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Democracy

Friday 19th of April 2024

Democracy A 2017 international study by the Pew Research Center on people’s commitment to democracy revealed troubling news. Fifty-one percent of U.S. respondents described themselves as “dissatisfied” with how American democracy is working, and 46 percent said they were open to forms of government other than representative democracy, including rule by a strong leader or by groups of experts. This tendency was more pronounced among people aged eighteen to twenty-nine than among those over age fifty. “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century,” Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy According to V-Dem, a Swedish research institute, almost three quarters of the world's population now live in autocracies against less than half a decade ago. That vertiginous shift justifies the term “democratic recession”. Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 29, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy The alternative to a loyal opposition is not consensus but behind-the-scenes intrigue or chaotic issue-by-issue fights. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy An illiberal democracy is centered on the supposed needs of the community rather than the inalienable rights of the individual. It is democratic because it respects the will of the majority; illiberal because it disrespects the concerns of minorities. Madeleine Albright, Fascism: A Warming   © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Any American watching Israel's turmoil  must recognise the parallels between the two countries — not just today, but stretching back to the founding of both states. Israel and the US are two improbable creations that went on similar journeys. Both may soon end with the dismantling of democracy. …  Both states hit identity crises when the ethnic  majority realised it risked becoming a minority. … It’s often said nowadays that Israel can be a Jewish state or a democracy, but it can't be both. Similarly, the US can be a white-ruled ethnostate or a democracy, but not both. Simon Kuper, Financal Times, August 3, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy As a rule of thumb, a democracy is in good health  to the extent that its politics do not matter. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, January 19, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy  Before you can begin to have democracy  you need a country in which everyone has some stake and some taste of its promise. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy The belief that a very high level of participation is always good for democracy is not valid. As the events of the 1930s in Germany demonstrated … an increase in the level of participation may reflect the decline  of social cohesion and the breakdown of the democratic process; whereas a stable democracy may rest on the general belief that the outcome of an election will not make too great a difference in society. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy The big question of our time, in my opinion, is whether the media in its daily tussle with an impatient, powerful president has the spunk, the stuff, and the public support to stand up and say, Mr. President, this far and no further. If the media, for whatever reason, fails to meet this challenge, then democracy, as we have known it, will slowly die. Marvin Kalb © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The biggest threat to democracy is the use of conspiracy theories by governments, who then try to deligitimise opposition or any independent thought by attributing them to conspiracies. Richard J.Evans © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy But note that there is no procedure-less democracy. … Procedures have to enable losers to have their say, and winners to have their way, and allow not just for losers and winners to switch places but for new winners and losers to enter the game over time. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy But saving democracy? The way to do that is to fix the economic and social policies that have been stripping liberal societies of legitimacy in the eyes of their citizens. Philip Stephens, Financial Times, October 8, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy But the threat we face is a new one; it requires new thinking. Through most of American history, both parties, while excluding large numbers of Americans from the franchise, basically accepted the choice of the electorate — and that is no longer true.  The supreme danger now is not that voters in urban counties will have a harder time  finding a drop box, or that some states will  shorten the mail-ballot application window. The danger is that the express will of the American people could be overthrown. George Packer, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Cause everything that hitler And mussolini do, Negroes get the same Treatment from you. You jim crowed me Before hitler rose to power — And you're STILL jim crowing me Right now, this very hour. You say we're fighting For democracy. Then why don't democracy Include me? from “Beaumont to Detroit: 1943” by Langston Hughes, addressing America during World War II © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy The combination of a would-be authoritarian and a major crisis can, therefore, be deadly to democracy. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  [because of “rally ’round the flag” effects] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The crisis of democratic government is therefore really a crisis of democratic society. Ganesh Sitaraman, The Great Democracy © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Jane Addams © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracies cannot survive without some  essential counter-majoritarian institutions. But they also cannot survive — at least as democracies — with excess- ively counter-majoritarian institutions. And that is where the United States finds itself today. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy  Democracies do not die dramatically. They slowly fade away. David Cay Johnston, It's Even Worse Than You Think  © 2019 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracies work best – and survive longer – where constitutions are reinforced by unwritten democratic norms. Two basic norms have preserved America's checks and balances in ways we have come to take for granted: mutual toleration, or the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals, and forbearance, or the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy can be defined as a civilised civil war. It recognises the existence of differences of opinion, but resolves these peacefully,  through elections, which are the fundamental institution of representative democracy. Elections determine legitimacy. But to do so they must be recognised as fair. A lie about the outcome of an election, then, is not just any lie. It is not even just any political lie. It directly threatens democracy. It is an attempt to overthrow elections as the arbiter of power. