“Prone to Rot”
/Okay, that’s not what Sister Dorothy Marie taught me about American democracy in eighth-grade civics. In fact, I have recently come to the sad realization that my rosy view of our country’s beginnings, developed through mandatory study of history and civics from elementary school through college (for which I am most grateful), created an unrealistic reverence for our country’s birth as the world’s first perfect democracy. I now see that I’ve always held our constitution – the oldest written constitution on earth – as a perfect document and its framers as larger-than-life, gifted super-humans who, collectively, achieved perfection in 1788.
Until recently, I never questioned the magic of our 237-year-old constitution to guide our nation through everything the world could throw at it – for eternity. All my life I’ve revered our country’s “forefathers” as inspired, altruistic, selfless – and brilliant enough to create a recipe for successful American democracy to endure through all the ages. Seriously, I did. Then I read How Democracies Die by Levitsky and Ziblatt, and I took off my rose-colored glasses. I read How Civil Wars Start by Walters, and then Project 2025 by the Heritage Foundation and then On Tyranny by Snyder. Then came The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump by 27 mental health experts followed by The Case for Christian Nationalism by Wolfe.
And then, after all that disquieting study, my friends in the League of Women Voters introduced me to the “National Popular Vote,” proposed as an interstate compact. They helped me see that our electoral college – the only such obsolete mechanism still surviving in any democracy on earth – just ain’t workin’ no more. Did you hear what I just said? We are the oldest surviving democracy – and the only one that still hasn’t tossed out its antiquated electoral college! How my life has changed, from innocent, starry-eyed American youth to clear-eyed, realistic senior citizen!
Welcome to the “Fettered Majority”
The only good thing about getting old is gaining a long-term perspective – ironically, you can develop that perspective only by getting old. So here I am in 2025, back again with my favorite Harvard professors, Levitsky and Ziblatt, finally facing tawdry facts through their newest book, Tyranny of the Minority. I’m learning about “rigid institutions [that] are, in fact, prone to rot.” Hello, reality! Let’s face the truth.
So, what on earth is this concept of “tyranny of the minority,” and how can it help me better understand my country and better function as a responsible citizen in a rather vulnerable democracy? Thankfully, Levitsky and Ziblatt understand my naivete, explaining, “We imagine that our founding institutions were ... carefully crafted... Such a story obscures the history of compromise, concessions, and second-best solutions... we lump together rules that protect civil liberties and ensure a level playing field with ones that give privileged and partisan minorities a leg up... The former are necessary for democracy; the latter are antithetical to it... It’s not unfettered majorities that threaten us today. It’s fettered majorities that are the problem...”
Counter-Majoritarianism
Honestly, I’ve never thought about it that way. So, how did we get here? The authors explain that our revered forefathers were forced to improvise and compromise. The institutions we know today “were not part of a well-thought-out master plan... Hamilton and Madison opposed many of them.” To secure the cooperation of diverse groups – “small but influential groups” – in a convention nearing collapse, they simply had to give in. The two biggest issues were:
insistence upon small states having representation “equal” to that of large states
and the determination to protect the institution of slavery in the south
I quickly learned the key examples of what the authors call “counter-majoritarian” institutions, designed from the start to keep the majority in check, now de facto “tyrants” regularly preventing a majoritarian democracy from functioning as it was meant to function:
The structure of the US Senate. Alexander Hamilton argued that equal representation of states (as opposed to states’ populations) contradicts the maxim of republican government. He said it was “evidently unjust,” allowing small states to “extort measures repugnant to the wishes of the majority.” But, as the convention threatened to collapse, leaders compromised, allowing the two-senators-per-state structure we now all take for granted. While the House of Representatives would follow a majoritarian principle fundamental to democracy, the Senate’s structure would not.
The Electoral College. The authors state, “Likewise the Electoral College was not a product of constitutional theory or farsighted design. Rather, it was adopted by default, after all other alternatives had been rejected.” Following proposals to have Congress elect the president or actually elect our chief executive through popular vote (imagine that!), and following twenty days of debate with thirty votes, the exhausted leaders settled on the model of the Holy Roman Empire: “When the emperor died, local princes and archbishops gathered in a Council of Electors...” just as the cardinals do today when the pope dies. It’s a “medieval relic” that “provided additional advantages to both the southern slave states and the small states.” The authors tell us that the electoral college (which they capitalize and I do not) immediately became strictly partisan.
