A Survival Guide For Democracies

Those worried about the damage Trump may do should look at how other countries withstood similar leaders

- Joshua Kurlantzick

Over the past seven months, Donald Trump has attacked what for many are the pillars of American democracy. He’s blasted the news media, sowed distrust in the election process, and fired the FBI director for apparently political reasons. He has torn at the US’s racial fabric, perhaps to embolden his base. Political scientists, historians, and other experts have been trying to gauge how much damage he’s inflicting on democracy. The New Yorker wondered if the US might be on the verge of a new civil war.

Damaging the American political process has global ramifications. But an examination of other countries’ experiences shows that Trump may not be as successful in destroying US norms and institutions as media coverage fearfully suggests. In many ways, he isn’t unique. A wave of authoritarian- leaning populists has swept the globe in the past 15 years—Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, many others—who share his disdain for institutions, the media, and politics as usual. Yet from Italy to Argentina, some countries that have elected these types of leaders not only survived them but also rebuilt their democracies—they were battered but not destroyed.

To be sure, Trump’s presidency is less than a year old, and it’s premature to declare American democracy safe. The Bright Line Watch survey, which regularly questions political scientists about the state of US democracy, found in May that “American democracy remains healthy, but its health under Trump has worsened for the first time in recent history,” according to the New York Times. There are signs that his leadership is exacerbating partisanship and reducing trust in the media and other institutions.