[Image: Department of Government – Harvard University]
In the grim days following Donald Trump’s reelection, Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky wasn’t exactly exuding professorial poise. The man was wrecked.
“I was in the fetal position,” he confessed via LA Times. “I just wanted to put on sweatpants, eat ice cream and watch hockey.”
And no, he wasn’t exaggerating for effect. Levitsky, a guy who’d spent the better part of two decades dissecting how strongmen throttle democracies in far-flung corners of the globe, had finally seen the boogeyman move into his own backyard.
His book How Democracies Die, co-authored with fellow worrier-in-chief Daniel Ziblatt, had rocketed onto bestseller lists, calling out Trump’s greatest hits: hammering the press, sabotaging courts, and swiping at the electoral system like a cat with a laser pointer.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.”
At some point, the ice cream melted, the sweatpants came off, the hockey got muted, and Levitsky went back to doing what he does best – sounding the alarm.
This wasn’t his first rodeo. He’d been hollering for years that a second Trump term wouldn’t be a kinder, gentler remix of the first. If anything, it’d be turbocharged – less patience, fewer apologies, and zero interest in playing by the democratic rulebook. And once the second term clock started ticking, Trump wasted no time proving Levitsky right.
“We are currently witnessing the collapse of our democracy,” Levitsky declared, in case anyone was still dozing through the constitutional demolition derby.
And if all that wasn’t enough, Trump’s latest tantrum hit even closer to Levitsky’s ivy-covered home: Harvard (and other top universities in the country). The administration yanked a $2.2 billion cash pipeline after the university had the gall to refuse orders to torch its diversity programs, purge “ideological capture,” and shut the door on any international student who didn’t bleed red, white, and blue on cue.
The official White House line was all about restoring “balance” and cleansing campuses of antisemitism. Levitsky, who’s Jewish, wasn’t buying it.
Levitsky, who is Jewish, believes the administration is using antisemitism “as a pretext,” and said that attacking academics is a classic tactic of strongmen.
“Authoritarians go after universities,” he said.
Before the full wrath came for Harvard, Levitsky and fellow faculty rebel Ryan Enos fired the opening shot – a letter co-signed by 800 of their colleagues, daring the university brass to grow a spine and fight back against the administration’s heavy-handed meddling.
And, for once, the suits listened. Harvard dug in. On Monday, it told the White House to take a hike, rejecting the demands as a full-frontal assault on academic freedom. Hours later, Trump responded like any thin-skinned strongman would, by freezing billions and threatening Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
The brawl’s headed to court. But for now, Levitsky and company could unclench, just a little.
“If we’re going for going to mobilize, it’s going to be the most prominent, the most well-endowed, the most privileged and protected of us in civil society who have to take the lead,” Levitsky said. “Because state colleges are not going to be able to absorb a blow from Trump the way that Harvard can.”
And to think this whole saga started in upstate New York, where Levitsky grew up as the kid of a Cornell psychology prof, his biggest rebellion being a teenage fascination with Cold War-era Central America. After a couple of life-altering jaunts to the region — El Salvador, Nicaragua — the budding activist pivoted to academia, drawn to the age-old question: Why do some democracies stick around while others drop dead?
From Stanford to Berkeley, Levitsky was cruising toward a quiet life of obscure political party studies – think Argentina, not Washington. But then Trump swaggered onto the scene in 2016 and flipped the script. He and Ziblatt couldn’t help but swap notes. The red flags weren’t subtle.
“We felt this was a movie we had seen before,” Levitsky said.
And frankly, it wasn’t the domestic politics crowd sounding the alarm. It was the seasoned autocracy nerds, the folks who’d seen populists strangle democracy from Budapest to Caracas.
“Americans have been slow to recognize this because we’ve never experienced it as a society,” he explained.
Their book, How Democracies Die, made the case that modern autocrats don’t bother with tanks or military coups. Nah, the twenty-first-century flavour is all about gaming the system from the inside, stacking the deck, and turning the levers of government into personal artillery.
The book was a surprise hit, embraced by liberals who found it gave voice to their fears. Joe Biden carried the book on his 2020 campaign for president, often quoting from it.
Levitsky became something of an academic rock star, appearing on CNN and having Democrats hang on his every word. But with fame came flak. Conservatives branded him a partisan shill, conveniently ignoring his warnings about the left’s own norm-bending shenanigans.
“Democracies aren’t destroyed because of the impulses of a single man; they are, instead, degraded in the course of a partisan tit-for-tat dynamic that degrades norms over time until one side sees an opening to deliver the death blow,” wrote Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Willick.
Levitsky, for his part, acknowledges that he is a registered Democrat, but he said his research follows the data, not the party line.
And on a grey Cambridge afternoon, standing before a packed lecture hall, Levitsky was back in his element, dishing out hard truths in a course called “Democracy and Authoritarianism.” The day’s topic? How Modern Dictatorships Work … and Why They Persist.
He covered the usual suspects — Rwanda, Venezuela, China — and didn’t flinch when weaving the U.S. into that unflattering club, casually name-dropping Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth like a man handing out red flags at a NASCAR race.
“If you’re in power because of your ties to the leader … you have an incentive to remain loyal no matter what,” he told the room, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
The students, along with a few grey-haired auditing rebels, cornered him afterwards to say thanks – for the class, sure, but mostly for sticking it to Trump.
And despite everything, the man still holds onto a stubborn streak of optimism. Trump’s poll numbers stink, Wall Street’s not in love with the chaos, and even a recession, Levitsky argued, might be democracy’s unlikely saviour.
“Ultimately, it’ll probably be good for democracy,” he shrugged.
Globally, he’s not writing the obituary either. Brazil and South Korea have stared down the authoritarian abyss and walked away blinking, still standing.
“Most of the countries that became full democracies after 1975 are still democracies today, despite the rise of China, despite [Russia’s Vladimir] Putin, despite Trump,” he said.
And if America’s democracy does go down swinging, it won’t be for lack of resources.
“We have more than enough muscle to push back,” Levitsky said.
Harvard’s about to put that theory to the test. When the university’s defiant statement hit the airwaves, Levitsky read it aloud to his class.
The room erupted. Finally, it seemed, the gloves were off.
“It looks,” Levitsky said, “like Harvard has decided it’s time to fight.”
[Source: LA Times]