Judicial Review. While it was explicitly stated that “federal judges could enjoy lifetime tenure,” things were different back then: “Life expectancy was short...the first Supreme Court [justice]... served an average of only 8.3 years, compared with an average of 25.3 years... since 1970.”
Senate Filibuster. This too, was “not enshrined in the constitution,” but Levitsky and Ziblatt call it “a classic counter-majoritarian institution,” one which James Madison opposed. He claimed the fundamental principle of free government – majority rule – would be explicitly rejected. The authors explain that, through this measure, “Senate majorities lost the means to end debate,” with unlimited debate now the right of the minority. The filibuster has had an interesting history. There were “only twenty successful filibusters between 1806 and 1917... in 1917... a vote of two-thirds of senators could end debate... and force a vote on legislation...” Then the filibuster was “used to block antilynching legislation in 1922, 1937, and 1940 (despite more than 70 percent public support)... to abolish the poll tax in 1942, 1944, and 1946 (despite more than 60 percent public support).” The authors say that the “de facto minority veto... was rarely used... Now it is almost always used.” They refer to it as a “quiet revolution... the ironclad veto we know today is a recent invention.”
A Real Majoritarian Democracy
So, how should a real majoritarian democracy work? “Democracy is supposed to be a game of numbers: the party with the most votes wins. But in American today, parties that win electoral majorities often don’t have the chance to govern and sometimes don’t even win.” The authors say that “politicians who are committed to democracy... must always do three basic things:
Respect the outcome of free and fair elections, win or lose... accepting defeat... unambiguously...
Reject violence...
Always break with antidemocratic forces. Democracy’s assassins always have accomplices – political insiders who appear to abide by democracy’s rules but quietly assault them.”
“Democracies get into trouble,” we are told, “when mainstream parties tolerate, condone, or protect authoritarian extremists – when they become authoritarian enablers.” The authors say loyal democrats must follow four basic rules:
Expel antidemocratic extremists from their own ranks.
Sever all ties – public and private – with allied groups that engage in antidemocratic behavior.
Unambiguously condemn political violence and other antidemocratic behavior.
When necessary, join forces with rival pro-democratic parties to isolate and defeat antidemocratic extremists.
Levitsky and Ziblatt advise that, “when mainstream parties tolerate, condone, or tacitly support antidemocratic extremists, it sends a powerful message that the cost of antidemocratic behavior has been lowered... They do not oppose democracy out of deep-seated principle but are merely indifferent to it.” They caution that “extremism... is the path of least resistance.”
Constitutional Hardball
And then they go on to introduce the concept of “constitutional hardball,” acting in ways that “distort or subvert the very purpose for which the laws were written.” Once again, they identify four ways politicians play constitutional hardball:
Exploiting gaps – that is, pushing forward with a questionable behavior that is not explicitly prohibited. The perfect example they give (which I well remember) is “the U.S. Senate’s 2016 refusal to allow President Barack Obama to appoint a new Supreme Court justice in the wake of ... Scalia’s death... In the 150-year span between 1866 and 2016, the Senate never once prevented an elected president from filling a Supreme Court vacancy... [or] refused to hold hearings on the grounds that is was an election year... Because the Constitution does not specify when the Senate must take up presidential court nominees, the theft was entirely legal.”
Excessive or undue use of the law – a perfect example is presidential pardons. The authors note that “presidents... could not only systematically pardon friends, relatives, and donors but also legally pardon political aides and allies who commit crimes on their behalf.” They caution that “undue use of constitutional provisions can kill a democracy.”
Selective enforcement – “Wherever nonenforcement of the law is the norm... enforcement can be a form of constitutional hardball... [Politicians] may enforce the law selectively, targeting their rivals... [and then] the law is weaponized... Putin is a master.” They relate the story of the Russian oligarchs who retained their fortunes by staying “out of politics” as requested – and the story of Khodorkovsky, the oligarch who “continued to criticize Putin [and] was arrested and charged with tax evasion, fraud, embezzlement, money laundering... [and] spent a decade in prison.”
Lawfare – designing “new laws... crafted to target opponents.” Often these laws are “precisely tailored to disqualify specific opposition,” and the work is often gradual and almost imperceptible.
