During the 2024 campaign, voters were repeatedly told that democracy in America was under threat. Polls show that voters believed that — albeit for different reasons based on their political affiliation. And yet, Donald Trump, who on the campaign trail promised a movement of autocracy and quashing of political dissent, won a second term as president. He won despite striking at the heart of American democracy by trying to steal the 2020 election, then fomenting a violent insurrection when he didn’t get his way.
Trump’s second term has since confirmed those fears about American democracy. His attempt to consolidate control of American society has led to the country becoming a mixed or illiberal democracy, according to experts.
How could this have happened? And how can the country find its way out?
In his first book, “The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding”, journalist Osita Nwanevu argues that the way out of Trump’s authoritarian morass begins with acknowledging that the U.S. is not — and more relevantly, never was — a democracy.
The country was not founded as a democracy. Our institutions, like the Senate and the Electoral College, are not majoritarian. Nor is our economy, with more and more wealth flowing into the hands of the already rich and less power in the hands of workers, democratic.
