,
12 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
Last night I opened a copy of How Democracies Die by Levitsky and Ziblatt, on the 1st page they write that US democracy should be safe because of Constitution, "national creed of freedom and equality", middle class, wealth and education, and diverse private sector. +
I was in a train station bookstore waiting for a slightly delayed train, so take as a caveat to this that I haven't read any more of the book, and I'm not criticizing it in general. But that phrase struck me, because how much of it is (still) true?
The "national creed of freedom and equality", most obviously, was ALWAYS severely limited and at best aspirational and a very difficult claim to make today, except in the sense that people like to talk about those qualities as inherent to US life when they aren't.
The middle class seems to be evaporating now and historically was always restricted by everything from red-lining to the glass ceiling.
High levels of wealth and education, ditto. Among some people. Much more precarious, and (we are learning from recent studies) with much less mobility than in other rich countries.
As for the diverse private sector, it is becoming more and more consolidated into large conglomerations.
The Constitution is the hardest to argue with (or for). Are they talking about the document? the reverence with which it's viewed? the specific safeguards enshrined within? My opinion is that we are failing the Constitution by not letting it evolve, by twisting it into dogma but
I don't have evidence one way or the other.
So when I read that listing of reasons why these experts on democratic failure weren't afraid for US democracy, it felt much more like a litany of warning signs.
And for all the hot takes about nationalism and people voting against their interests and so on, the message I take from this little snippet is that the problem was not enough democracy.
If you're going to say "the people decide" and then limit that to a subset of people who count, you're not doing democracy right. don't be surprised if it runs into trouble.
The larger point: if we allow ourselves to believe that the middle class is thriving, that everyone in the US is free and equal, that the private sector is diverse -that we live in a democracy in the first place- then we miss the warning signs, and we don't work to make it better
