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Simple constitutional rules can never guide all behavior

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And we're speaking with Steven Le...
Magenta Bipolar Old Irish Cottage Locale
  01/22/18


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Date: January 22nd, 2018 11:06 PM
Author: Magenta Bipolar Old Irish Cottage Locale

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And we're speaking with Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. They are both professors of government at Harvard. They study democracies around the world. Their new book looks at how Democratic institutions can be undermined by authoritarian figures. And it raises the question of whether President Trump is a threat to American democracy. You note that we have a Constitution, which is widely praised and revered. It's a set of rules, and it's actually pretty short. But you note that a set of rules, however well-crafted, aren't enough to ensure that democratic institutions prevail. You say there are norms of democracy that are just as important.

LEVISKY: The rules themselves, particularly in a very simple, short Constitution like that of the United States, can never get a - can never fully guide behavior. And so our behavior needs to be guided by informal rules, by norms. And we focus on two of them in particular - what we call mutual toleration, which is really, really fundamental in any democracy, which is simply that among the major parties, there's an acceptance that their rivals are legitimate, that we may disagree with the other side. We may really dislike the other side. But at the end of the day, we recognize publicly - and we tell this to our followers - that the other side is equally patriotic, and that it can govern legitimately. That's one.

The other one is what we call forbearance, which is restraint in the exercise of power. And that's a little bit counterintuitive. We don't usually think about forbearance in politics, but it's absolutely central. Think about what the president can do under the Constitution. The president can pardon anybody he wants at any time. The president can pack the Supreme Court. If the president has a majority in Congress - which many presidents do - and the president doesn't like the makeup of the Supreme Court, he could pass a law expanding the court to 11 or 13 and fill with allies - again, he needs a legislative majority - but can do it. FDR tried.

The president can, in many respects, rule by decree. If Congress is blocking his agenda, he can use a series of proclamations or executive orders to make policy at the margins of Congress. What it takes for those institutions to work properly is restraint on the part of politicians. Politicians have to underutilize their power. And most of our politicians - most of our leaders have done exactly that. That's not written down in the Constitution.

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