On the Dangers of Democracy

The rising authoritarianism of our time is not an aberration.

‘Living in a democracy is no longer protection from authoritarianism,” Joshua Keating argues in Slate. One quibble: Living in a democracy never offered protection from authoritarianism — democracy has as often been the handmaiden of authoritarianism.

For more than a century, we have used “democracy” as a shorthand for good and decent government, and also to indicate a distinctly progressive American view of good government. The founding father of American progressivism, Woodrow Wilson, demanded a war, because, as he said,...