The New Yorker Radio Hour - Is Our Democracy Safe?

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

This year’s midterm elections were widely seen as a victory for democracy in the United States. Election deniers were defeated in many closely watched races and voting proceeded smoothly, even in areas where the Big Lie has taken a firm hold. But the threat of authoritarianism remains strong. David Remnick talks with Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of the best-seller “How Democracies Die” about recent political trends. “You can’t really live in a functioning democracy if you feel like each election is a national emergency,” Ziblatt says. “Because what it means is that we’re not confronting the major problems confronting our society.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We're going to continue from our last episode looking at the state of our democracy, and specifically whether democracy is really any safer today than it was a month ago before the midterm elections. A few years back, I and a lot of other people read a book called How Democracies Die, a bestseller in 2018. It was written by two professors of government at Harvard. University, Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Zibla. They spend decades researching the breakdown of democracy

in a variety of countries. Now, gentlemen, your book was published in the middle of the Trump administration, the darkest days of it. Now Trump seems to be, let's not count him till he's out, but Trump seems to be on the fade. And election deniers like Doug Maastriano and Carrie Lake, they all lost. And Brazil, Bolsonaro was voted out of power. So what? mission accomplished, democracy is healthy, you're feeling great. Let's start with you, Steve. No, not at all. The underlying fundamentals that lead us to be concerned about American democracy have not changed. Levels of polarization have not changed. Not only does Trump continue to be a major figure in the Republican Party, but the Republican Party continues to be a very radicalized

extremist force from the bottom up. And we've yet to see evidence that that, we've yet to see evidence that that has changed dramatically. So the political party as a whole, that party has not reconsidered its ties to violent extremist groups. That party has not reconsidered its acceptance of all sorts of violent rhetoric and discourse prior to during and after the January 6th insurrection. So as far as I'm concerned, we have not seen enough to conclude that American democracy is safe. Right now we're seeing the standing of Donald Trump in the Republican Party, and I want to put a pin in this and say six months from now, a year from now, we could see him still very much on the scene, if not even winning the nomination. But right now, you are seeing at least part of the establishment right-wing media distance itself from Donald Trump. We keep losing and losing and losing.

And the fact of the matter is the reason we're losing is because, Donald Trump has put himself before everybody else. If Donald Trump is on the fade, what is left behind? In other words, is democracy still imperiled if Trumpism and a radicalized Republican Party is still very much in place, if the governor of Florida becomes the standard bearer of the Republican Party instead of Trump? Daniel, could you answer that? Yeah, I think one important point is to note why people are separating from Trump. It's because they think he's a loser. They don't think it's the root to power.

So the moment that he's perceived to be a possible route to power, people will latch back onto him. So there's been no kind of principal turn against Trumpism. And so I think that's significant because it suggests that's opportunistic. And what opportunism means is that the moment it looks like there's a possibility that Trump might be the guy to ride to power, this could happen again. So that's one point. A second point is that even without Trump, the party itself has changed. I mean, there's no question. about it. You don't have people coming out and saying the 2020 election was a legitimate election. Joe Biden was legitimately elected. At best, you get people evading the question, dodging it, trying to change the topic. And as long as you have that condition, it's hard to take a kind of turn back to democracy of the Republican Party seriously. Tell me about the governor of Florida,

Governor DeSantis. What does he represent to you in terms of being similar to Trump or some kind of difference. What does that represent as a potential future scenario? He's a smart guy, and I think he realized that if he's ever going to make it in national politics, if he's going to be the Republican presidential candidate, it's very clear to Ron DeSantis that there's no going back to the era of Mitt Romney, that if he's going to be the Republican candidate in the future, whether whether it's 2024 or 28, he has to do it with MAGA voters. He has to win Trump's voters. And so if he competes with Trump, he may have to compete to Trump's right.

