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104 Foreign Aff. 36 (2025)
The Path to American Authoritarianism: What Comes after the Democratic Breakdown

handle is hein.journals/fora104 and id is 254 raw text is: The Path to American Authoritarianism What Comes After Democratic Breakdown STEVEN LEVITSKY AND LUCAN A. WAY Donald Trump's first election to the presidency in 2016 trig- gered an energetic defense of democracy from the Amer- ican establishment. But his return to office has been met with striking indifference. Many of the politicians, pundits, media figures, and business leaders who viewed Trump as a threat to democ- racy eight years ago now treat those concerns as overblown-after all, democracy survived his first stint in office. In 2025, worrying about the fate of American democracy has become almost passe. The timing of this mood shift could not be worse, for democracy is in greater peril today than at any time in modern U.S. history. STEVEN LEVITSKY is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow for Democracy at the Council on Foreign Relations. LUCAN A. WAY is Distinguished Professor of Democracy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. They are the authors of CompetitiveAuthoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. FOREIGN AFFAIRS 36