What Stops Democracy from Backsliding?

The Washington Roundtable discusses with the Stanford University political scientist Larry Diamond about President Trump’s attempts to claim broad powers, why most Republican lawmakers have fallen into line out of fear, and whether the United States has already tipped over into authoritarian territory. Plus, how the courts, Congress, and ordinary citizens might course-correct American democracy.

This week’s reading:

• “The Crisis of Democracy Is Here,” by Larry Diamond
• “Trump’s Putinization of America,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “Pulling Our Politics Back from the Brink,” by Evan Osnos (2020)
• “Month One of Donald Trump’s ‘Golden Age,’ ” by Antonia Hitchens
• “We’d Never Had a King Until This Week,” by Bill McKibben
• “The Trump Administration Trashes Europe and NATO,” by Dexter Filkins
• “The Second Trump Administration’s New Forms of Distraction,” by Kyle Chayka

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices