Tyranny of the Minority

The United States is moving toward a multiracial society. But that demographic development has sparked an authoritarian political backlash. Powerful forces like things just the way they are. Our political system makes the U.S. vulnerable to minority rule. Perhaps the most undemocratic mechanism enabling minority rule is the antiquated Electoral College. No other country has one. The Electoral College has given the presidency to a candidate that received fewer votes multiple times. Most recently, in 2016, Donald Trump was elected president even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. It almost happened again in 2020 where a shift of a few thousand votes would have given the White House to Trump even though Joe Biden got seven million more votes.

Recorded at the University of Notre Dame.

Speaker: Steven Levitsky

Steven Levitsky is a Professor of Government at Harvard. His research interests focus on Latin America and include political parties, authoritarianism and democratization, and weak and informal institutions. He is co-author of How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority.

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