Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point

In this section, Levitsky and Ziblatt focus on how constitutional hardball tactics undermined the country’s two attempts at creating a multiracial democracy. They begin with the Reconstruction era. Republicans tried to lay the legal foundation for greater equality in the country, including by passing the Thirteenth (the abolishment of slavery), Fourteenth (the establishment of citizenship and equal rights protections for people born in the US, including formerly enslaved individuals), and Fifteenth (which prohibited restrictions on voting rights based on race) Constitutional Amendments.

Two additional laws accompanied these amendments. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 represents the first. This law placed former Confederate states under federal military oversight. These states had to agree to pass the Fourteenth Amendment and write a new state constitution guaranteeing Black Americans the right to vote before being readmitted to the Union. The 1875 Civil Rights Act represents the second law. It extended the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee equal treatment of American men in public places. These Reconstruction reforms failed because they were the work of the Republican party alone. Levitsky and Ziblatt note that the biracial coalitions created by the Republican Party “renewed a sense of threat among the white supremacist Democratic establishment” (82).

The authors detail how the Democratic Party used constitutional hardball tactics discussed in Chapter 2 to derail the country’s multiracial democratic experiment. State Democratic leaders rewrote state constitution and voting laws throughout the South to disenfranchise Black Americans. They also exploited gaps in the laws, including the Fifteenth Amendment. One vulnerability of this amendment is that “it only prohibited states from denying the right to vote ‘on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude’” (83). State Democratic leaders passed poll taxes, literacy tests, and proof of residency and property requirements to make it more difficult (if not impossible) for Black Americans to vote. These requirements were technically legal since they did not discriminate on the basis of race. However, local Democratic registrars who administered these requirements judged Black Americans much more harshly than white Americans, illustrating the selective application of these new laws.

Levitsky and Ziblatt focus on the Reconstruction era for three main reasons. First, they explode the notion that constitutional hardball tactics have never been used in the US before. The Democratic Party clearly weaponized laws to block attempts to create a multiracial democracy. Second, they show how existential fear has hindered American democracy. White Americans’ fear of losing their place in the racial and social hierarchy explains the authoritarian backlash seen in the Reconstruction era. The authors use this example to establish a precedent for the present-day US, which they then explore in Chapter 4. They argue that, once again, existential fear is threatening American democracy. Finally, they lay groundwork for their theme of The Changing Nature of the Republican Party. The Reconstruction era illustrates that the Republican Party once embraced diverse coalitions and defended American democracy.

In Chapter 4, the authors explore how authoritarian extremists and semi-loyal democrats have taken over the Republican Party. The party’s focus on racial conservatism created racial resentment among its constituents, leaving “the GOP vulnerable to capture” (101). Similar to the Democratic Party during the Reconstruction era, today’s Republican Party has weaponized the law to restrict voting access. The passage of state voter ID laws is one example. Republican leaders claim these laws help combat voter impersonation fraud, which on the surface seems reasonable. However, there are two problems with these laws. First, election fraud is nonexistent in the US. Second, the laws are biased. Unlike other democracies, citizens, particularly lower-income and minority individuals, lack photo IDs because the US does not have a national system of IDs. Thus, the real intent behind these voter ID laws is to suppress the vote of Americans of color. Republican Party leaders understand that their power is at stake if Americans of color have full access to civil rights.

Levitsky and Ziblatt also demonstrate how Republican Party leaders in the aftermath of the 2020 election violated all three basic principles of democratic behavior. As one example, many Republican politicians failed to denounce the insurrectionists that stormed the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021. To support this assertion, the authors use direct quotes from Republican politicians. Representative Andrew Clyde (Georgia) compared the insurrection to a “‘normal tourist visit’” (124). Senator Ron Johnson (Wisconsin) stated he “‘never really felt threatened’ by the insurrectionists because they were “‘people that love this country’” (124). Levitsky and Ziblatt use these direct quotes to show parallels between how political leaders responded to assaults on democracy in Washington, DC on January 6th and Paris, France on February 6th, 1934 (Chapter 2). Doing so helps reinforce how precarious the situation is in the US. Democracy died in France six years after the events on February 6th; thus, the authors argue that democracy is truly in danger in the US due partly to semi-loyal democrats taking over the Republican Party.

This section of Tyranny of the Minority has faced criticism. Critics argue that racial resentment alone does not explain why many Americans are willing to embrace authoritarianism over democratic norms and institutions. Instead, they believe that economic class is also an important driver. For example, some scholars point to the failure of both parties to protect working-class Americans as one reason for the rise of Donald Trump, who brought many working-class voters into his base with his rhetoric. Critics suggest that focusing solely on race weakens Levitsky and Ziblatt’s argument. However, the authors counter this criticism by emphasizing the data that supports the importance of racial resentment in the election of Donald Trump. They also emphasize that racial resentment is characterized by fear of status loss. They argue that the data once again suggests that Republican party leaders and their constituents have turned away from democracy because of this existential fear.