Or: How Democracies Die (And How to Spot It Happening)
"Democracies don't die at gunpoint anymore.
They die gradually, with paperwork,
by people who were elected to protect them."
Professors Lev-Sky and Zib-Blatt, surrounded by cautionary tales
Now over at Harvard, two professors most learned
Had studied how democracies crashed and had burned.
Not in coups with a bang, not by army or tank —
But by steps, small and slow, down a very steep rank.
Lev-Sky and Zib-Blatt — their names in the texts —
Had looked at the cases of what usually wrecks
A democracy: Hungary, Turkey, Peru,
Venezuela, and Germany — to name just a few.
And the pattern they found, after study most deep,
Was the same every time — and it made them not sleep:
Democracies don't die from invasion or war.
They die from within, from the one at the fore.
The assassins of freedom, the professors explained,
Are elected, not crowned — and they come pre-trained
In the language of freedom, of people, of will —
Then they use that same freedom the system to kill.
Trumpy-Wumpy, achieving a perfect score on the wrong exam
The professors devised a most elegant test —
Four questions to ask of the leader expressed:
Four warning signs, visible, plain to the eye,
That tell you your democracy's waving goodbye.
The professors said: "If a leader shows ONE,
Be watchful. Be careful. Don't think it is fun."
Then they looked at Trumpy-Wumpy, checked box after box,
And found — to their horror — he'd ticked all four locks.
Trumpy-Wumpy's speech bubbles, and where historians have heard them before
Now indicator two is the one that draws stares
From historians, linguists, and anyone who cares
About the particular words that the strongmen all choose —
For it turns out those words are not random ones to use.
Trumpy-Wumpy called journalists "the enemy of the people" —
A phrase from the Stalin era — historically lethal.
He called his opponents "vermin" who "live in our land"
And vowed he would "root them out" — just as planned.
"We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country."
— TRUMP, VETERANS DAY RALLY, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NOVEMBER 11, 2023
He said that immigrants were "poisoning the blood" —
A phrase Adolf Hitler had used in the mud
Of his manifesto, word for poisonous word.
When historians pointed this out, it was called: "absurd."
"They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they're doing. They're destroying our country."
— TRUMP, DURHAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE, DECEMBER 2023
He said he'd be "dictator for one day" — with a grin —
Then insisted he was joking. The historians: "Mm."
For the language of strongmen has patterns, you see —
And the pattern was playing out clearly in Bumbloo-Wee.
Lady Justice, now working different hours
Now step three in the playbook of democracy's death
Is the capture of justice — the courts and the breath
Of law enforcement, turned from the public's employ
To the ruler's own service — a personal toy.
Trumpy-Wumpy announced at the DOJ's hall
That he was "chief law enforcement" — above them all.
He set up a "Weaponization Working Group" fine
To investigate all those who'd crossed Trumpy's line.
The attorney who'd won a case against him in court?
Investigated. The prosecutor? Same sort.
The FBI agents who'd searched Trumpy's estate?
Now fired — their names published — for decisions of late.
Comey was charged. Tish James was subpoenaed one day.
Adam Schiff was investigated without delay.
The charge in each case? They had worked against Trump.
The legal standard? Largely: a vengeful thump.
The professors had warned of this chapter most clear:
"The autocrat's first move is courts engineered
To serve him, not justice — to punish his foes,
While protecting himself from wherever wind blows."
Trumpy-Wumpy and the press, a Seussian study in projection
The fourth indicator — the one that persists —
Is attacking the press, putting names on the lists
Of enemies, traitors, the fake and the wrong,
While building your own propaganda quite strong.
Now Trumpy-Wumpy declared in his very first year
That journalists were "the enemy" — loud and clear.
He sued the newspapers, threatened the stations,
Extracted a billion in fearful settlements' rations.
He called it "FAKE NEWS!" when the facts didn't fit.
He called it a "WITCH HUNT!" and threw quite a fit.
Meanwhile his Boopity-Box pumped the alternative view,
And his followers learned which reality was true.
The professors had studied this tactic before:
In Turkey, in Hungary, through every door
Of democratic collapse, the free press was first
To be targeted, branded, and labeled the worst.
"Without a free press," said Lev-Sky with a sigh,
"The citizens cannot tell the truth from a lie.