That says something about the future of the Republican Party. But I'm paying a close attention to what DeSantis does do, or at least sometimes pretends to do with the machinery of government. He's a guy who's made it clear to his base that he's willing to, to use the machinery of government to punish rivals, critics, and other folks that his constituents don't like. And that's really the essence of authoritarianism. Being willing to use the state as a weapon, the machinery of government, legal institutions,

as a weapon against your rivals and your opponents, is the essence of authoritarianism. And so going after businesses who are critical of his policy. pushing legislation to criminalize protest, making a big fuss about arresting voters who may have unwittingly violated electoral laws. A lot of this stuff has been more for show than for action, but it shows a political figure willing to engage in what is really at-root authoritarian behavior. And I don't want to push this too far, but he's the closest thing I've seen in American politics yet to Victor Orban.

Right, the Prime Minister of Hungary for many years. Yeah, Victor Orban is less nakedly authoritarian than Donald Trump, but he's a very effective authoritarian. Is DeSantis an authoritarian or a potential authoritarian in your view? I worry that he is, yes. Based on his behavior in Florida. Be specific. The attack on Disney for basically for its political views.

For Disney to come out and put a statement and say that, the bill should have never passed and that they are going to actively work to repeal it, I think one was fundamentally dishonest, but two, I think that crossed the line. Legislation essentially criminalizing protests in some cases. It is the strongest anti-rioting pro-law enforcement piece of legislation in the country. What is effectively a poll tax in the face of large-scale referendum victory in which felons were granted the franchise making it extremely difficult, placing a federal financial burden on former felons to be able to go back and vote.

Florida felons will need to pay all fines, restitution, and legal fees before they will be able to vote a judge issue that order today reversing a lower court's judge's decision that allowed felons to vote regardless of their financial obligations. That move could be critical for our state come election time. Yeah, this is pretty authoritarian behavior. When you look at the range of leaders of the Republican Party, how do you distinguish between right-wing conservatism and authoritarianism? I think there's two really minimal kind of criteria that one needs to recognize. One is accepting election results.

Do you accept legitimate election results or not? And when I say accepting legitimate election results, this doesn't mean remaining silent when asked, do somebody win and you sort of, again, avoid the question. You have to unambiguously say the election was free and fair. My rival beat me. Number two, the degree to which you're willing to condone or condemn. them violence, especially in the use of violence to gain or hold on to political office. And so if you have people who essentially are willing to, again, evade the question, avoid the

question, then they're trying to, they're essentially allowing this kind of behavior to happen. And both violence and election denial are at the heart of what authoritarianism is. So you can have Republicans who are very conservative on all sorts of dimensions, but who accept those two basic premises of a political order, you know, those two benchmarks are very easy to identify and apply to Donald Trump. But I think, you know, what's what's striking about, I think, Ron DeSantis is as far as I know he hasn't, really unambiguously said that Joe Biden won the election. So to me, that's a red fly. How do you see in this picture the role of Tucker Carlson? There are people that I talk with who believe that at some point he is going to cross over into

electoral politics. What kind of role does he play now and could he play? I mean, that's obviously speculation, but here is a guy who has really perfected the Trumpist discourse and done so in a much more thoughtful and articulate and often compelling way than Trump himself. He's a guy who has openly embraced what I find to be a terrifying theory of this so-called great replacement theory. I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term replacement. If you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate

with new people, more obedient voters from the third world. But they become hysterical because that's what's happening, actually. Let's just say it. That's true. Which I think is, in some sense, at the core of the fear that drives rank and fire republicanism today. Rankin fire Republicans more than anything else,

not all of them, many of them, feel like the country they grew up in is being taken away from them. they feel like they're not just, you know, at risk of losing elections. They feel like they're losing their country. And Tucker Carlson, perhaps more than anybody else in this country, has articulated that fear over and over and over again to followers. So he's obviously a very, very successful media entrepreneur. There are many, many media entrepreneurs going back to Father Coughlin who have built up a massive base and have been rumored

or there's been triggering speculation about their entry into politics. Fewer of them have actually entered into politics, but I think it's certainly possible. Earlier in this program, we talked about the Supreme Court case, Moore v. Harper, which has to do with state legislatures and their control of the electoral process. How worried are you guys about the decision that could come out of that case?

