Charles Homans: Steven, when you and Daniel Ziblatt published “How Democracies Die” in 2018, you considered the possible futures ahead of us as a country after Donald Trump’s presidency.
Steven Levitsky: I think it was broadly right. Trump didn’t consolidate an autocracy. But things got a lot worse more quickly than we expected. Even though our book was considered a little on the alarmist side when it was published, I think we were insufficiently alarmed.
We did not anticipate the rapid and thoroughgoing Trumpization of the Republican Party.
We did not consider the Republican Party to be an antidemocratic force when we wrote the book in 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/17/magazine/democracy.html