And a people who cannot tell true from untrue
Are a people who cannot hold power to review."
Seventeen watchdogs, notified by email, January 24, 2025
Now there's a move that the autocrat playbooks describe
As essential to capture the government tribe:
Remove all the watchdogs, the oversight guards,
The inspectors who check if the leader plays cards
With the public's own money — the people who look
To make sure that the powerful haven't mistook
The treasury for theirs and the rules for a joke.
Remove them by email. At midnight. One stroke.
On the twenty-fourth of January, at night,
Seventeen emails were sent — quite a sight —
To the independent inspectors who guarded each post:
"You're fired. Goodbye. We don't know you. Almost."
Defense. State. Housing. Veterans. Energy too.
Transport and Health — all the watchdogs withdrew.
When asked why he'd fired them, Trumpy said plain:
"I don't know them." (He added: "They're not my domain.")
But that's rather the point of a watchdog, you see —
The WHOLE POINT is that they serve not the king but the free.
An inspector who answers to only the boss
Is an inspector who's certain to find — no great loss.
Trumpy-Wumpy's preferred international company
Now the company one keeps is a signal, they say,
Of the values one holds and the rules that one'll obey.
And Trumpy-Wumpy's favorite world leaders, it shows,
Were remarkably all from the authoritarian rows.
Putin of Russia: "Brilliant! A genius! Most fine!"
Kim of North Korea: "He really does shine!"
Orban of Hungary: "Very tough! Strong-willed! Great!"
Xi of China: "He runs his whole country first-rate!"
Meanwhile the democracies, allies of old —
Were lectured and threatened and very much cold-shouldered.
NATO was questioned. Alliances frayed.
Canada was threatened. Europe was swayed.
The professors had named this the clearest of signs:
A leader who draws inspiration from lines
Of strongmen and dictators, who praises their ways,
Is telling you something about his own gaze.
"Viktor Orbán — the head of Hungary — very tough, strong guy. He didn't allow millions of people to invade his country."
— TRUMP, 2023. Orbán has systematically dismantled Hungarian democracy since 2010.
Democracy, declining to notice the temperature change
And here is the part that the professors stress most,
That makes democratic decline hard to spot from your post:
It doesn't arrive with a bang or a boom —
It creeps in the cracks of the everyday gloom.
Each step, taken alone, seems small and contained.
"Just one fired watchdog — the system's maintained."
"Just one lawsuit against one reporter — not grand."
"Just one set of pardons for one violent band."
But taken together, the steps tell a tale
That historians recognize, going slightly pale:
Courts loyal to leaders. Press under assault.
Opponents in legal jeopardy. Oversight halt.
The autocrat's genius, the professors explain,
Is that each step seems normal inside the refrain
Of partisan politics — just the usual game.
Until the game changes and nothing's the same.
"The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy's assassins use the very institutions of democracy — gradually, subtly, and even legally — to kill it."
— LEVITSKY AND ZIBLATT, "HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE," 2018
Democracy, still standing, still requiring attention
But here is the part that the professors add last,
With the evidence gathered from future and past:
Democracies die — yes — but they can be saved.
And the ones that survived are the ones that were brave.
Brave judges who ruled against power that day.
Brave journalists who kept on reporting away.
Brave officials who said no to lawless demands.
Brave citizens who kept democracy in their hands.
The Constitution has bent. The norms have been strained.
Some courts have been captured. Some watchdogs detained.
But courts still issue rulings that pause what he's done.
And journalists still publish. And citizens still run.
The checklist of warning signs? Every box checked.
The language of strongmen? Thoroughly decked.
The playbook of Hungary, Turkey, Peru?
Being followed with diligence, chapter by chapter, it's true.
And yet — and yet — and yet — there remains
The American tradition that tugs at the reins.
The one that said no king — from the very first day.
The question is whether we mean it. Today.
Unless someone cares — really, truly, a lot —
The Bumbloo-Wee world will keep going to rot.
(of this chapter, at least — the story continues)
This is a work of political satire drawing on the scholarship of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
and the documented public record of actions taken by the Trump administration.
All quotes are real. All actions described are documented in public sources cited throughout.
The Seussian framing is fictional. The pattern is not.
"How Democracies Die" by Levitsky and Ziblatt is available from Crown Publishing, 2018.