The end of American democracy?

Donald Trump and the politics of enmity

by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, New York

[This article published in Nov 2020 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.blaetter.de/.]

Nearly all living Americans grew up in the awareness that our democracy is something taken for granted. Until recently, most of us believed that our constitutional order was indestructible no matter how ruthlessly our politicians acted.

But that is over. Americans look with growing unease at the threat of our political system derailing. They register expensive government shutdowns, stolen Supreme Court seats, impeachments and a growing concern about the fairness of elections. In addition, of course, there is a presidential candidate who had already tolerated violence at rallies in 2016, threatening to have his rival imprisoned, and who, as president, undermined the rule of law by resisting congressional control and corrupting law enforcement agencies to protect his political allies and investigate his opponents. According to a survey conducted last year, 39 percent of Americans think our democracy is "in crisis" and another 42 percent see "serious challenges. Only 15 percent said that US democracy "is doing well"[1].

The erosion of democracy in the United States is no longer a theoretical issue. It has already begun. Prestigious global democracy indexes - such as those of Freedom House, Varieties of Democracy and the Economist Intelligence Unit - all show an erosion of American democracy since 2016.[2] According to Freedom House's classification, the United States is now less democratic than Chile, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Taiwan and Uruguay - and in the same category as newer democracies like Croatia, Greece, Mongolia and Panama.[3]

But the problems began long before 2016 and reach deeper than Donald Trump's presidency. To elect a demagogue is always dangerous, but it does not condemn a country to the collapse of its democracy. Strong institutions can keep corrupt or autocratic leaders in check. That is exactly what the U.S. Constitution is designed to do, and for much of our history it has been successful in doing so. America's constitutional system has held back many powerful and ambitious presidents, including demagogues like Andrew Jackson and criminals like Richard Nixon. As a result, Americans throughout history have always placed great faith in our Constitution. A 1999 survey showed that 85 percent of Americans thought it was the main reason why our democracy was so successful[4].

But constitutions alone are not enough to protect democracy. Even the most brilliant constitution does not work automatically, but must be reinforced by strong, unwritten democratic norms. Two basic norms are indispensable for democracy. The first is mutual tolerance, that is, the norm of accepting the legitimacy of its political rivals. This means that no matter how much we argue with our opponents - and no matter how unsympathetic we find them - we recognize that they are loyal citizens who love their country as much as we do and who have the same and legitimate right to govern. In other words: We do not treat our competitors as enemies.

The second norm is institutional omission. In this case, omission means that one refrains from enforcing one's legal claim. It is an act of deliberate self-restraint - we deliberately do not make full use of the power we are legally entitled to. This omission is fundamental for a democracy. Just think of what the U.S. president is constitutionally able to do: he can legally pardon anyone he wants, whenever he wants. Any president with a majority in Congress can remodel the Supreme Court by simply passing a law that increases the number of judges and then fill the new vacancies with allies. Or think what constitutional authority Congress has: It can paralyze the government by denying it funding. The Senate can use the confirmation clause to prevent the president from filling his cabinet or vacancies in the Supreme Court. And since there is little consensus on what constitutes "serious crimes and misconduct," the House of Representatives can initiate an impeachment procedure against the president for virtually any reason.

The point is that politicians can exploit the letter of the Constitution in a way that deprives it of its spirit: by changing the Supreme Court, through partisan impeachment proceedings, paralyzing the government, pardoning allies who commit crimes on behalf of the president, or declaring a state of emergency to bypass Congress. All of these actions follow the letter of the law, but in doing so they undermine its spirit. The legal scholar Mark Tushnet calls such behavior "constitutional hardball" - a reckless action by constitutional means.[5] In every failed or failing democracy, constitutional hardball is found in abundance: examples range from Spain and Germany in the 1930s to Chile in the 1970s and Hungary, Venezuela and Turkey today. Omission - the shared obligation of politicians to exercise their institutional prerogatives with restraint - is what prevents democracy from slipping into a destructive spiral of constitutional hardball.



The soft guard rails of democracy and racist exclusion

The unwritten norms of mutual toleration and omission serve as gentle guard rails for democracy. They ensure that healthy political competition does not turn into the political struggle to the death that destroyed democracies in Europe in the 1930s and in South America in the 1960s.

