How Democracies Die. It Begins At the Ballot Box.

One thing we've learned about modern despots is that they almost always begin by winning elected office.

Hitler did. Mussolini did too. Ditto for Viktor Orban, Recep Erdogan, Hugo Chavez - and Donald Trump, among others.

Two Harvard political scientists, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, have written a book, "How Democracy Dies," that maps the road to authoritarian rule.

"Trump was easily identifiable as someone who is not committed to the democratic rules of the game," Levitsky told Newsweek on Thursday. “There is real cause for concern for the health of our democratic institutions.”

The four markers are:

Rejecting or showing weak commitment to democratic rules.
Denying the legitimacy of political opponents.
Encouraging or tolerating violence.
A readiness to stifle or limit civil liberties of opponents, including media.

"Those are things that democratic candidates in the U.S. simply do not have," Levitsky said. At least, until Trump.

The checklist is meant to be a litmus test for candidates—not incumbents—for good reason, Levitsky said.

“Once they’re in office, it’s too late,” he said. “The point is the best way to stop an authoritarian is to prevent them from getting into office in the first place. Once they get elected to office, it gets much more difficult to stop them.”

In modern times, countries don’t typically collapse into authoritarian rule all at once. Countries like Venezuela and Turkey voted for rulers like Hugo Chavez and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, respectively. They then devolved, with the consent of their constituency, into authoritarianism.

The slow march toward dictatorship was also the case in Russia, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Ukraine and other countries around the world.

“This is how democracies now die,” the authors wrote. “Democratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box.”

We've been warned. This is real. It's happening again and again in every corner of the world, even in the United States. Liberal democracy is under attack. One way to safeguard against it is electoral reform, the very thing Justin Trudeau solemnly promised until he somehow changed his mind.

UPDATE:

Trump's fondness for other authoritarians, including thugs such as Rodrigo Duterte, is well known.  Now he wants to join the club by advocating for the death penalty for drug dealers.