Reddit reviews How Democracies Die
We found 12 Reddit comments about How Democracies Die. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A brilliant book, wise and nuanced.” —Nicholas Kristof, New York Times “Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.” —New York Times Book Review “Cool and persuasive... How Democracies Die comes at exactly the right moment.” —The Washington Post
A must read in these dark times - How Democracies Die https://www.amazon.com/dp/1524762938/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_wFj7Ab0136XNS
Aunque es cierto que la constitución ya le confiere el poder sobre el ejercito (Es una medida de seguridad para evitar golpes militares de estado) El Peje va mas allá. Quiere tener a todas las fuerzas armadas con un control directo, dándole seguimiento diario. Para que ? El ni siquiera es un experto en seguridad, si tuviera un interés legitimo, que escoja a los mas preparados y los deje hacer su trabajo.
El jefe de estado tienen amplios poderes legales para usarse en casos de excepcionales. Los lideres democráticos son cautelosos en su uso. Al contrario, los regímenes autoritarios se afianzan en el poder haciendo uso de sus poderes legales en la mayor manera posible. Al principio es por medios legales, pero conforme van adquiriendo mas poder van coartando a los contrapesos existentes que ya no pueden oponerse. Así se van haciendo del control del Ejercito, Suprema Corte, Gobiernos estatales, Congreso, etc y cada vez es mas difícil oponerse. Van jalando la cobija, pacientemente, un tirón a la vez hasta que se quedan con ella.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938
La segunda táctica es dividiendo a las sociedades. Cosas que bien sabemos el Peje es un experto.
>(1) and (3) are reforms, not a retaliation.
Reforms are what matter, not feel-good retaliation. Institutions aren't a hockey puck to pass around, they are vital and destroying them leads to collapse and its how democracies become dictatorships.
The way to fix institutions is to actually fix them, not hurt the other side so we can feel better about ourselves while we destroy the institutional foundations that are needed for the state to function.
>(2) likely involves court packing, just with a thin veneer.
It literally doesn't. You establish a completely neutral court and then the completely neutral court decides on all other members. It's literally impossible to pack that court since you always have the exact same number of votes on each side.
>(A) it does not. Otherwise tit-for-tat would not be an equilibrium strategy.
Tit-for-tat is also not a subgame perfect equilibrium strategy. FFS, the primary failure condition of tit for tat is literally called a death spiral. It makes a lot of assumptions that aren't true of the status quo. It is inherently contingent on escalation being symmetric to begin with (hence the "tit for tat"). When one side is willing to escalate disproportioantely, tit-for-tat doesn't work. It also inherently presupposes a cooperative opponent. Neither of these things is true about the GOP.
Instead when you escalate against an opponent who retaliates disproportionately, especially one unconcerned with cooperation, you just encourage a runaway effect. Especially when you are disproportionately escalating against such an opponent (and court packing would be a massively disproportionate escalation).
It's why escalation models don't begin and end at nuclear escalation. It's why we don't react to every Russian act of aggression by bombing Russian military bases.
>They have these tools already. At this point, escalation is not in their interests since they've already secured gains... but if the Democrats do not respond decisively when able, that impacts future Republican calculus wrt partisan aggression.
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>(B) Again, preferable to a one sided conflict. I'd rather my side give as good as it gets in an all out brawl, rather than indefinitely accepting defeat in a moderate one.
Then have fun in your unitary one party state.
Man, if only an expert in the field had literally written a book about why this is a godawfully stupid strategy. . . Oh look, they did!
>what do you think an authoritarian is and what has Trump done to fit that definition in your opinion?
I'm not going to waste my time explaining something every reasonable thinking person already accepts as a fact. There are numerous articles about Trump's authoritarianism and a 5 second google search will give you enough reading material on the matter. If you want a more in depth look than an online article, here is a new york times bestseller that adresses the issue.
>It's not an insult it's just a lie.
