How to Save a Democracy

Laura Gamboa: “For democracy to survive, it must be protected. In the past few decades, in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Poland, opposition groups pushed back successfully against leaders with authoritarian tendencies early in the process of democratic backsliding, when they still had institutional levers to pull.”

“But in other cases, such as Bolivia, El Salvador, Turkey, and Venezuela, oppositions either failed to act with sufficient urgency or used tactics that lost them their institutional levers, gradually hindering their ability to resist.”

“In the United States, the opposition’s response to the threat so far has been underwhelming. Reeling from electoral defeat and shocked by the blitz of the Trump administration’s power grabs, politicians and civil society groups are uncertain about the path forward and hesitant to take bold steps.”