professor of government at harvard university and co-author of how democracies die. and tammy patent. thank you for coming to the sunday show. i found both of you in the story in the washington post this week with the headline as trump hints at 2024 comeback, democracy advocates fear a worst case scenario for the country. daniel, i m going to read the quote you had in this story back to you and talk further about it. this is what got me to do this segment. we often think that what we should be waiting for is fascists and communists marching in the streets, but nowadays the ways democracies often die is through legal things at the ballot box, so things that can be legal and both antidemocratic at the same time. politicians use the letter of
are you for president told more than 30,000 lies while in office, but with his latest rallies, including one scheduled in iowa next weekend, another trump presidential bid is looking increasingly likely, even as he continues to push the ultimate big lie, that the last election was somehow stolen from him. even without trump in office, it s inspired more than 400 bills that would restrict voting access in 49 states, all drafted to solve a problem that doesn t even exist. millions are still under trump s spell. in fact, pew research recently found that, get this, only 9, 9% of republicans trust the government and from the continued denial of covid-19 to the violent refusal to comply with mask and vaccine mandates, the mask radicalization is becoming more and more clear. so what s next? joining me now is daniel zigblat
the law. this to me is the key thing. no matter who, daniel, no matter who runs for president on the republican side in 2024, that s the thing that we should be paying attention to. absolutely. i mean, one of the things because we focus on our history in the 1930s, that s the model in our mind, military coups in latin america in the 60s and 70s. we think that s how democracies die. what s apparent is democracies often die at the ballot box. politicians use the very instruments of democracy both to come to office, sometimes illicitly but then once in office consolidate power through legal means, packing the courts, manipulating election administration, tilting the playing field in elections. it becomes harder and harder for them to lose. at the end of the day if you can t vote out an incumbent, then you can t have a democracy. though our elections work just barely, we have to look forward
friends to buy up all the national media. as a result of this, the next time election came around, he won office again because the election field had been so tilted in his favor. so increasingly it s harder and harder for viktor orban to be voted out of the office. to have the united states model itself after a country that is a democracy in free fall is absolutely outrageous. i would add to tucker carlson s point, majority of americans are very democratic and it s an angry minority that wants to establish itself in rule. and you know, tammy, just i hear what you re saying, daniel. a majority of americans, you know, favor immigration. put that to the side. but there s this poll from prri that is just breath taking for me.
america? the answer, as you know, because our leaders don t want to have it. they benefit from the chaos and the pain of illegal immigration, when the rule of law collapses, they become more powerful. daniel, can you sort of explain to viewers why tucker carlson touting hungary as an example for america is really bad news. in all global rankings, varieties of democracy, freedom house, international rankings of democracy, hungary is no longer a democracy. it was a great case of democratic success but victor orbang came into office and had a big majority his first time around but immediately went after firing all judges in the country, redrawing election boundaries, changing electoral votes to make sure his party wouldn t lose, rewriting media regulation laws and getting his