Cool story bro
了解你説的。但不可否認西方世界近年來对民主的悲觀。以下這本書裏有很有力的辯証:
How Democracies Die (2018)
https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938
就連我，在美國住了20幾年後，如今也分享該書作者(及很多西方政治學者)的悲觀。當民主的常規(norms)—點一滴地遭到侵蝕後，它不是粹死，而是凋萎。
好在有習大大和"中國特色的社會主義"30年來的崛起。習驚醒了逐漸沈睡的西方國家，譲大家突然發現，原來体制，生活方式，價值之争，根本還没有結束。美國能在一夕之間選出從黑左轉到白右的總統，從姑息到展開对中國的圍堵，也許這就是所謂民主制度的神奇吧。它不是萬霊丹，但或可解情花之毒。
Thanks for responding. During these polarized times it may feel like American democracy is the exception and that things of this nature have never happened before. It's simply not the case. Hyper-polarization has caused many democracies to fall, and there is a reason why intelligent Democrats like Obama are speaking out against it.
Just as you cannot get through to the "rabid GOP base", I fear the same is becoming true of my own party. The points I'm bringing up are not just my opinions, they're based on historical antecedents but few agree to hear them because of the intensity of the separation. We're on the same side, please don't misinterpret what I'm saying, we have to vote democrat this November. That said, in order to keep our democracy intact we can't view the entire republican base as the enemy. There are certainly republicans and moderates who are fed up with the radicalized nature of the Trump base.
To avoid incurring the same fate, we have to make sure we don't become an inviable extremist party that falls victim the very things we're fighting against. That said, I totally get why you may be feeling the way you are, I'm not asking for you to agree with me, I'm just asking that you research and consider what I'm saying.
For further reading check out: https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938
Thanks for the recommendation. I've got a lot of "left-leaning" books (well, some of them) on my list now that all sound interesting, and Debt is definitely a high priority because people keep recommending it.
Have you read any of his other work? Bullshit Jobs sounds really interesting but a couple reviews said the original article he wrote on the topic pretty much sums the book up in a much lower word count.
A few of the books on my to-read list in case anyone sees this and is interested:
Well, it maybe sounds judgmental because you're making a judgment. And making judgments isn't an intrinsically bad thing. Indeed, you couldn't live a human life without doing that at times. Here you're judging that individualistic and liberal ideals are potentially dangerous as they lead to tyranny, and you're basing that on a reading of especially Plato, and one historical example (Nazi Germany).
You might be right, you might be wrong. One reason you might have to question your conclusion is that it's predicted on an argument from personal credulity; that it's, as you say, "hauntingly familiar to me". So, you should be worried that you might be stumbling into a problem of confirmation bias -- that you might actually already hold a skepticism of individualism and liberalism on some level, and that you're now grabbing at something that confirms that preexisting belief.
One way to counter this is to read more and try and find things that might disprove your belief or give it more nuance (and some of the sources I suggested could help there). Another way is to look for more data. There's a lot of contemporary research on the problem of Democratic Deconsolidation, in which previously solid democracies turn into authoritarian dictatorships. (Previously the dominant belief in the polisci lit was that after 3 elections in which power changed hands, democracy was consolidated and would not relapse into tyranny.) So Google that and look at what people are saying. The most current and popular book on this topic is How Democracies Die, and there the authors point to partisanship a lot more than the kinds of cultural norms you do as the source of deconsolidation.
Finally, you can millitate against confirmation bias by placing your beliefs within a larger theory. So, George Will's book Statecraft as Soulcraft argues that states are successful-or-not depending on how they shape people, especially their moral conduct. That might be a theoretical frame you could use to give more substance and credibility to your position: that democracies in which people are greedy for liberty have failed to shape people in ways that sustain democracy. Then you can test and refine that broader theory in which the view about the relationship between democracy and tyranny lies.
You've hit upon an important area of research that you could write a PhD dissertation on, so, if it interests you, it's definitely worth pursuing further.
There are numerous democracies that slipped into authoritarianism despite having constitutions (some of them actually based on the US constitution). I just finished reading How Democracies Die, which was quite alarming.
https://youtu.be/vGAqYNFQdZ4
Starts corny but gets real, worth a watch
This a really goood read
https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracies-Die-Steven-Levitsky/dp/1524762938
Yep, naively playing as if the other side respects the rules.
But to do otherwise is to expose yourself to their hate and to accelerate the demise of the republic.
How is that again, how these things happen?
HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
I’ll just leave this here.