It's pretty worrisome. I'm not... Daniel and I had a much use to die I spent a lot of time talking about this phenomenon of constitutional hardball, which is finding, exploiting gaps in the Constitution or in the letter of the law to subvert the spirit of the law. But at the core is this idea, this historically fringe idea that legislatures, that the Constitution empowers legislatures to essentially overrule state constitution, states, and government courts and governors in determining the electoral rules of the game in that state.

So it's possible there's a world in which a Supreme Court ruling could legitimate or legalize a coordinated effort by, in many cases, gerrymandered state legislatures to overrule the popular vote in particular states. Stephen, you said that polarization is one of the pillars of our current situation. But we've seen times before when the country is highly polarized, elections extremely close. Why is polarization as such an anti-democratic element in our national scene? Look, polarization as such is not necessarily threatening to democracy. In fact, it's important for democracy.

Voters need choices. Modern democracy is based on electorates being able to choose options. of government. And so a certain amount of polarization is really healthy and important for democracy. Voters need to know that they have choices. Otherwise, they lose interest in and faith in democracy. So I don't have a problem with a moderate amount of polarization. What we know from history and including U.S. history is that extreme polarization, when we begin to view our rivals as an existential threat, when their worldview and their or their political program is so foreign, so threatening that we view the other side a victory by the other side as an existential threat,

that creates incentives to begin to play dirty, to use all the tools on the table to defeat your rivals. And that very quickly throws a country into crisis. Daniel, let's talk about the nature of American polarization and the political parties that we do have. Over and over again, one hears the analysis now that what characterizes the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, what distinguishes them so much is the Democratic Party, and I don't mean this as a compliment to one and as a rip on the other, simply as a description, but the Democratic Party is, with great exceptions and so on, is the party of people who are educated as opposed to the people in the Republican Party who are not, not because it's their fault. Do you think

that's fair. You read this in David Brooks and a lot of other commentators. I don't think that's the central and most relevant divide. I mean, certainly there's an element of it that you have lots of well-educated people in the Republican Party. The Republican Party for a long time was the party of the wealthy and the Democratic Party was the party of the non-wealthy. So these divisions kind of cut across parties. I think the most important division has to do with race, ethnicity, religion, and way of life. And a lot of this is overlaid in with geography. I mean, to put it, To put it very simply, the Democratic Party is a party of educated, you're right, urban city dwellers and a range of non-white segments of the electorate, predominantly are in the Democratic Party. The Republican Party is overwhelmingly despite recent trends with, you know, Latino voters in Florida at the edges in some parts of Texas and so on.

The Republican Party is overwhelmingly a white party and much more religious. And the reason this is so polarizing is that whites, for most of American history, have sat atop all of our country's social hierarchies. And in many ways, segments of the Republican electorate resent, not all Republicans, but many Republican voters resent are fearful of the changes taking place. And as long as this kind of cultural divide divides the parties, it's extremely dangerous because these cultural divisions are sources of identity. And identity are often hard to negotiate. And so this leads to extreme, extreme conflict. Daniel, I think it's almost axiomatic that when we look back at the presidency of Joe Biden, it's going to be how effectively or not did he combat the effects of the Trump era?

From the very beginning, nothing has been guaranteed about democracy in America. Every generation has had to defend it, protect it, preserve it, choose it. for that's what democracy is. It's a choice, a decision of the people, by the people, and for the people. The issue couldn't be clear, in my view. We, the people, must decide whether we'll have fair and free elections. What kind of marks do you give Biden on the very broad and essential issue of democracy and its restoration? I take him at his word that this was a hundred.

high priority, I think there was sort of two theories going in as to how to deal with it. One was to immediately address the voting rights issues and to try to really push a series of institutional reforms through, including, you know, starting to reenact the sort of elements of the Voting Rights Act that have been dismantled over the years and kind of change the rules, I try to change the rules of the game to democratize our democracy. The second approach was to focus on improving the economy, protecting the economy. We have to remember in 20, 2021, as we're coming out of COVID, the kind of sense that there was an economic crisis on our hands was very real. And so the idea of focusing on infrastructure and building up the economy. And I think

