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From Fox News: Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt advised pushing a “militant democracy” to ensure an “authoritarian figure” like former President Trump never rises to power again.
In an op-ed for the New York Times, Levitsky and Ziblatt describe how they spent the last year “researching how democracies can protect themselves from authoritarian threats from within,” lamenting how close Trump remains to getting a second term.
“How could such an openly authoritarian figure have a coin flip’s chance of returning to the presidency? Why have so many of our democracy’s defenses seemingly broken down, and which, if any, remain?” they wrote.
One of the ways they suggested limiting figures like Trump’s rise to power was a “militant or defensive democracy” which they described as a way authorities can restrict or outlaw speech against “antidemocratic forces.”
In the op-ed, the writers claim that “Any ambitious party or politician should have a shot at running for office and winning,” but then turn around and claim, “But what if a major candidate seeks to dismantle that very system?”
The next two paragraphs are packed full of falsehoods:
America confronts this problem today. Donald Trump poses a clear threat to American democracy. He was the first president in U.S. history to refuse to accept defeat, and he illegally attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Now, on the brink of returning to the White House, Mr. Trump is forthrightly telling Americans that if he wins, he plans to bend, if not break, our democracy.
Mr. Trump tells us he plans to prosecute his political rivals, including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Liz Cheney and other members of the Jan. 6 Select Committee; deploy the army to repress protest; and order the deportation of 15 million to 20 million people, including some legal immigrants.
After declaring that “Any ambitious party or politician should have a shot at running for office and winning,” the authors then promote the idea that some people should be barred from running for office. As an example, they point to former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, “who, like Mr. Trump, tried to discredit and then overturn an election, was barred from public office for eight years.”
The op-ed then suggests that “Section III of the 14th Amendment disallows former public officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office,” and claim it could have been used to disqualify Trump from running.
Another approach the authors suggest might have been used to stop Trump is “partisan gatekeeping,” where Party leaders would “police their own ranks” and “refuse to nominate extremists or demagogues for public office.”
The authors further write: “When authoritarians make it onto the ballot, prodemocratic forces may turn to a fourth strategy: containment, in which politicians from across the ideological spectrum forge a broad coalition to isolate and defeat the authoritarians.”
Lastly, they suggest another way to stop someone from running for office:
That leaves a fifth strategy: societal mobilization. Democracy’s last bastion of defense is civil society. When the constitutional order is under threat, influential groups and societal leaders — chief executives, religious leaders, labor leaders and prominent retired public officials — must speak out, reminding citizens of the red lines that democratic societies must never cross. And when politicians cross those red lines, society’s most prominent voices must publicly and forcefully repudiate them.
CLICK HERE to read the entire, radical op-ed.
Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies then promoted the op-ed on social media, touting it as exploring “the upcoming election and the strategies we’ve missed to safeguard democracy.”
In this @nytimes op-ed, our Faculty Director #StevenLevitsky (@levitsky2) and @dziblatt explore the upcoming election and the strategies we’ve missed to safeguard democracy.
https://t.co/gulGpGsii1— DRCLAS @ Harvard (@HarvardDRCLAS) October 24, 2024
Elitism on display, the day of libs fighting for the working man died with OBAMA! They think the American people, the working class are stupid. Talk about inciting violence!
Harvard professors argue that America needs a ‘militant democracy’ to stop Trump https://t.co/TdqZWU44ZA
— Debbie Aldrich 🇺🇸 (@DebbieAAldrich) October 25, 2024
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