[The Typing Baker] The Dictatorship of the Minority, Is It a Story About the United States?

Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt New Work
'How an Extreme Minority Dominates the Majority'

Former U.S. President Donald Trump (right) is speaking at a town hall event held in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 10 (local time). Photo by AFP Yonhap News

This is thoroughly a story about American politics. Truly, it is a story about American politics. Yes, it must be about America.

The United States Senate has 100 seats. To hold a majority, 51 seats are needed. Does having 51 seats allow the majority party to pass any law it wants? No, it does not. In the U.S. Senate, a filibuster can block the passage of bills. To pass a contentious bill favored by the majority party, at least 60 seats are required. The minority party can block the passage of a bill with just 40 seats. Given the current U.S. population structure and electoral system, it is difficult for any single party to hold more than 60 seats in the Senate.

In 2022, over 60% of Americans supported the Voting Rights Act, which guarantees universal suffrage. Both the Senate and the House had a majority of members supporting the Voting Rights Act. Yet, it did not pass. The same goes for gun control laws. Every time a tragic event like a mass shooting occurs, such bills are proposed, and 60-70% of Americans support them, but they are repeatedly blocked by the Senate and the filibuster.

It has become widely accepted that at least 60 votes are needed to pass any important legislation in the U.S. The filibuster has evolved into a de facto supermajority rule in all Senate legislative processes.

Did American citizens just stand by and watch this extreme situation? Donald Trump, who engaged in extreme politics, never won a popular election. The elections in 2018, 2020, and 2022 all judged him. And the majority of Americans opposed him throughout his term. The Democratic Party took control of the presidency, the House, and the Senate in the 2020 election. It seemed that the democratic self-correcting system was working properly. The Republican extremism continued to appeal only to a minority of Americans.

So, has anything changed? No. Trump became the Republican presidential candidate with overwhelming support despite skipping candidate debates. Although American citizens judged him, he did not accept this as a judgment. He nurtured more extreme forces and encouraged their voices to grow louder. The Republican Party moved further to the extreme, even impeaching the Speaker of the House for agreeing to avoid a federal government shutdown. The politics of compromise disappeared.

The representative work of Harvard political science professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, was a global bestseller. Its follow-up is How Democracies and Extremist Minorities Dominate Majorities. The authors explain how the Republican Party, which once pursued multiracialism and universal suffrage through the Voting Rights Act, became a party for Christian white Americans and how it came under the influence of extremist political forces. They define the forces that lead politics according to the intentions of a small extremist minority that does not represent the public will as “dictatorship.” The authors argue, “Dictatorial forces can only succeed when mainstream politicians tolerate and protect them,” and “When dictatorial forces act in an anti-democratic manner within the party, those actions must be condemned, relationships severed, and if necessary, political competitors joined to isolate them.” They emphasize that loyal democrats must do exactly that.

As mentioned earlier, this book is about America. But we all know it is not just America’s story. That is why this book cannot be comfortably read as someone else’s story.

How Extremist Minorities Dominate Majorities | Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt | Translated by Park Seyeon | Across | 440 pages | 22,000 KRW

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