Democracies in the 21st century don't necessarily die by coup or political violence. Instead, they may slide into autocracy, often behind an election façade, as Hungary, Turkey and even Russia have demonstrated.
Two Pomona College alumni from the Class of 1995 painted a stark picture of how this is already underway in the United States during a 90-minute presentation titled “Understanding the Crisis of Democracy” on May 2 in Rose Hills Theater on campus during the College’s Alumni Weekend.
Corey Brettschneider ’95 is professor of political science at Brown University, where he teaches constitutional law and political theory. Daniel Ziblatt ’95 is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.
Both Brettschneider and Ziblatt drew on research presented in their books on democracy.
Brettschneider's latest is The Presidents and the People: Five Presidents Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It, which won an American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award in 2025.
Ziblatt's newest book is The Tyranny of the Minority. It was coauthored with his colleague Steven Levitsky, who also collaborated with him on How Democracies Die (2018); both books are New York Times best-sellers. Brettschneider also cohosts “The Oath and the Office” podcast.
“Two facts are well-established,” said Ziblatt in response to the opening question from moderator Amanda Hollis-Brusky, professor of politics at Pomona. “Rich democracies never die. No country with a GDP per capita of over $17,000 has ever experienced democratic backsliding.” Second, he continued, “Old democracies never die. No democracy over the age of 50 has ever broken down.”
U.S. democracy score declines
Why, then, has the Freedom House democracy score for the U.S. dropped by 10 percentage points over the past decade, leaving the country now tied with Romania and Mongolia?
“When you have violent threats on a regular basis against election workers, when you have somebody who’s voted out of office and refuses to leave office, then you reach a point where you get a lower score than Argentina,” Ziblatt explained.
“What’s very clear from studying democracies around the world is if one of two major parties, or a major party in a political system, is not committed to democratic rules, democracy is going to get into trouble,” said Ziblatt. For the past decade, he asserted, “the Republican Party has been radicalizing away from democracy.”
Ziblatt also pointed out ways the U.S. Constitution has failed to keep pace with change in the country and made our institutions of government uniquely vulnerable to an authoritarian minority.
“There are certain features of our Constitution which are very distinctive,” said Ziblatt, mentioning in particular the over-representation of rural areas. As the country has grown predominantly urban, this rural advantage is enhancing the ability of a minority of voters to prevail in the Electoral College, the Senate, and, by virtue of the Senate confirmation of justices, the Supreme Court.
Threat is not unique
Brettschneider noted that “the existence of a threat to democracy by a president is not unique” to our time. He described the opposition of founding father Patrick Henry—of “Give me liberty or give me death” fame—to the ratification of the Constitution because of what he saw as the danger of a too-powerful president who might not always be a person of virtue.
Henry’s concern, said Brettschneider, was “when this person realizes the checks aren’t there, the criminal president won’t hesitate to make one bold push for the American throne, even to crown himself a monarch.”
That Henry was prescient, Brettschneider believes, was borne out when Henry’s contemporary, the second U.S. President John Adams, enthusiastically signed the Sedition Act into law. The act made it a crime to criticize the president—but not the vice president, who, in the Adams administration, was political rival and eventual successor Thomas Jefferson. It resulted in numerous prosecutions and even the conviction of a sitting Congressman before it was allowed to expire in 1800.
Brettschneider recounted five instances where American presidents have pushed the limits of presidential power and threatened core parts of our democracy. Each time, he said, democracy has been saved by citizen action through politics, elections and lobbying to reclaim the Constitution.
“We are in a dire moment, a moment of crisis,” he said. “But we’ve been here before, and we’ve recovered. So I certainly don’t think it’s guaranteed as a law of political science, but I have a lot of hope that we will recover in the future.”
Brettschneider and Ziblatt on their Pomona connections
Brettschneider and Ziblatt overlap in more than their shared field of scholarship and their writing about threats to democracy.
They were also Pomona classmates.
Pomona “was my dream school,” says Brettschneider, who majored in politics and philosophy. “I came out here in the summer, I saw it, I really loved it, and when I got in, I jumped for joy.” He counts as influences professors Paul Hurley in political philosophy and philosophy of law, and John Seery in political theory. Brettschneider says Hurley “was such a great teacher, Socratic method. I imitate him when I’m teaching.” And Seery “inspired me with his love for political theory. It was infectious and I still carry it with me today.”
Ziblatt wanted to attend a liberal arts college for the intellectual atmosphere. A German Studies major, he credits German Studies Prof. Eric Miller as a major influence. He blended in the study of politics with professors such as Elizabeth Crighton, Lauren Foster and John Seery.
“Had I not majored in German Studies, then I wouldn’t have gone on to Germany after graduating,” he recounts. “That’s where I combined my interest in German literature and society with my interest in political science and started studying German history and politics.”
“Understanding the Crisis of Democracy” with Brettschneider and Ziblatt was one of over 200 events held during Alumni Weekend, May 1-4. More than 1,400 alumni and guests registered for class reunion dinners, student and faculty presentations, planetarium shows, concerts, art exhibitions and more. During a May 1 dinner, five athletes and an athletic trainer were inducted into the Pomona-Pitzer Athletics Hall of Fame. The oldest alumni participant came from the Class of 1950, celebrating their 75th reunion. The Class of 2015 was most represented.