The Details I Never Learned
Interestingly, the authors provide this example of constitutional hardball: “constitutional hardball was perfected in one of the world’s oldest republics: the Unites States. And its effect there was equally devastating.... [In] Wilmington, North Carolina... late 1870s.” Disaffected poor white tenant farmers joined with Black citizens to form the Fusion party when both groups were feeling “neglected by the white merchant class that dominated the Democratic party.” When the state legislature restored direct elections for local offices, in response, “three Black aldermen were elected... Black magistrates sat in the courthouses... Black health inspectors, Black registrars of deeds, and a Black superintendent of streets. Black postal workers delivered mail...”
And the fierce reaction? A “counterrevolution... a violent crusade to restore white rule... One Democratic leader [declared] ‘We cannot outnumber the negroes. And so we must either outcheat, outcount, or outshoot them.’” The authors provide this horrifying description of the actual outcome: “1898... Democrats demanded that the Fusionists withdraw all their candidates for county office... [the] entire county slate of Republican candidates withdrew... ‘if you find a negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls and if he refuses, kill him! Shoot him’... Democratic thugs... threatened poll workers and directly stuffed the ballot boxes... On November 10, they launched a violent coup... five hundred white supremacists... shooting bystanders, attacking Black churches... Black men were gunned down on the street and in their homes... forced all members of the biracial city government... to resign... were run out of town at gunpoint... the coup’s leader became the new mayor... Democrats quickly amended the state constitution to impose a series of suffrage restrictions.”
Legal Hatred
That retelling of ugly truths from our country’s past is followed by several similar stories I’ll let you read for yourself. But it all begins with the reminder that “Neither equal rights nor the right to vote – two basic components of modern democracy – was enshrined in the original constitution.” Apparently the constitutional amendments (including the thirteenth and fourteenth) meant to rectify this oversight created mayhem in the south. Imagine the rage of former slaveholders when, “within one year, the percentage of Black men in America who were eligible to vote rose from 5 percent to 80.5 percent”! This is when the Ku Klux Klan emerged in Tennessee and soon, the authors say, “Democrats across the South began to undermine democracy through legal channels.” One method was the poll tax. Then, in 1903, came “one of the most momentous decisions in United States Supreme Court history,” Giles v. Harris, in which the court “refused to strike down Alabama’s racial voting restrictions, opting instead to stand idly by as disenfranchisement proceeded.”
Just five years later, when Benjamin Harrison was elected president and Republicans regained both houses of Congress, the “most ambitious voting rights bill in U.S. history” was undertaken; it died by filibuster. “Black turnout plummeted from 61 percent in 1880 to an unthinkably low 2 percent in 1912.”
Well, if you haven’t removed your rose-colored glasses by now, I give up. It’s an ugly tale that was mentioned, briefly and somberly, in my education as a youth. Only by reading a book like Tyranny of the Minority was I able to fully appreciate the imperfections of our American democracy. I encourage you to read it too. You’ll be reminded of Strom Thurmond and his 1948 “Dixiecrats,” and then you’ll be refreshed by the sharp turn of the Democratic party in 1964, when, according to the authors, “Democrats began to establish themselves as the party of civil rights, attracting a majority of Black voters.” That’s the time, they explain, that “Republicans... repositioned... as the party of racial conservatism... America’s de facto White Party.” They remind us that “the GOP won the largest share of the white vote in every presidential election after 1964.” (emphasis theirs) Okay, maybe not entirely “refreshing.”
Multiracial Democracy
And then, of course, Ronal Reagan added the “new prong – white Christian strategy.” (I shared my recent study of that philosophy in an article called Hate on a Page.) But it worked! Reagan was re-elected in 1984 “with 72 percent of the southern white vote and 80 percent of white evangelicals... In 1994... [Republicans] captured the House... [for the] first time since 1955.” Our authors explain that “The rise of multiracial democracy remade America. But it also posed an electoral threat to the Republican Party... an overwhelmingly white Christian party.”
After Obama’s 2012 re-election, the RNC “autopsy” recommended “support [for] immigration reform that offered undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship... [an] example of what losing parties are supposed to do... adapt to changes in the electorate,” Levitsky and Ziblatt recount. “In 2012, Black turnout exceeded white turnout for the first time in US history... the Republican party response,” the authors explain, was to “shrink the electorate... in the 2010 midterms... the GOP...aimed at restricting access to the ballot... Prior to 2005, no U.S. state required photo identification to vote... thirteen states – all Republican led – passed strict photo ID laws.” The goal, the authors say, was “designed to dampen turnout among lower-income, minority, and young voters.”