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, May 2, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy didn't prevail. It lucked out. Gideon Rose, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021, on the failure of the January 6, 2021, mob assault on the Capitol to prevent confirmaiton of Biden's electoral victory © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy Dies In Darkness The Washington Post's tagline © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy in the Middle Ages, as in modern times, got its start under the guidance of a select few who foisted their program on the confused asprations of the people. Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy is a work in progress. So is democracy's undoing. David Frum, Trumpocracy  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy is not only a form of state, it is not just something embodied in a constitution; democracy is a view of life, it requires a belief in human beings, in humanity. … I have already said that demcracy is a discussion. But the real discussion is possible only if people trust each other and if they try fairly to find the truth. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy is premised on elections and changes of government. If you have one party that doesn't know how to lose, then democracy can't survive.  Daniel Ziblatt, Rolling Stone, June 16, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy is under siege because its elites have allowed unfettered markets to run roughshod over the postwar social contract, leaving voters trapped in a lethal equilibrium of low growth and rising inequality. Philip Stephens, Financial Times, April 8, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. Clement Attlee, speech at Oxfrd University, June 14, 1957 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide. John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democracy's assassins always have accomplices  — political insiders who appear to abide by democracy's rules but quietly assault them. These are what [Juan] Linz called “semi-loyal” democrats. … Indeed, throughout history, cooperation between authoritarians and seemingly respectful semi-loyal democrats has been a recipe for democratic breakdown. …  History teaches us that when mainstream poli-  ticians take the more expedient path of semi- loyality … extremists are often strengthened and a seemingly solid democracy can collapse upon itself. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democratic citizenship requires  a degree of empathy, insight, and kindness that demands a great deal of all of us. There are easier ways to live. Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy [T]he democratic process is unlikely to be preserved unless the people of a country preponderantly believe that it is desirable, and unless this belief comes to be embedded in the habits, practices and culture of that people. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy Democratic revolutions are contagious. If you can stamp them out in one country, you might prevent them from starting in others. Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, December 2021 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy The democratic system in this country is in crisis as never before in my lifetime. It's the ultimate destruction of the legislative process.  David Obey [1999] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The electoral road to breakdown is dangerously deceptive. With a classic coup d'état … the death of a democracy is immediate and evident to all. The presidential palace burns. The president is killed, imprisoned, or shipped off into exile. The constitution is suspended or scrapped. On the electoral road, none of these things happen. There are no tanks in the streets. Constitutions and other nominally democratic institutions remain in place. People still vote. Elected auto- crats maintain a veneer of democracy while eviscerating its substance. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy For the first time this century, among countries with more than one million people, there are now fewer democracies than there are non-democratic regimes. Timothy Garten Ash, Prospect magazine, January/February 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all societies eventually will. Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, October 2018 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy  Gone are the days of military coups.  Edward Luce, Financial Times, January 13-14, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The great advantage of the Americans is to have arrived at democracy without having to suffer democratic revolutions, and to be born equal instead of becoming so. Ganesh Sitaraman, The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy. Theodore Roosevelt © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy The greatest threat to our democracy  comes not from demagogues like Mr. Trump or even from extremist followers like those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 but rather from the ordinary politicians, many of them inside the Capitol that day who protect and enable him. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Herin lies the main lesson of the Weimar Republic. If liberal democracy fails to deliver economic prosperity for a sufficiently large portion of the population over long periods, it ends — along with the financial and economic institutions it created. Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times, May 21, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy [T]he history of modern democracy, in the United States and many other parts of the world, including much of Europe and Latin America, has been riven with a constant tension between the rule of expert truth, on the one hand, and the rule of majority instincts on the other. But too much of either in isolation — elite knowledge or popular consensus, without the corrective of the other — constitutes a danger to the whole edifice. Sophia Rosenfeld, Democracy and Truth © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy If American democracy, long a beacon, cannot self-correct, then all democracies are at risk. Roger Cohen, New York Times, October 29, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy If and when US democracy falls, giggling complacency, not moustache-twirling villainy, will be the presiding atmosphere. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, December 7, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy If  democracy is justified  in governing the state, then it must also  be justified in governing economic enterprises; and to say that it is not  justified in governing economic enterprises is to imply that it is not justified in governing the state.  Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy If we do not as Americans confront the crisis of ethics and integrity in our society and among our leaders in both the public and private sector – and regrettably at times  even the nonprofit sector – then American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years. Rex Tillerson, VMI commencement address, May 16, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy In the 1990s, the wealthy backed democracy more strongly than any other income group in America and Europe. That has turned upside down. The poor are now democracy's strongest fans, the rich its biggest skeptics.  Edward Luce, The Retreat of Western Liberalism  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy In our democracy, power is derived from the people, but structures empower some people over others. The Senate empowers a minority of predomi- nantly white conservative voters to elect enough senators to block the will of the majority. Over the past few decades, changes in the Senate's rules have meant that senators representing as little as 11 percent of the population can deliver the obstructionist agenda these white conservative voters desire, blocking progress across most issues. This dynamic renders these voters abnormally powerful. This group is not just a minority, it is a superminority. Adam Jentleson, Kill Switch © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy in the contrast between the two aforementioed models of representation: delegate-style representation and trustee represenation. … In delegate-style representation, individuals are regarded as the best stewards of their interests and elected officials fulfill their responsibilities when they translate constituent interests and demands, as directly as possible, into law and policy … the trustee model does not require treating political rights as being first and fore- most the rights of discrete individuals pursuing individual self-interests. In trusteeship, repre- sentatives are responsible for understanding and pursuing the good of their constituents. While delegate representatives might see this through the lens of individual constituents, many believe that trusteeship can more easily take a longer and broader view … Elizabeth F. Cohen and Cyril Ghosh, Citizenship © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy … in the end all possible improvements of the infractructure of democracy depend on one thing: that intermediary institutions be not only accessible and autonomous but also assessable, as the British philosopher Onora O'Neill has put it. If they are to contribute to citizens' judgments, it matters that citizens can also judge them. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules [Intermediary institutions include political parties and the press] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy In the end,  the public's exasperation with democracy is an implied self-criticism. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, September 9, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy It couldn’t be more simple. A vote for Republicans is a vote to destroy Democracy. Rob Reiner, 8:03 AM – Apr 20, 2022, on the Republicans during the Trump era © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy It is impossible to excel at disinformation and democracy at the same time. Thomas Rid, Active Measures © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy It is of course easy to show that on any definition that is not simply vacuous, a majority might  harm the interests of a minority, might  act unjustly, might might indeed act tyranically. But if every other alternative kind of regime would also permit injustice and tyranny, then it can hardly be counted as a unique defect of democracy or the majority principle that they do not totally foreclose these possible wrongs. Surely a question to ask is whether democracy is more prone to this kind of wrongdoing than any of the alternatives to it. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy It’s often said nowadays that Israel can be a Jewish state or a democracy, but it can't be both. Similarly, the US can be a white-ruled ethnostate or a democracy, but not both. In both countries, about half the dominant ethnic group is tempted by an ethnostate. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, August 3, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Key to the smooth running of democracy is the indifference of much of the population, much of the time. Voters are crucial as an eye on things, as a righter of the ship of state when it lists. That requires a measure of knowledge. Round-the-clock absorption is something else. It causes politics to take place in too loud a setting, laws to be made in too hot a smithy. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, November 25, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy … let me once again view democracy as, ideally at least, a political system designed for citizens of a state who are willing to treat one another, for political purposes, as political  equals. Citizens might view one another as unequal in other respects. … But … they … assume that all citizens have equal rights to participate, directly or in- directly through their elected represen- tatives, in making the policies, rules, laws or other decisions that citizens are expected (or required) to obey … Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The mission falls to each of us, each and every day. Democracy itself is in peril, here at home and around the world. What we do now, how we honor the memory of the fallen, will determine whether democracy will long endure. Joe Biden, Memorial Day 2021 speech at Arlington National Cemetery © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Mutual toleration means that political opponents must accept the  legitimacy and legality of their opponents.  If elected leaders can send their opponents to prison and otherwise discredit them, then leaders are afraid to relinguish power lest they be imprisoned themselves. The criminalization of politics is a kind of toxin that breaks down the cooperation required to sustain a democracy. Jonathan Chaitt, New York, September 14-27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy Polyarchy  is … a convenient way of referring to a modern representative democracy with universal suffrage. … [It] … is different from representative democracy with restricted suffrage, as in the nineteenth century. It is also different from older democracies and republics that … lacked many of the crucial characteristics of polyarchical democracy, such as political parties, rights to form political organization to influence or oppose the existing government, organized interest groups, and so on. … Attached to the institutions of polyarchical democracy that help citizens to exercise influence over the conduct and decisions of the government is a nondemocratic process, bargaining among political  and bureaucratic elites.  Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy Public apathy and political ignorance are a fundamental fact today, beyond any possible dispute; decisions are made by political leaders, not by popular vote, which at best has only an occasional veto power after the fact. The issue is whether this state of affairs is, under modern conditions, a necessary and desirabe one, or whether new forms of popular participation, in the Athenian spirit though not in the Athenian substance, if I may phrase it that way, need to be invented. M. I. Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern  [1973] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The remarkable thing about American democracy is this: Just enough of us, on just enough occasions, have chosen not to dismantle democracy but to preserve democracy. Joe Biden, November 2, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy  Robinhood easing access to stock trading does not democratise the stock market any more than Purdue Pharma  democratised opioid addiction. Democracy is about voice, not trading. Jerry Davis, University of Michagan professor of sociology and management, quoted by Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, February 7, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy The soft power of democracy is not what it was. It has produced Mr Trump as leader of the world's most important country. It is not an advertisement. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, May 31, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy The stability of any given democracy depends not only on economic develop- ment but also upon the effectiveness and the legitimacy of its political system. Effectiveness means actual performance, the extent to which the system satisfies the basic functions of government as most of the population and such powerful groups within it as big business or the armed foreces see them. Legitimacy involves the capacity of the system to engender and maintain the belief that the existing political institutions are the most appropriate ones for the society. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy A stable democracy requires a situation in which all the major political parties include supporters from many segments of the population. A system in which the support of different parties corresponds too closely to basic social divisions cannot continue on a democratic basis, for it reflects a state of conflcit so intense and clear cut as to rule out compromise. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy [That] the seven might, in particular instances be right, and the seventeen wrong, is more than possible. But to establish a positive and permanent rule giving such a power to such a minority, over such a majority, would overturn the first principle of free government. James Madison, letter to Edward Everett, August 28, 1830 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy There are two circumstances in particular in which a minority may feel that majority rule violates  political equality. One …[is]… the case where those who vote with the majority are affected much less by the decision, or have fewer interests at stake, than those who form the minority. Although heads have been counted equally, it appears as though preferences or interests have not. The second circumstance is where one group finds itself in a minority repeatedly when votes are taken. … In other words, we have the problem of the intense  minority and the problem of the persistent  minority. David Miller, Political Philisophy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy There can be no real political democracy unless there is something approaching an economic democracy. Theodore Roosevelt © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy  There is no easy way to stop a major party that’s intent on destroying democracy. The demonic energy with which Trump  repeats his lies, and Bannon harangues his  audience, and Republican politicians around the country try to seize every lever of election machinery — this relentless drive for power by American authoritarians is the major threat that America confronts. The Constitution doesn't have an answer. No help will come from Republican leaders; if Romney and Susan Collins are all that stand between the republic and its foes, we’re doomed. George Packer, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy This is what the death of American democracy looks like. It's time to acknowledge that we no longer have a democracy, but a plutocracy: Government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich, brought to you by Citizens United and the Supreme Court. Stephen Wolf, “Just 158 families account for nearly half of all presidential campaign donations,” Daily Kos, October 12, 2015 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed. Joseph Goebbels © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy  Those questioning the future of American democracy are behind the curve.  Half of it has already packed up. Parties are what animate a democracy. There is no longer a Republican one distinct from the cult of personality it has become. It is what Mr Trump says it is at any given moment.  One day North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un may be America’s deadliest enemy. Standing ovation. The next day, Mr Kim is Mr Trump's soul brother. The audience stays on its feet. Edward Luce, Financial Times, August 26, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Democracy To a small “d” democrat, process matters more than ideology. The fairness of an election is more important than who wins it. There is not, on most questions of policy, a single democatic answer. Concerns arise only when leaders try to augment their power through means that could cause permanent damage to democratic institutions. Madeleine Albright © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy Trump's fate will shape the future of liberal democracy. That is what makes it so alarming.  Edward Luce, Financial Times, January 13-14, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy The two countries that saved liberal democracy in the 20th century have lost their moral compass. Many citizens no longer seem to care whether their leaders are scoundrels. Not long ago, people viewed these nations as models of successful democracy. Now the US is viewed as a bully and the UK as a fool. Messrs Trump and [Boris] Johnson [the expected next prime minister] are seen as contemptible, ludicrous or both. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, June 27, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Democracy Unfortunately, it's very difficult for democracies to take action to prevent a future crisis. The risks of acting now are always clear and often exaggerated, whereas distant threats are just that: distant and so hard to calculate.  It always seems better to hope for the best rather than try to foretell the worst. Robert Kagan, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy The United States, once a democratic pioneer and a model for other countries, has become a democratic laggard. The endurance of our pre-democratic institutions as other democracies have dismantled theirs makes us a uniquely counter-majoritarian democracy at the dawn of the twenty-first century. … … it is the world's only democracy with both a strong, malapportioned Senate and  a legis-  lative minority veto (the filibuster). In no other democracy do legislative minorities routinely  and permanently thwart legislative majorities. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy We are not a democracy. The question has always been whether enough white people even want one. Elie Mystal, The Nation, August 9/16, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy We define democracy  as policy responsiveness to ordinary citizens  – that is, popular control of government. Or simply “majority rule.” Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, Democracy in America? © 2019 Kwiple.com
Democracy We have learned again that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed. Joe Biden, inaugural speech, January 20, 2021, two weeks after the assault on the Capitol by right-wing domestic terrorists incited by Donald Trump and his ilk to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden, which was quelled © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy We may have democracy, or we may have surveillance society, but we cannot have both. A democratic surveillance society is an existential and political impossibility. Make no mistake: This is the fight for the soul of our information civilization. Shoshana Zuboff, New York Times, January 29, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both. Louis D. Brandeis © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy When a demos ceases to believe that the rights necessary to democracy are desirable, their democracy will soon become an oligarchy or a tyranny. There is however, a more insidious route from democracy to oligarchy. Even if most members of the demos continue to believe  in the desirability of these fundamental rights, they may fail to undertake the political actions that would be necessary to protect and preserve those those rights from infringement imposed by political leaders who possess greater resources for gaining their own political ends. Robert A. Dahl, On Political Equality © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy  When corporations get so big that they can start to squeeze the government, then democracy no longer works. Elizabeth Warren © 2019 Kwiple.com
Democracy When in a democracy, one group of citizens can deliberately, purposefully make it more difficult for another group of citizens to vote, they have put a dagger into that democracy. We cannot let that happen. Sheldon Whitehouse, January 19, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy With the demise of the democratic values of equality and popular sovereignty, the agonistic spaces where different projects of society could confront each other have disappeared and citizens have been deprived of exercising their democratic rights. Chantal Mouffe, For a Left Populism © 2017 Kwiple.com
Democracy Yet [Patrick] Byrne had the germ of the right idea. The best way to steal a presidential election would indeed be through a staged display of democratic process backed by elaborate precooked ‘evidence’ of foreign conspiracy and simplified by Fox News, social media, and other media. This is the upside-down shape of a successful American coup. Democracy is destroyed by the enactment of its protection. Conspirators succeed by foiling a“conspiracy.” Fintan O'Toole, New York Review of Books, January 19, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy vs. autocracy In democracies  certainty about procedures is combined with uncertainty about substantive outcomes; in autocracies certainty about substantive results goes with uncertainty about the procedures. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democratic institutions They must make even losing under democracy more attractive than a future under non-democratic outcomes. Adam Przeworski © 2020 Kwiple.com
Semi-loyal democrats It is semi-loyalists’ very respectability that makes them so dangerous. As members of the establishment, semi-loyalists can use their positions of authority to normalize antidemocratic extremists, protect them against efforts to hold them legally accountable and empower them by opening doors to the mainstream media, campaign donors and other resources. It is this subtle enabling of extremist forces that can fatally weaken democracies. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who acknowledge Juan Linz originated the notion and term "semi-loyal democrats", in New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Semi-loyal democrats Many mainstream politicians who preside over a democracy’s collapse are not authoritarians committed to overthrowing the system; they are  careerists who are simply trying to get ahead. They are less opposed to democracy than indifferent to it. Careerism is a normal part of politics. But when democracy is at stake, choosing political ambition over its defense can be lethal. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who acknowledge Juan Linz originated the notion and term "semi-loyal democrats", in New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Semi-loyal democrats Rather than sever ties to antidemocratic extremists, semi-loyalists tolerate and accommodate them. Rather than condemn and seek accountability for antidemocratic acts committed by ideological allies, semi-loyalists turn a blind eye, denying, downplaying and even justifying those acts  — often via what is today called whataboutism. Or they simply remain silent. And when they are faced with a choice between joining forces with partisan rivals to defend democracy or preserving their relationship with antidemocratic allies, semi-loyalists opt for their allies. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who acknowledge Juan Linz originated the notion and term "semi-loyal democrats", in New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com