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

Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point (2023) is a nonfiction book written by Harvard political scientists Drs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. The book has two goals. First, the authors demonstrate how the US, through its antiquated political institutions, is uniquely susceptible to authoritarian rule compared to other established western democracies. Second, the authors show how to reverse the democratic backslide currently facing the country. To build rapport with readers, especially given the contentious nature of their argument (i.e., not all Americans will agree that authoritarianism is on the rise or that the Republican Party has turned away from democracy), the authors support their claims with data and historical and contemporary examples from around the world. Levitsky and Ziblatt hope to both sound the alarm and mobilize readers to action. While they believe that the situation is dire for American democracy, they also believe it is not too late to stop the USA’s democratic backsliding. Tyranny of the Minority is a New York Times bestseller.

This guide uses the 2023 Crown hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The guide and source text discuss racism, hate speech, genocide and displacement of Black Americans, and systemic inequalities throughout US history.

Summary

Levitsky and Ziblatt introduce the rise and erosion of democratic norms in Chapters 1 and 2. In Chapter 1, they focus on the foundation of modern democracies: the ability of political parties to accept election losses and support the peaceful transition of political power. There are two conditions that enable this norm to take root. First, political parties believe they can win future elections. Second, political parties do not believe defeat will bring about calamity or changes to their constituents’ everyday lives. Fear begins to take root when political parties believe these two conditions cannot be met. Levitsky and Ziblatt use examples from 20th-century Germany and 21st-century Thailand to show how this existential fear can both prevent the emergence of democracy and weaken it in established democratic countries.

In Chapter 2, the authors focus on the role semi-loyal democrats play in the death of democracies. Semi-loyalists, like their loyalist counterparts, are mainstream politicians. However, in contrast to loyalists, semi-loyalists ignore violence and authoritarian behaviors, especially within their own ranks or by allies. Semi-loyal democrats kill democracies in two ways. First, this tolerance and protection of authoritarian extremists makes semi-loyalists authoritarian enablers. Second, they use constitutional hardball, which weaponizes political laws, to undermine democracy. The authors argue that an example of this occurs in Hungary with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz political party.

Levitsky and Ziblatt turn to how constitutional hardball destroyed the first attempt at building a multiracial democracy in the US during the Reconstruction era in Chapter 3. Republicans tried to lay the legal foundation for greater equality in the country. Black suffrage dramatically increased during Reconstruction due to these legal reforms, resulting in greater political and social power for Black Americans and poor, rural, white landowners. The Democratic Party and their constituents (elite white landowners) grew fearful about the shift in political and social power. They used violence and weaponized the law to destroy this experiment, killing democratization in the South for nearly 100 years.

According to the authors, the present-day Republican party has since turned its back on democracy, which is an important theme they explore in Chapter 4. Beginning in the 1930s, the party started to lose elections. Republican political leaders turned to a new constituency: white Americans who were primarily rural and Christian. While the country is becoming increasingly diverse, the party refuses to become more inclusive. Instead, Republican political leaders and conservative pundits have fueled white Americans’ fears about losing their status and place within the country. This existential fear has taken over the Republican party, enabling the rise of President Donald Trump. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the Republican party violated all three basic principles of democratic behavior, further supporting the authors’ belief that the party has abandoned democracy.

In Chapter 5, Levitsky and Ziblatt explore counter-majoritarian institutions. They emphasize that these institutions are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, counter-majoritarianism helps maintain a healthy democracy. The institutions serve as an important check on the power of majorities (collective self-rule) and allow minority rights (civil liberties). However, excessive use of counter-majoritarian institutions can weaken democracies. The US currently faces this problem.

The authors focus on how four American counter-majoritarian institutions (the Electoral College, US Senate, Supreme Court, and the electoral system) are empowering a partisan minority in Chapter 6. The antiquated elements of these four institutions are providing a Republican bias. Thus, Republican presidential and senate candidates are winning elections despite losing the popular vote. The authors worry about this change since it shows American democracy is weakening, as they assert that candidates who lose the popular vote should not win political power in a democracy. The emergence of minority rule in the US is also having insidious effects on Americans’ everyday lives through public policies, such as the failure of legislatures to support women’s rights and reforms to increase gun control and reduce poverty and inequality—all of which most Americans support.

Levitsky and Ziblatt turn to why the US is an outlier today compared with other democratic countries in the West in Chapter 7. Most other non-US democratic countries reformed their political institutions in the 20th century, making them more democratic. While the US did reform some of its institutions, it has been unable to reform the most antiquated, including the Electoral College and the US Constitution.

In the final chapter, Levitsky and Ziblatt detail how Americans can strengthen their democracy. They present 15 steps that fall into three areas of reform: uphold voting rights; ensure that election outcomes reflect majority preferences; and empower majorities and weaken minority rule and counter-majoritarian institutions. The authors recognize that these reforms might seem overwhelming or impossible. Nevertheless, they point to several events in American history where the country’s citizens have successfully defended its democratic values. Levitsky and Ziblatt call for a democratic reform movement that mobilizes citizens from different lived experiences to participate in a sustained campaign to create a better democracy for all.