The authors explain that Obama’s presidency made multiracial democracy plain to all
Americans – and there was a backlash: the Tea Party, established by the white Christian nationalists who felt they were “losing their country to groups they failed to recognize as real Americans,” the “key to winning over the racial conservatives.” The story continues: “By 2020, no anti-Trump faction of any significance remained in the Republican Party...[it was] deeply immersed in white resentment politics... 84 percent of Trump voters said they ‘worry that discrimination against whites will increase significantly’... [they] embraced the ‘great replacement theory.’” In 2021 Tucker Carlson warned that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.”
When Biden was elected in 2021, “the bulk of the Republican Party... refused to publicly recognize Biden’s victory.” Here Levitsky and Ziblatt remind us of the three principles of democracy, stating that “few principles are more essential to democracy than admitting defeat.” Yet, as they report, “on January 6, nearly two-thirds of House Republicans voted against certification of the results.” Later, when the “January 6 Committee” investigated the violent assault on the nation’s capitol, the RNC accused the committee of “persecuting ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”
The authors warn, “Authoritarian forces only succeed when they are tolerated and protected by mainstream politicians... loyal democrats publicly denounce such behavior, sever ties to individuals and groups responsible for such behavior, and, when necessary, join forces with partisan rivals to isolate antidemocratic extremists and hold them accountable.” Levitsky and Ziblatt walk us through the history of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, passed with strong bipartisan support and renewed in 1982 and 2006. Then they remind us of the 2013 Supreme Court decision that struck down a key provision of the Act, opening the door to aggressively purged voter rolls, closing of hundreds of polling stations, and effectively restricting voting by nonwhite voters.
A Powerful Partisan Minority
They move then to the 2021 attempt to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, supported by 63 percent of Americans. But “the Democratic majority could not secure the sixty votes needed to overcome a filibuster.” It was “blocked by a minority in the Senate,” and the authors ask, “How did we get to a place where a partisan minority can wield such power?” While the authors concede that “democracy needs rules that limit the power of majorities... ‘liberal’ democracy is based on two pillars... majority rule and... minority rights.’” The Bill of Rights protects individual liberties from “the whims of temporary majorities.” They offer a 1935 example of majority abuse in Minersville, Pennsylvania, when Jehovah’s Witnesses (a minority) were victims of violence by the majority because they refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school. They explain that both majorities and minorities must be appropriately constrained, reminding us of the need for “a level playing field.” That’s why it should not be terribly simple to amend the constitution; the point should not be to “recast to the advantage of the present-day incumbents.” It’s appropriate that such actions require a supermajority in order to “disperse power and reduce the likelihood that a single party will control all branches and levels of government.”
However, we are told, “Democracy is more than majority rule, but without majority rule there is no democracy. Two domains must always remain within reach of majorities: elections and legislative decision making... In the United States, counter-majoritarian institutions far more often protected southern slave-holders, large farming interests, and other wealthy elites than they protected vulnerable minorities.” The reader is cautioned to “distinguish clearly between those that protect minorities, preserving democracy, and those that privilege minorities by granting them unfair advantage, thereby subverting democracy.” Sometimes decisions made in the far distant past are holding in check the will of the majority, but realize that, “the more difficult a constitution is to change, the firmer the grip of the dead hand.” What we must protect against are “transient whims of present-day majorities.”
It seems the balance between essential counter-majoritarian institutions and excessively counter-majoritarian institutions is the key to a healthy democracy. The reader finds a list of our constitution’s “unusually large number of counter-majoritarian institutions: The Bill of Rights, a Supreme Court with lifetime appointments, federalism, a bicameral Congress, a severely malapportioned Senate, the filibuster, the electoral college, extreme supermajority rules for constitutional change (a two-thirds vote of both houses, followed by approval of three-quarters of the states). When the balance is off, partisan minorities are empowered at the expense of the electoral and legislative majorities, but such an imbalance has been “baked into the Constitution.” We are reminded that the world’s oldest written constitution (ours) is “a product of a pre-democratic era... equal rights and full suffrage did not exist anywhere in the world... Neither the right to vote nor civil liberties, two essential elements of modern democracy, were included in the original Constitution.”