they followed that second path. That's pretty clear. They really chose to prioritize the economy over institutional form. You know, I think in retrospect, that probably was the right way to go. But I do think that it's absolutely critical to, you know, lend his legitimacy and his popularity as far as it exist to try to make reforms, including reforms, you know, things that he doesn't have any control over like the Senate filibuster, you know, putting pressure on Democrats to kind of reinstate elements of the Voting Rights Act, to change the Electoral Count Act. But I think until those kinds of reforms are undertaken, we're going to continue to be very vulnerable to the kinds of problems we've been facing all along. So you think that we're going to teeter on this brink of

democracy, no democracy, or authoritarian tendencies? versus their opposite for a very long time to come. I mean, I think one way of thinking about it is that, you know, we have a fever. Our country has a fever, and it kind of flares up at moments, and at moments it seems to be kind of under control, but there's a set of underlying illnesses, a son of underlying fundamentals. And so we get through these moments where it seems like, aha, the crisis has been avoided, but the underlying ailments are still there. And so as a result of that, you know, we run the risk of every several years feeling like our democracies in crisis,

that depending, you know, that our future hinges on the outcome of a single election. And you can't really live in a functioning democracy if you feel like each election is a national emergency. Because what it means is that we're not confronting the major problems confronting our society, climate change, inequality, et cetera, because we're so focused on trying to deal with the momentary crisis. And so I think as long as this underlying fever is there, as long as these underlying fundamentals are there, we risk every few years confronting this same challenge. Stephen? I think as long as the Republican Party continues to be an extremist force, and as long as our political institutions overrepresent and amplify that party, protect what is in effect an authoritarian

force, we're going to be vulnerable. I think the opposition, the small D Democratic opposition, the Democratic Party is far too strong for us to slide into outright autocracy. like Russia or even Hungary, it's much more likely that we will slide in and out of crisis and have a slide from sort of dysfunctional, weak democracy into, in the worst case, possibly a stolen election or very soft, unstable authoritarianism. But the main characteristic, as long as these underlying fundamentals of an extremist party and institutions that protect and amplify that party,

the dominant characteristic of our politics is going to be sliding in and out of crisis. Isn't one of the essential aspects of this whole problem as you look at the Republican Party, the problem of extraordinary hypocrisy? In other words, Chris Christie, who was a great Trump enabler,

who desperately wanted to be his attorney general, chief of staff, who helped his campaign, who spoke his campaign, who spoke up for Trump over and over and over again, now puts himself forward as a potential presidential candidate as an anti-Trumpist, as a spokesman for democracy. One could easily say the same of DeSantis and others

who were underwritten by Trump, were great supporters of Trump and now see political advantage in doing the opposite. So how does the Republican Party cleanse itself of this if that indeed is something that they want to do. I think if there's genuine breaks from Trump for those who previously were aligned with them, that's to be welcomed and encouraged.

I mean, I'm all for that kind of hypocrisy. You know, that's a healthy, I mean, that's, you know, in a sense, democratic politics is about seeking out opportunities. And if people perceive it as in their interests to break from Trump and then also have a genuine transformation along the way. And the reason the genuine transformation is important

is because if it's just about opportunism, then the moment the opportunity comes back to go the other direction, you then clip your direction and go the other way. So I think this kind of hypocrisy is not the worst thing in the world, and that's actually what's necessary, is that there needs to be a willingness to admit that there were mistakes made. And the problem is that's very hard to do that. I mean, just psychologically, I think it's hard for people who in public took these very public stances to now go back on that. But I think the health of our democracy really hinges on that. That's Stephen Levitsky, along with Daniel Ziblock. And they're the co-authors of How Democracies Die, and they're working on a follow-up book called

Tyranny of the Minority, which is expected to come out next year. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Now, not long ago, Susan Orlean was on the program reading an obituary, and it was for a tiger. Her essay was published in her column afterward, where she pays tribute to recently departed people, animals, and even sometimes things. We're featuring some of those pieces on the program as we head toward the end of the year, and here's Susan Orlean.

