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Your Call

Will the US become a multiracial democracy or cease to be a democracy?

On this edition of Your Call, we speak with Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of How Democracies Die, a bestselling book that offered a framework for understanding these volatile times.

In their forthcoming book, The Tyranny of the Minority, they explain how the US Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable to attacks from within, by enabling minority rule. They argue the US will either become a multiracial democracy or cease to be a democracy at all.

Guests:

Daniel Ziblatt, Eaton Professor of Government at Harvard University, and director of a Transformations of Democracy research group at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center in Berlin, Germany

Steven Levitsky, David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies, Professor of Government, and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University

Web Resources:

The Guardian: This is how democracies die

Vox: How democracies die, explained

The New Yorker: The Supreme Court Case That Could Upend Elections

The New Republic: How a Democracy Dies

The New York Times: End Minority Rule

Salon: Republicans would "rather end democracy" than turn away from Trump, says Harvard professor

Rose Aguilar has been the host of Your Call since 2006. She became a regular media roundtable guest in 2001. In 2019, the San Francisco Press Club named Your Call the best public affairs program. In 2017, The Nation named it the most valuable local radio show.
Bee Soll is a producer with Your Call at KALW, and a producer, writer, and editor at KCBS Radio in San Francisco. She is a former reporter for Crosscurrents and contributor at KPFA Radio.