Salt Lake Tribune · Sep 10, 2019
Paul Krugman: How democracy dies, American style
President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, Sept. 9, 2019, before boarding Marine One for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and then on to North Carolina. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)Democracies used to collapse suddenly, with tanks rolling noisily toward the presidential palace. In the 21st century, however, the process is usually subtler.
Authoritarianism is on the march across much of the world, but its advance tends to be relatively quiet and gradual, so that it’s hard to point to a single moment and say, this is the day democracy ended. You just wake up one morning and realize that it’s gone.