Sublime

it’s that extreme polarization can kill democracies.

The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture. America’s efforts to achieve racial equality as our society grows increasingly diverse have fueled an insidious reaction and intensifying polarization.

Populism offers strongmen an ideological basis for making themselves dictators while pretending to be democrats. It is particularly useful when strongmen seek to neutralize or appropriate the self-correcting mechanisms of democracy. Since judges, journalists, and professors allegedly pursue political interests rather than truth, the people’s