In the days after Donald Trump’s reelection as president, Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky was despondent.
“I was in the fetal position,” he said. “I just wanted to put on sweat pants, eat ice cream and watch hockey.”
Levitsky had spent two decades studying authoritarian regimes in other countries, but during Trump’s first term, he had turned his attention to the United States. A book he co-authored, “How Democracies Die,” had become a surprise best-seller. It chronicled Trump’s autocratic tendencies — his attacks on the press, the judiciary and the electoral system — and warned that one of the world’s oldest democracies was in peril.
Trump’s reelection “felt like a gut punch,” Levitsky said. “I took it personally. I had been working for eight years to prevent this from happening.”
Professor Levitsky isn't too concerned when Democrats control the White House and issue executive orders and declare to amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