America has not always had strong democratic guard rails. They were missing in the 1790s, when an institutional war between federalists and republicans nearly destroyed the republic before it could take root. It lost these guard rails in the run-up to the civil war, and they remained weak throughout the late 19th century. In the 20th century, however, these guard rails proved to be mostly solid. Although the country experienced occasional attacks on democratic norms, such as McCarthyism in the 1950s, both parties by and large practiced mutual tolerance and omission, which in turn made our system of checks and balances work. In the first three quarters of the twentieth century, there was no impeachment or successful examples of the expansion of courts. Senators were prudent about the use of filibusters and the confirmation clause for presidential nominations - most candidates for the Supreme Court received a smooth confirmation, even if the presidential party did not have a majority in the Senate. And outside of wartime, presidents mostly refrained from bypassing Congress or the courts with unilateral actions. So for more than a century America's system of checks and balances functioned. This, however, was because strong norms of mutual tolerance and omission reinforced this system.

But at the heart of this history lies an important tragedy. The soft guard rails that guided America's democracy in the 20th century were built on racial exclusion and operated in a political community that was predominantly white and Christian. Efforts to establish a multi-ethnic democracy after the civil war led to violent resistance, especially in the southern states. The local branches of the Democratic Party there regarded postwar reconstruction as an existential threat and resisted it with both constitutional hardball and open violence. It was only when the Republicans abandoned reconstruction-and thus allowed the Democrats to introduce the racist Jim Crow laws in the South-that the Democrats no longer considered their competitors an existential threat. Only then did both parties begin to coexist peacefully, allowing the emergence of norms of mutual tolerance and omission. In other words, these norms could only take root after ethnic equality was taken off the agenda, reducing America's political community to whites. The fact that our guard rails were created in an era of incomplete democracy has important consequences for the current polarization - we will come back to this later.

In our 2018 book, "How Democracies Die," we show how America's democratic norms have been undermined for three decades[6] The first signs of this became apparent in the 1990s, when Newt Gingrich encouraged his Republican party friends to speak of "fraud" and "traitors" when it came to the Democrats. In doing so, he encouraged Republicans to abandon mutual tolerance. The Gingrich Revolution also led to an increase in constitutional hardball, including the great shutdown of 1995 and, three years later, an impeachment trial against President Bill Clinton-the first in 130 years.

The erosion of democratic norms accelerated during Barack Obama's presidency. Leading Republicans such as Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump told their supporters that the President and the Democrats were not patriots and true Americans. Trump and others even questioned that Obama is an American citizen. Hillary Clinton received similar treatment: Trump and other Republicans portrayed her as a criminal and made "lock her up" a chant at their rallies. So this did not come from the political margins, but the Republican presidential candidate himself put forward these ideas and at his election party conference they were cheered by the crowd - live and on television.

This development already gave cause for great concern: if mutual tolerance disappears, politicians will also give up omissions. As soon as we regard our political rivals as enemies, or as an existential threat, the temptation to use all necessary means to stop them grows. This is exactly what has happened in the past decade. Republicans in Congress treated the Obama administration as an existential threat that had to be defeated at almost any cost. Constitutional hardball became the norm. There were more filibusters in Obama's second term than in all the years between World War I and Ronald Reagan's second term combined. Congress twice crippled the administration, bringing the country to the brink of insolvency in the meantime. Obama also responded with constitutional hardball. When Congress refused to pass immigration reform or climate change legislation, it bypassed it and resorted to presidential injunctions. This action was technically legal, but clearly violated the spirit of the Constitution. Perhaps the most momentous act of constitutional hardball during the Obama years was the Senate's refusal to hear Merrick Garland, Obama's Supreme Court nominee. Any president since 1866 who was given the opportunity to fill a vacant seat on the Supreme Court before his successor was elected was allowed to do so (although not always at the first attempt). By refusing to even consider Obama's candidate, the Senate thus violated a 150-year-old norm.

The problem is therefore not only that the Americans elected a demagogue in Donald Trump - but that we did so at a time when the soft guard rails that protect our democracy are loosening from their anchoring.

