Why Cultural Decline in the U.S. Is a Threat to Democracy

As an observer of democracies and a constitutional lawyer in Britain, I have watched with rising alarm as many Western nations threaten to become failed democracies.

They may not yet be like Venezuela, Peru, Hungary, Turkey or Russia. But these countries show what can happen when a democracy dies with a whimper, not with a bang. There may not be tanks on the lawns or mobs in the streets, but slowly, they are drained of everything that once made them democratic, often with substantial public support.

These countries have elections, legislatures, courts and so on. The institutional framework is still there. But they are no longer democracies because the political culture on which democracy depends has failed.