Nobel Prize-winning economist cites ‘Sharpiegate’ fiasco as glaring example of how democracies die: ‘If you aren’t worried — you aren’t paying attention’

Democracies don’t necessarily cease to be democracies because of violent coups. In some cases, authoritarians are voted into office. And veteran New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, in a September 9 piece, cites the United States as one of the countries where democracy is being undermined.

Krugman opens his column by discussing the Steven Levitsky/Daniel Ziblatt book “How Democracies Die” and some of the countries in which authoritarians were voted into office — for example, Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia under Vladimir Putin and Hungary under Viktor Orban.

“Bit by bit,” Krugman explains, “the guardrails of democracy were torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of the ruling party — then were weaponized to punish and intimidate that party’s opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes.”

View the complete September 10 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.