White America against the Rainbow Coalition

The driving force behind the erosion of democratic norms is polarization. Over the past 25 years, Republicans and Democrats have learned to fear and hate each other. In 1960, four percent of Democrats and five percent of Republicans said they would not like their child marrying someone from the other party. Fifty years later, these figures were 33 and 49 percent, respectively.[7] In a 2016 Pew poll, 49 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of Democrats said the other party "frightened them. 8] And a recent study shows that among Democrats and Republicans alike, about 60 percent believe the other party is a "serious threat" to the U.S.[9] We have not seen such political hatred since the late 19th century.

A certain degree of polarization is normal - and even healthy - for democracy. But extreme polarization can kill it. Current research by the political scientist Milan W. Svolik shows that in highly polarized societies we are more willing to tolerate undemocratic behavior on our own side.[10] If politics is so polarized that we consider the victory of our political rivals to be catastrophic or completely out of the question, we will justify the use of extraordinary measures, including electoral fraud and violence, up to and including military coups, to prevent it. Nearly all of the more notorious collapses of democracy in history have taken place in a climate of extreme polarization, from Spain and Germany in the 1930s to Chile in the 1970s, Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela in the early 2000s. Political rivals saw each other as such an existential threat that they would rather undermine democracy than accept a victory for the other side.

What we see in the United States today is not the traditional polarization between left-wing liberals and conservatives that is common in democracies. People do not fear and hate each other over tax issues or health care policy. Rather, today's political divisions reach deeper: they are about ethnic and cultural identity[11].

As noted above, the stability of modern American democracy was based to a large extent on racial exclusion. Our democratic norms were established by and for a political community that was predominantly white and Christian-and which violently excluded millions of African Americans in the South. Over the past half century, however, American society has changed dramatically. Through extensive immigration and steps toward greater ethnic equality, our society has become more diverse and democratic. These changes have undermined both the size and social status of America's former Christian majority. In the 1950s, white Christians made up well over 90 percent of the American electorate. Even in 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected president, 73 percent of the electorate were white Christians. By Obama's re-election in 2012, their share had fallen to 57 percent, and by 2024 it is expected to drop below 50 percent.[12] White Christians thus lose their majority in elections. They also forfeit their dominant social status. Not so long ago white Christian men were at the top of all social, economic, political and cultural hierarchies in our country. They occupied the office of president, Congress, the Supreme Court and the governors' residences. They provided the CEOs, the newscasters and most of the celebrities and leading scientific authorities. And they were the face of both major political parties.

These days are history. But the loss of dominant social status can be deeply threatening. Many white Christian men believe that the country they grew up in is being snatched away from them. For many, this feels like an existential threat. This demographic change has become politically explosive because America's ethnic and cultural differences are now almost perfectly represented by the two major parties. This was not the case in the past. As late as the late 1970s, white Christians were divided equally between Democrats and Republicans. During the past half century, however, three significant changes have occurred: First, the civil rights movement led to a massive migration of whites from the Southern states from Democrats to Republicans, while African-Americans - who had recently become eligible to vote in the South - voted predominantly for Democrats. Second, the United States experienced a large wave of immigration and most of these immigrants turned to the Democrats. And third, beginning with Reagan's presidency in the early 1980s, white evangelical Christians flocked to the Republicans. As a result, the two major parties now represent very different segments of American society. The Democrats represent a rainbow coalition that includes urban and educated white voters and People of Color. Nearly half of Democratic voters are not white. Thus, Americans have divided into two parties that represent radically different communities, social identities, and ideas of what America is and should be. Republicans increasingly represent white Christian America - and Democrats all others. This division underlies the deep polarization of our country.

What makes this polarization so dangerous is its asymmetry. While the Democratic base is diverse and expanding, Republicans represent a once dominant majority in numerical and status decline. Many Republicans are therefore afraid of the future. Slogans like "Take our country back!" and "Make America great again!" reflect this sense of danger. Moreover, these fears have fuelled a worrying trend that threatens our democracy - a growing aversion among Republicans to election defeats.

Republicans and the fear of defeat

In a democracy, parties must know how to lose. Politicians who lose an election must be prepared to accept defeat, go home and try their luck again later. Without this norm of dignified losing, a democracy cannot be preserved.

