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Book: How Democracies Die
Quotes of Book: How Democracies Die

Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
Throughout his life, Washington had learned that he "gained power from his readiness to give it up." Thanks to his enormous prestige, this forbearance infused many of the American republic's other nascent political institutions. As historian Gordon Wood put it, "If any single person was responsible for establishing the young Republic on a firm footing, it was Washington."
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
It was the Civil Rights Act, which Democratic president Lyndon Johnson embraced and 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater opposed, that would define the Democrats as the party of civil rights and Republicans as the party of racial status quo."
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
There is one thing more powerful than the Constitution….That's the will of the people. What is a Constitution anyway? They're the products of the people, the people are the first source of power, and the people can abolish a Constitution if they want to.
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
decade later, Alabama governor George Wallace's defiant segregationist stance vaulted him to national prominence, leading to surprisingly vigorous bids for the presidency in 1968 and 1972.
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
Senator Joseph McCarthy, who used the Cold War fear of communist subversion to promote blacklisting, censorship, and book banning, enjoyed wide backing among the American public. At
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
American mass-media hero, Charles Lindbergh,
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
The Plot Against America, American novelist Philip Roth builds"
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
Years after Chávez's presidential victory, Rafael Caldera explained his mistakes simply: "Nobody thought that Mr. Chávez had even the remotest chance of becoming president." And merely a day after Hitler became chancellor, a prominent conservative who aided him admitted, "I have just committed the greatest stupidity of my life; I have allied myself with the greatest demagogue in world history.
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
The Depression also gave rise to Louisiana governor and senator Huey Long, who called himself "the Kingfish." Long was described by the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. as "the great demagogue of the day, a man who resembled…a Latin American dictator, a Vargas or a Perón.
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
Among the most important figures to emerge during this period was Father Charles Coughlin, an anti-Semitic Catholic priest whose fiery nationalist radio program reached up to forty million listeners a week.
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
The USA PATRIOT Act, signed into law by George W. Bush in October 2001, never would have passed had the September 11 attacks not occurred the previous month.
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Steven Levitsky _ How Democracies Die
Germany's 1919 Weimar constitution was designed by some of the country's greatest legal minds. Its long-standing and highly regarded Rechtsstaat {"rule of law"} was considered by many as sufficient to prevent government abuse. But both the constitution and the Rechtsstaat collapsed rapidly in the face of Adolf Hitler's usurpation of power in 1933.
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