Of course, for Black Americans, democracy — on paper — has only existed between 1965 and 2013. But, in a democracy, all people have a right to vote. And the Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally guaranteed that right for Black Americans.

This only lasted 48 years, until 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, who had always objected to the Voting Rights Act, ruled against continuing its protection of that right. We see the results of that action as 19 states have recently enacted 33 laws limiting the rights of minorities and poor people to vote.

But back to democracy for White people and presumably for the rest of us Americans.

Through the years, some of us advocates for social justice have been noting actions that suggested possible steps toward the failure of American democracy and the potential downfall of America itself.

From their work and that of others, professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in their book How Democracies Die, provided four key indicators of authoritarian behavior they had observed around the world:

1. Rejection of (or weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game
2. Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents
3. Toleration or encouragement of violence
4. Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including media

Each of these situations can be attributed to Republicans today.

Last month American-educated Canadian scholar Thomas Homer-Dixon published a paper warning that the American state is cracked and might collapse. Therefore, Canada and the world should prepare. 

Of course, he is not alone in his assessment of democracy in America. Many American scholars are actively addressing the prospect of a fatal weakening of U.S. democracy, causing more than 150 professors of politics, government, political economy, and international relations to appeal to Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act.

One ominous data item from a national poll after the January 6 insurrection is that many Republicans embrace violence. Thirty-nine percent (39%) endorsed the statement, “If elected leaders don’t protect America, the people must act—even if that means violence.”

Digging deeper Homer-Dixon argues,

“Democracy is an institution, but underpinning that institution is a vital set of beliefs and values. If a substantial enough fraction of a population no longer holds those beliefs and values, then democracy can’t survive.”

Scholars point to various historical regimes in the democratic Western world as warning examples for the United States. Homer-Dixon chose the Weimar Republic, which preceded the establishment of Nazism in Germany. He notes five ominous parallels with the current U.S. situation.

1. A charismatic leader was able to unify right-wing extremists around a political program to seize the state.
2. The Big Lie: For the Nazis, it was the “stab in the back,” that it was socialists, liberals, and Jews that caused Germany’s defeat in WWI. For Trumpists, it is a big lie about the elections.
3. Conventional conservatives thought they could control and channel the charismatic leader.
4. Ideological opponents of the rising extremism quarreled among themselves.
5. The propagation of a hardline security doctrine in society–radicalized versions of familiar claims about threat, self-defense, punishment, war, and duty.

Jack Goldstone, a political sociologist at George Mason University and a leading authority on the causes of state breakdown and revolution, tells us that since 2016 we’ve learned that early optimism about the resilience of U.S. democracy was based on two false assumptions.

The first assumption was that American institutions would be strong enough to withstand any efforts to subvert them; and second, the vast majority of people will act rationally and be drawn to the political center so that extremist groups can’t take over.”

Hopefully, we have learned that lesson. We should be alarmed.