By capturing referees, Ziblatt refers to referees with the power of the state, such as judges, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, ethics agencies, and the like. In other words, the "deep state." by sidelining key players, Ziblatt means non-state actors who are nonetheless politically influential, such as news media, donors, and influential cultural figures. By tilting the playing field, he means measures such as gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, and the like. Needless, American politicians have been seeking to tilt the playing field for a long time, but authoritarian leaders take such measures to extremes.
Ziblatt, writing after Trump has been in power for about a year, warned that a potentially authoritarian leader's record at one year was not necessarily a good measure of what the future held. He offered ten potential authoritarian leaders -- Argentina's Juan Domingo Peron, Eduador's Rafael Correa, Hungary's Viktor Orban, Italy's Silvia Berusconi, Peru's Alberto Fujimori and Ollanta Humalo, Poland's Jaraslaw Kaczynski, Russia's Vladimir Putin, Turkey's Recep Erdogan, and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Fujimori and Erdogan, for instance, showed no obvious authoritarian tendencies at one year, yet both ultimately subverted democracy. But the book makes no really systematic comparisons. It gives an extended narrative for Chavez and Fujimori, for instance, but says almost nothing about some of the others. I would have preferred that he choose a smaller number of authoritarians and go over a clear account of how they subverted democracy -- or attempted and failed.
One point he does make is the danger of attempting to defeat a potential authoritarian by resorting to extraordinary (and sometimes extralegal) means. Such measures can scare off moderates by making the opposition look extreme. They can furnish a pretext for crack down. And, above all, violating norms leads to serial escalation of norm violation and makes a functioning democracy extremely hard to restore. Zimblatt notes, for instance, that Hugo Chavez' opponents undermined their own image as democrats and helped him to consolidate power when they attempted a coup. Something similar happened in Turkey with Erdogan. He contrasts that to Colombia, where the opposition stuck to normal channels in opposing an increasingly autocratic leader and were able to reign him in.
For that reason, Ziblatt advises against impeachment. Not answered -- what if Trump does something legitimately impeachable. And if there is one thing that Trump has made clear, it is that getting rid of him the old-fashioned way, by election, is a lot more difficult and dangerous than most people anticipated.
It also sheds serious light on how successful Republicans in general and Trump in particular have been with the three strategies of an authoritarian -- capturing referees, sidelining key players, and tilting the playing field.
Capturing the referees. Ziblatt mentions the firing of James Comey, urging the Justice Department to prosecute political opponents, and use of pardons and promises of pardons as attempts to capture the referees. He judges that attempt a failure, and that has been borne out by the post-election. Judges (except for three on the Wisconsin Supreme Court) have consistently and indignantly refused to overturn election results. Secretaries of state and election boards (with a small number of exceptions in Michigan) have certified the results and state legislatures have refused to overturn them. The Justice Department has found no significant voter fraud and (so far) has resisted appointing a special prosecutor to investigate. The Department of Homeland Security refuses to seize voting machines. The military refuses to declare martial law. The "deep state" has held firm and, as David Frum comments, "deep state" is simply code for rule of law.
Sidelining key players. Ziblatt gives references to "fake news" and some attempts to use anti-trust laws to threaten hostile media outlets as attempts at sidelining key players. The attempts have notably failed. Mainstream media outlets have responded with some quite impressive investigative journalist, and their subscriptions have increased. Trump in general and Republicans in particular have had some success pressuring social media to to favor right wing sources in their search engines. But the response to Trump's attempt to overturn the election has been robust -- mainstream media have made clear in no uncertain terms that Trump's claims of fraud are unfounded, and his attempts to overturn an election are an unprecedented outrage.
Tilting the playing field. This one is rather a different matter. Republicans have a longstanding habit of making voting harder to do. Both parties have a tradition of gerrymandering but Republicans, by all accounts, are successful more often. And one thing that has become clear following this election is that a lot of Republicans see Democratic votes in a very real sense as fundamentally illegitimate. Obviously attempts to tilt the playing field have not been entirely successful. Trump lost, after all. But all evidence is that Republicans will continue and escalate the attempt in an effort to lock in a monopoly on power. The players most likely to endorse the attempt to overturn this election are ones like members of Congress or state attorney generals who do not have the actual power to do so. Republicans with the actual power -- judges, election officials, state legislatures, the Department of Justice -- have declined. But all evidence points to continued and ever increasing efforts to tilt the playing field.
Ziblatt, both in this book and his previous one, emphasizes the importance of political parties and election consultants in upholding democracy. I next intend to discuss Stuart Stevens' book for the same issue from the perspective of a political consultant.
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