For parties to accept defeat, however, two conditions must apply: First, they must be convinced that their defeat will not have ruinous consequences. And second, they must believe that they have a realistic chance of winning again in the future. If party leaders fear that they will not be able to win future elections, or that defeat will pose an existential threat to them or their voters, this will increase the stakes. Their time horizon is shortened. They turn a blind eye to tomorrow and try to win today at all costs. In other words: Desperation makes politicians resort to unfair means.

History offers many examples of how the fear of defeat leads parties to undermine democracy. In pre-World War I Europe, many conservatives were horrified at the idea of extending voting rights to the working class. Thus, German conservatives saw equal voting rights (for men) not only as a threat to their own electoral prospects but also to the aristocratic order. One leading German conservative even called full and equal voting rights for men an "attack on the laws of civilization. So the German conservatives resorted to unfair means, from rampant election rigging to open repression during World War I.

In a similar vein, the Democrats in the Southern states responded to the granting of voting rights to African Americans in the Reconstruction Era mandated by the 15th Amendment. Since African Americans were in the majority, or at least close to the majority, in most states of the former confederation, their voting rights threatened the political dominance of the Democrats there and potentially threatened the entire racist order. So the Southern Democrats resorted to unfair means: Between 1885 and 1908, all eleven former confederate states introduced voter taxes, literacy tests, property and residency requirements, and other measures to deprive African Americans of their right to vote-and thus entrench Democratic dominance.[14] These measures, along with a monstrous campaign of violence against blacks, achieved exactly what they were supposed to: Black voter turnout in the South dropped from 61 percent in 1880 to just 2 percent in 1912, and because they did not want to lose, the Southern Democrats deprived almost half the population of the right to vote, ushering in nearly a century of authoritarianism in the South.

Today, Republicans show similar signs of panic. Their election prospects are dwindling. They remain a predominantly white Christian party in an increasingly diverse society. In addition, younger voters are turning their backs on them: in 2018, the 18- to 29-year-olds voted Democrat by a margin of two to one and the 30-year-olds voted Democrat by almost 60 percent. Although demography is not a destiny, it can punish parties that stand in the way of social change. Californian Republicans, for example, had to experience this when they pursued a tough anti-immigration course in the 1990s.[15] The growing diversity of the American electorate makes it more difficult for Republicans to achieve majorities at the national level. In fact, they have received the most votes in only one presidential election in the past 30 years.

No party likes to lose, but among Republicans the problem is compounded by a growing grass-roots perception that defeat will have catastrophic consequences. Many white Christian republicans fear that they will not only lose elections, but soon also their country. As once the Southern Democrats did, Republicans are increasingly resorting to unfair means. This has been most evident in recent efforts to tilt the playing field in elections. Since 2010, a dozen republican-led states have enacted new laws that make voter registration more difficult.[16] Republican governments in states and municipalities have closed polling stations in predominantly African-American neighborhoods, "cleaned up" voter registries and created new obstacles to registration and voting. For example, since 2017, Georgia's so-called "exact match law" allows voter registrations to be rejected if the information there does not "exactly" "match" existing records. In the 2018 gubernatorial election campaign, then Secretary of State and now Governor Brian Kemp attempted to use this law to invalidate tens of thousands of registration forms, most of which were from African-Americans.[17] He also "cleaned up" the voter registry by hundreds of thousands of people.[18]

The further erosion of democracy

The Trump administration endangers American democracy like no other in modern American history. We see three potential threats: a continued erosion of democracy, a descent into dysfunctionality and minority rule. Trump has, first, attacked the media, trampled on Congressional control and called for foreign interference in our elections. Like the autocrats in Hungary, Russia and Turkey, he has tried to use the government apparatus for personal, party-political and even undemocratic purposes. Only the most recent example of this phenomenon marks the fear that in the Covid 19 pandemic, the Trump administration is shockingly trying to use the U.S. Postal Service to make voting more difficult and manipulate the election results. Throughout the government apparatus, those responsible for law enforcement, intelligence work, defense, election security, the census and even weather forecasting are under pressure to work for the personal and political welfare of the president-and against his critics and opponents. Those who refuse to do so - including inspectors responsible for the independent oversight of government agencies - are forced out and replaced by Trump loyalists. This is how autocracies are established: Leaders turn law enforcement, intelligence and other institutions into party political weapons and use them to shield themselves from investigation, to investigate and punish critics. When the referees work for the incumbent, the playing field is inevitably tilted, destroying democratic competition. Trump's efforts to clean up and corrupt government agencies are a very accurate reflection of the measures that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán uses to undermine his country's democracy.

But although the danger of an autocratic turnaround is real-especially if Trump is re-elected-important sources of democratic resilience remain. In this respect, the United States differs from Hungary, Russia, Turkey or Venezuela in some essential aspects: First, our institutions are stronger. The courts remain independent and powerful. Federalism remains robust. And in every agency that sought to clean up, gut and politicize the White House, dedicated officials have vigorously resisted. They may eventually lose individual political battles, but their resistance slows the erosion of democracy. Another difference is that the autocrats in Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela crushed a weak opposition, while America has a well-organized, well-funded opposition that can compete in elections. This opposition includes not only the Democratic Party, but also trade unions and a wide range of activist groups that have organized opposition to the policies of the current government since the day Trump took office. The strength of the U.S. opposition manifested itself in the midterm elections of 2018, when the Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives. This shows that Trump's defeat on November 3 is entirely possible. If he loses, the immediate danger of slipping into autocracy will diminish.

Nevertheless, secondly, our democracy is threatened with a descent into dysfunctionality. America's system of checks and balances often results in a divided government, confronting the president with an oppositional majority in Congress. Therefore, it only works with a certain degree of mutual tolerance and omission. If polarization undermines these norms and leads to constitutional hardball, a divided government can degenerate into a kind of permanent institutional warfare-and render the federal government unable to fulfill its basic responsibilities. In fact, the return to a divided government after 2018 has imposed welcome restrictions on the Trump government, but has not led to a well-functioning system of checks and balances. This descent into dysfunctionality prevents our governments from addressing the most pressing problems of our society-from immigration to climate change to healthcare. America's botched, slow response to the Covid 19 pandemic is only the latest and deadliest symptom of a stalled political system.

Dysfunctionality not only hinders the work of government, but can also undermine public confidence in democracy. When governments fail to respond to citizens' most pressing problems, they lose confidence in the political system. There are strong signs of such a loss of trust in today's America: the number of Americans who are dissatisfied with democracy has more than doubled in the past two decades, from less than 25 percent in 2000 to 55 percent today.[19] But when societies lose confidence in their government's ability to solve problems, they become receptive to demagogues or political outsiders who promise to "settle things" by other - radically authoritarian - means.

The rule of the minority

The third threat to our democracy is less visible, but probably the most damaging of all. Let us look at the following facts: The last two Republican presidents came into office even though they could not win the majority of the vote-and this could easily happen again this year. The Democrats easily won the 2016 presidential election and the 2018 Senate election - but the Republicans still control the Senate. In 2017, Neil Gorsuch was the first Supreme Court Justice nominated by a president who did not have a majority of votes in the election, and then confirmed by senators representing less than half the country. A year later, Brett Kavanaugh rose to the Supreme Court along exactly the same path, creating a conservative majority there that is clearly rooted in a minority - and which is now likely to be expanded even further by Amy Coney Barrett. And in February 2020, 52 senators opposed President Trump's impeachment - but because of the demographics of their states, 18 million Americans were fewer than the 48 senators who voted to remove him from office.

These examples offer a taste of life under the rule of a political minority. Our Constitution and electoral geography have unwillingly conspired in favor of Republicans. This could lead to what sociologist Paul Starr calls the entrenchment in power by a minority of eligible voters-who come mainly from rural, conservative and predominantly white areas. Certainly, minority rule has a long history in America. Our founding fathers created a constitutional system that favors smaller or sparsely populated states. But over time, this preference grew into a massive overrepresentation of rural states, with implications for three majority-breaking institutions: The electoral body that appoints the president is slightly shifted in favor of sparsely populated states, the senate is strong, and since the senate must approve the nominations for the Supreme Court, the latter is also shifted somewhat in favor of sparsely populated states. This problem is exacerbated by the creeping depopulation of rural areas: in 20 years, 70 percent of the U.S. population will live in 16 states, which means that 30 percent of the country will control 68 percent of the Senate[20].

