by Preeya Patel | Nov 17, 2020 | University of Chicago
One of the specific criteria of populist leaders according to Jan-Werner Müller is antipluralism. He writes, “[Populists] claim that they and they alone represent the people.” [1] Instead of recognizing “the people” as a diverse set of groups with different identities...
by Stasya Rodionova | Nov 13, 2020 | University of Chicago
In the grand scheme of checks and balances on authoritarian tendencies, the media ideally plays an impartial role as a guardrail against democratic backsliding. 2016 posed a unique challenge to this system in the U.S. Then Republican-nominee Donald Trump’s claims and...
by Amber Germain | Oct 26, 2020 | Georgia State University
How can we classify the self-pitched-Playboy-Cover-model son of a wealthy, racist real estate developer as a populist when he is neither like the people he claims to represent nor does he enact policy to help his supportive minority in a meaningful way? Trump is not a...
by Monica Greig | Oct 24, 2020 | University of Chicago
Levitsky and Ziblatt write that ‘extreme polarization can kill democracies.’ [1] Polarization of politics in the US has left Americans not only at risk from a weakening of democracy, but it has also now threatened their ability to trust the governments handling of the...
by Zafiro Aguilar | Oct 24, 2020 | University of Chicago
The United States Postal Service (USPS) has offered essential services to the people of the United States for more than 240 years. Among these services include the secure delivery of absentee ballots during election years, and this election year is no different. So...