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There Are Four Anti-Trump Pathways We Failed to Take. There Is a Fifth.
(www.nytimes.com)
They don't make it super easy to find the bullet points:
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"One of these is a far more muscular approach, known as militant or defensive democracy... the militant democracy approach empowers public authorities to wield the rule of law against antidemocratic forces."
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"The United States has a tool on the books for disqualifying anti-constitutional candidates: Section III of the 14th Amendment disallows former public officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office."
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"A third approach to defending democracy is partisan gatekeeping. In the absence of legal tools to block extremist threats, the responsibility for fending off such threats falls to political parties. In a healthy democracy, party leaders police their own ranks, expelling antidemocratic elements or refusing to nominate extremists or demagogues for public office."
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"When authoritarians make it onto the ballot, prodemocratic forces may turn to a fourth strategy: containment, in which politicians from across the ideological spectrum forge a broad coalition to isolate and defeat the authoritarians."
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"That leaves a fifth strategy: societal mobilization. Democracy’s last bastion of defense is civil society. When the constitutional order is under threat, influential groups and societal leaders — chief executives, religious leaders, labor leaders and prominent retired public officials — must speak out, reminding citizens of the red lines that democratic societies must never cross. And when politicians cross those red lines, society’s most prominent voices must publicly and forcefully repudiate them."