In most phases of U.S. history, this preference for rural regions had hardly any party-political effects, since the major parties had urban and rural wings. In other words, the system has always favored Vermont over New York, but it did not favor any particular party. More recently, however, the parties have split along the urban-rural question. Today, Democratic voters are concentrated in the major urban centers, while Republicans are increasingly anchored in sparsely populated areas. This gives the Republican Party a systematic and growing advantage in the electoral body, the Senate and the Supreme Court.

The rule of a political minority is bad enough, but from it emerges an even more dangerous consequence: Republicans are driven by their fearful white Christian base into a "win now for every prize" mentality and could therefore use their advantage in the majority-breaking institutions to entrench themselves in power without winning voting majorities - and indeed even in the face of permanent opposition majorities. The Electoral Council allowed Donald Trump's election (and could do so again), while the Senate allowed his outrageous abuse of power. Similarly, the Supreme Court has largely supported Republican attempts to tip the playing field for the elections through Gerrymandering, voter registry cleanup, and new obstacles to registration and voting. In short, the Americans could be heading for a period of political minority rule.

So this election is crucial. Trump's victory would accelerate the destructive trends we have seen over the past four years: the erosion of democratic norms, the abandonment of established democratic practice, the continued attack on the rule of law, and the further entrenchment of the rule of a political minority. Should Trump rule by 2024, American democracy threatens to become unrecognizable. The stakes are high. We have a lot to lose.

This text is based on an article by the authors, which was published under the title "The Crisis of American Democracy" on 18.9.2020 on the website of the American Federation of Teachers. The translation is by Steffen Vogel.

1] David Schleifer and Antonio Diep, Strengthening Democracy: What Do Americans Think? The 2019 Yankelovich Democracy Monitor Report.

2] Noah Buyn and others, Freedom in the World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy, Freedom House, Washington 2020; Anna Lührmann and others, Autocratization Surges - Resistance Grows: Democracy Report 2020; The Economist Intelligence Unit, Democracy Index 2020.

3] Countries and Territories: Global Freedom Scores, , www.freedomhouse.org, June 2020.

4] Robert Dahl, How Democratic is the American Constitution, New Haven 22003, pp. 121-122.

5] Mark Tushnet, Constitutional Hardball, Georgetown University Law Center 2004.

6] See also Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Politics as Warfare. From Enemy to Destruction of US Democracy, in: "Blätter", 8/2018, pp. 53-68.

7] Ezra Klein and Alvin Chang, "Political Identity Is Fair Game for Hatred: How Republicans and Democrats Discriminate, www.vox.com, December 7, 2015.

8] Pew Research Center, Partisanship and Political Animosity in 2016, June 22, 2016.

9] Nathan Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason, Lethal Mass Partisanship: Prevalence, Correlates, & Electoral Contingencies, Paper prepared for NCAPSA American Politics Meeting, Washington, January 2019.

10] Milan Svolik, Polarization versus Democracy, in: "Journal of Democracy", 3/2019, pp. 20-32.

11] Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity, Chicago 2018; Alan Abramowitz, The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump, New Haven and London 2018; Ezra Klein, Why We're Polarized, New York 2020.

12] Robert Jones, The End of White Christian America, New York 2016, p. 106.

13] Pew Research Center, In Changing U.S. Electorate, Race and Education Remain Stark Dividing Lines, June 2020.

14] J. Morgan Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910, New Haven and London 1974.

15] Vanessa Williamson, Anti-Immigrant Ads like Trump's Sank the California GOP in the 90s, www.brookings.edu, 19.8.2016.

16] Benjamin Highton, Voter Identification Laws and Turnout in the United States, in: "Annual Review of Political Science", 1/2017, pp. 149-167.

17] Ted Enamorado, Georgia's "Exact Match" Law Could Potentially Harm Many Eligible Voters, in: "The Washington Post", 20.10.2018.

18] Alan Judd, Georgia's Strict Laws Lead to Large Purge of Voters, in: "Atlanta Journal-Constitution", October 28, 2018

19] Yascha Mounk and Roberto Stephan Foa, This Is How Democracy Dies, in: "The Atlantic", January 29, 2020.

20] Philip Bump, In About 20 Years, Half the Population Will Live in Eight States, in: "The Washington Post", July 12, 2018.