Levitsky and Ziblatt remind us that we tend to view our Constitution as a “virtually unassailable document.” (I know I certainly did until recent years.) They warn us that we believe it was all part of a “carefully calibrated system of checks and balances designed by extraordinarily prescient leaders.” (guilty as charged) And, of course, we now know that was not the case – and we know that Alexander Hamilton and James Madison opposed much of it. “They improvised and compromised [to] secure cooperation of diverse groups,” sometimes granting outsized privileges to small, influential groups threatening to derail the whole thing. I now understand that pressure by small states and slave states seeking equal representation rather skewed the whole thing, as they insisted on counter-majoritarian institutions. Their biggest victory, the authors say, was the agreement to let them count each of their slaves as 3/5 of a person, increasing “the South’s representation in the House... by 24 percent... [for] control of nearly half the House.”
The Minority as Tyrant
“If the presidency were to be determined by state legislatures that are themselves governed by partisan minorities, America will have fully descended into minority rule.” While the authors assert that “the United States is especially prone to democratic crisis and even backsliding... many Western societies... have experienced a backlash against growing diversity... yet their democracies remain.” They provide fascinating examples from Norway, Poland, Argentina, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden and more. And, they concede, America did take some important steps toward majority rule in the twentieth century. They explain that “most twentieth-century democracies also took steps to limit minority obstruction within legislatures,” although judicial review still threatens majoritarian democracy in 26 of the world’s 31 established democracies.
And yet... “Whereas every other presidential democracy did away with indirect elections during the twentieth century, in America the Electoral College remained intact.” Along with our bicameral legislature with a “severely malapportioned” upper chamber, rules that “allow parties that win fewer votes to win legislative majorities,” lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices, and having a constitution that is “the hardest in the world to change,” the authors say “we are now more vulnerable to minority rule than any other established democracy.”
The electoral college has seen “more than seven hundred attempts to abolish or reform” it. Levitsky and Ziblatt share the story of Birch Bayh’s efforts toward direct presidential elections in 1966, a bill that had huge public support and, “by 1969... seemed unstoppable.” But “longtime segregationist senator Strom Thurmond promised a filibuster,” and “the bill died before it ever came up for a vote.” Bayh tried again in 1971, 1973, 1975, and 1977. Despite 75-percent public support, the bill never survived filibuster and, the authors remind us, “the Electoral College still stands.”
Remember the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment? That’s the next example the authors share of a bill supported by the vast majority of American individuals and passed by Congress, but simply never ratified by enough states. “We are trapped, it seems, by our institutions,” they say. “Is there no exit?” They point out that, although “a solid majority has embraced the principles of diversity and racial equality... in America majorities do not really rule... The conditions that gave rise to the Trump presidency – a radicalized party empowered by a pre-democratic constitution – remain in place... either America will be a multiracial democracy or it will not be a democracy at all.”
What to Do?
The Harvard professors insist that “America must reform its institutions... dismantling spheres of undue minority protection and empowering majorities... in line with the balance of voter preferences.” They suggest three “overdue constitutional and electoral reforms” that I find downright exciting. I hope you’ll read these thoughtfully:
Uphold the right to vote. Pass a constitutional amendment; establish automatic registration at age 18; expand early and mail-in voting; make election day a Sunday or holiday; restore voting rights to ex-felons; reinstate federal election oversight; and employ nonpartisan referees to oversee elections.
Ensure that election outcomes reflect majority preferences. Abolish the electoral college in favor of national popular vote; proportion the number of senators per state to the states’ populations; proportion representation to the share of the vote won; create independent redistricting commissions; allow the House to expand in line with population growth.
Empower governing majorities. Abolish the Senate filibuster; regularize Supreme Court appointments so every president has the same number of appointments per term; make constitutional amendment easier by notrequiring ratification by ¾ of state legislatures.
Americans in general – and I, personally – must stop regarding our framers “as if they were endowed with almost divine or supernatural powers.” The authors remind us that “no set of rules is ever ‘best practice’ for all time and under all circumstances.” As they say so eloquently, “rigidly unchanging institutions are, in fact, prone to rot.”
Such improvements, they explain, require continuous political pressure as well as “reckoning with our not-so-democratic past... building an inclusive, multiracial democracy that all Americans can embrace.” The authors comment: “The fact that our constitutional system survived [the first] four years of the Trump presidency could be taken as evidence that the threat wasn’t really so serious... This is deeply mistaken... Americans are understandably worn down... Our democracy remains unmoored. History is calling again... Standing up for democracy means standing up for ourselves.”
What You Can Do
1. Get a copy of Tyranny of the Minority and read it.
2. Learn something about the electoral college and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact by reading my article, first published by the League of Women Voters. (And you can learn how to pronounce it here!)
3. Read my summary of Levitsky and Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die, and then consider reading that book.