In October a homemade sign appeared near the Turnpike entrance that said, “Democracy is Fragile.” It is very fragile. In the Sept.-Oct. issue of Foreign Affairs, Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman wrote an essay entitled “The Fragile Republic.” They said there have been four major threats to American democracy in the past–polarization, economic inequality, an increase in executive power, and racial conflict.
They wrote that for the first time, all four threats are occurring at once. They note that structural reforms might help, but they propose that Americans should “...lean away from their ideological tendencies, material interest, and partisan preferences and instead focus on whether the measure at hand will reinforce democracy or weaken it. The most important thing Americans can do is to insist on the rule of law, the legitimacy of competition, the integrity of rights, and strong protection for free and fair elections.”
They also note that “...today’s Republican Party has abandoned its willingness to protect those pillars of democracy, despite its legacy of having done so in earlier periods. The party has tolerated increasingly repressive and antidemocratic behavior as it has sought to maintain and and expand its power.”
They conclude that it is up to the Democratic party to be the champion of democracy.
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