered domicile a cardinal truth about republic. This cherished form of authorities, rooted in the will of the people, can be upended by demagogues when political party gatekeepers do not cake their ascent to power.
When gatekeepers fail in this critical duty, democracies deteriorate in a procedure well-known to political philosophers throughout history, including Alexander Hamilton. As he wrote in Federalist No. 1, such individuals achieve elected power by manipulating and dividing the people, "commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."
In other words, the first footstep in autonomous breakdown is the ballot of a demagogue to power. Such a person, as Eric A. Posner explains in "The Demagogue's Playbook," is one "who obtains the back up of the people through dishonesty, emotional manipulation, and the exploitation of social divisions; who targets the political elites, blaming them for everything that has gone wrong; and who tries to destroy institutions — legal, political, religious, social — and other sources of power that stand up in their manner."
Once in function, the demagogue devolves into an disciplinarian who subverts the government, corrupting and dismantling the democracy itself to retain power.
Donald Trump started out as a demagogue, and, as the recent House hearings evidence, he slid deep into authoritarianism, orchestrating an ambitious multifaceted campaign to overturn a gratis and fair election. What the United States and the globe have witnessed over the past seven years since Trump announced his run for president is precisely the process of democratic deterioration that takes place when gatekeepers fail to fulfill their duty to go along demagogues out of the executive pipeline.
Demagogues are as ancient as democracy itself, and, historically, watchful gatekeepers prevent them from seizing the neat pulpit and winning the public trust. Gatekeepers need to take eagle eyes for spotting this corrupting subset of political actors. So they must work to sideline them by all means permissible, public and private.
Since the early years of the American commonwealth, elected and appointed officials, judges, journalists and community leaders accept causeless this gatekeeping office, only none of these compare in importance to the key role of political parties. In our system of government, each party has the crucial duty of defending the Constitution against demagogues. Before anything else, that means ensuring that a political party's presidential nominee demonstrates an unwavering commitment to free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power.
Every bit Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of "How Democracies Die," assert, "an essential test for democracies is not whether such figures emerge but whether political leaders, and especially political parties, piece of work to forbid them from gaining power in the get-go place — by keeping them off mainstream party tickets, refusing to endorse or marshal with them and, when necessary, making common cause with rivals in back up of democratic candidates."
Some might protest that this gatekeeping by political parties is antidemocratic. But no system of government is perfect. That republic can degenerate into tyranny through freely elected demagogues is an abiding paradox. It is democracy's inconvenient truth — its greatest brunt and most vexing dilemma.
Today, the Republican Party is duty bound to defend our democracy and Constitution against further set on by Trump. If the party of Lincoln does not stand up up for candidates committed to free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power, information technology stands for nothing at all. Its failure to reject Trump resulted in institutional breakdown — and violence. And that is what volition go on to happen if the party does not deed decisively.
Recovery from the political trauma of the insurrection must brainstorm with belongings Trump answerable for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 ballot. Simply to safeguard our commonwealth from future presidential candidates who seek to take the same path, the leaders of both parties must cover their duty to thwart such corrupt politicians at every turn.
Grasping this truth — that each party is responsible for counteracting its ain demagogues — is a crucial starting betoken for rescuing American democracy from further decline.
Eli Merritt is a psychiatrist and political historian at Vanderbilt University. He writes the Substack newsletter American Commonwealth.
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