We believe ourselves to be living through unprecedented times, and yes, we are, but also, there’s historical context of what we’re going through that can help shed light on the idea that our democracy has never been in peril before.

In the book, Tyranny of the Minority, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt give historical context to the way things have gone. You might remember “tyranny of the minority” from the federalist papers, which created the concept that it’s possible because of the way the founders built our system, that a tiny minority would have outsized influence in our politics. This minority built its capacity through funding conservative causes, stacking the Supreme Court, and putting together a plan in Project 2025 to have its ultimate policy proposals be law of the land. We may feel that liberals have failed to make a concerted effort to make their policies important enough to be the law of the land, as conservatives wield undue influence for the share of the population they are.

We may be living in unprecedented times with the rise of Trumpism co-opting the Republican party, but we are not alone in our fight for democracy over authoritarianism. Levitsky and Ziblatt use the example of Thailand, which had a democracy for a few years, before the elites, who had lost elections for almost a decade, helped to overthrow democracy and establish a military junta, because their power was waning. We see this all over the world-democracy dying a slow death because the levers of power-the elite- are losing their grip on power.

Levitsky and Ziblatt talk about half loyalist democrats- those who never confront undemocratic acts by their party. We saw this after January 6th, which was considered a witch hunt and illegitimate by conservative politicians. There’s precedent to this type of situation. In France, on February 6th, 1934, there was a similar uprising, and the French did not adequately punish the perpetrators of the violence, and they had influence in French politics for generations to come and were important to the destruction of French democracy before it was resuscitated in later years. History is instructive, but only if we are aware of our own blunders in the ascent of Trump for a second time.

There’s also a very important concept in the book called lawfare. White supremacists in the South used violence to disenfranchise black voters in the South before turning to lawfare, or legislation to disenfranchise black voters like poll taxes and literacy tests. We see the legacy of these policies in voter ID laws and gerrymandering districts to create inequalities in representation and voting.

Lawfare is a dangerous concept to sink your teeth into, as it has been used to legally deter competition from opposition parties in Hungary’s Orban, which is the telling example Trump hopes to remake America into, establishing Republican domination for generations to come.

Levitsky and Ziblatt explore the idea that in our grade school history classes, Americans are taught about the sacredness of the Constitution and how it was a shining example of democracy, rather than most of its contents a compromise that allows less populous states to minority rule over more populous states. The electoral college was a compromise for the founders when some of our founders didn’t trust the people with direct democracy, where all voters have equal weight in an election. Our constitution is not some prescient document without any flaws, but a compromise between people vying for power and influence that often doesn’t meet the needs of a modern-day democracy.

Levitsky and Ziblatt propose reforming our democracy in the same vein as Norway has by making representation more proportional and elections more direct, and by limiting lifetime appointments of Supreme Court Justices to fifteen-to-eighteen-year terms. The authors say reforming our democracy will take a large groundswell of organization from states to achieve. Dismantling the electoral college in favor of direct democracy may lead to more representative democracy instead of tyranny of a minority. It’s important to note that our constitution is not a sacred document, but a series of compromises made to keep the states together, and are due for an update to become a fully functioning twenty-first century democracy.