There was much rending of garments and high-pitched wailing at the news that Chaco Taco was no more. The frozen novelty, vanilla ice cream, peanuts, fudge, and milk chocolate conveyed in a taco. shape cone, was killed off when its manufacturer, Unilever, decided to simplify its product line. The announcement was cool and clinical. Owing to supply chain challenges and a, quote, unprecedented spike in demand for its offerings, Unilever was discontinuing a few items so that it could marshal its manufacturing efforts on a smaller set of tasty Klondike treats. Alas, the world of junk food is cruel. One day, you're enjoying your trolley roadkill gummy candy, or your Wonkaumpas, or your

altoy sours, or your Doritos guacamole. Not just enjoying, but developing a specific, urgent craving for them. And the next day, without so much as a fare thee well, they're gone. Sometimes the product is a commercial bomb, and its termination is hardly a surprise. Here's to you, McAfrica, Coca-Cola Black, Cheetos lip balm, or Ida funky fries. And sometimes, in the grocery business, for example, it's more a matter of product overpopulation. This is often the case with Trader Joe's, which is famous for having products materialize and dematerialize constantly.

Unlike Unilever, which didn't flinch when issuing the death notice for Chaco Tacos, Trader Joe's acknowledges the pain one might experience when discovering that chili lime mayonnaise has left this realm, writing, We understand that it can be disappointing, devastating even. We are Trader Joe's customers, too, after all. all. It is elemental in the human condition to rail against the indignity of mortality. Although we have always raged against the dying of the light, perhaps during these feel-bad times, losing a simple delight feels especially unsettling. Take, for instance, the case of

Costco's combo pizza, a nearly 700-calorie per slice, pepperoni, sausage, green pepper, onion, and black olive concoction that was a favorite in the chain's food courts for many years. In 2020, Costco, determining that its menu needed to be streamlined, quietly sent the combo pizza to its grave. Social media was aflame with outrage. Believing there was a chance to roll away the stone, and, individual calling herself Toby O started a petition on change.org titled, Bring Back the Combo Pizza to Costco Food Courts. It stated that the pizza is a delectable combination of meaty goodness and vegetable crunchiness.

The combo pizza ignites a party of tremendous flavor in the mouths of millions of Costco membership holders. The termination is not only saddening, but total madness, and just straight up wrong. At last count, more than 12,000 people had signed the petition, but Costco hasn't budged. And what of the chaco taco taco? There was such an outpouring at the announcement of its demise and so much triggering of desire. countless stories featuring beauty shots of pristine chaco tacos, a bit of condensation, glistening on their chocolate shells, a Pavlovian urge to have one, even if you've never wanted one, just because you knew you might never get one. A cynic might wonder if it was a little too tidy, a sort of staged Andy Kaufman-style event that brought more attention and,

declarations of love than any other ice cream novelty could even dream of. How viral to have an offer from the internet entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian to buy Chaco Taco from Unilever to save it from its fate. I can't let this happen, O'Hanian declared on Twitter, not to America, not on my watch. The suspicion that this was a fake death was so acute that that Chaco Taco Taco itself had to deny it on Klondike's official Twitter feed, writing, I want to address the rumors. I'm really being discontinued. It's not a PR stunt. But, in a coy aside, the account suggested that everyone, quote, stay tuned. In the meantime, you can buy one of the last of the dying breed on eBay for a mere 6,900.

$242. Own a truly rare item, the seller states. With the loss of Chaco Taco Taco, he adds, it's a tough time to be alive. Chaco Taco, rest in peace. Susan Orleans' essay was published in The New Yorker in August, and you can read her column afterward at New Yorker.com. Now, in a few days, I'm going to interview Ina Garten,

the great Barefoot Contessa of Food Network fame, and if you have a question, you are dying to ask INA. About a holiday favorite you can't seem to crack or some recipe, that's just a little out of your comfort zone. Send it to us. And make sure to tell us your name and where you're writing from. And I'll put some of your questions to Ina Garten when we meet. Send us those questions by emailing New Yorker Radio at WNYC.org.

That's New Yorker Radio, all one word, at WNYC.org. Or find us on Instagram and respond to our Instagram story. at New Yorker Mag. And we'll see what Eina has to say. I'm David Remnick. Thanks so much for listening. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrato. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.