Augustana welcomed Kurt Weyland, professor in liberal arts at the University of Texas at Austin, for a presentation on current U.S. politics and the state of its democracy on Wednesday, April 30.
Weyland’s presentation drew from his latest book, “Democracy’s Resilience to Populism’s Threat,” and centered on his work on different democratic governments and the impact of authoritarian populism. Weyland’s talk featured a segment on the resilience of U.S. democracy and what it would take to bring it down. Weyland related his novel’s content to the most current American political movements.
Mariano Magalhaes, professor of political science at Augustana, said that one of the reasons the political science department invited Weyland to Augustana was to help ease some of the worries students may have about the state of the government.
“I figured it would be a good opportunity for him [Weyland] to come and talk about his particular argument,” Magalhaes said. “It was a good chance to help dispel some of the craziness around politics. As he pointed out, there’s all this doom and gloom about how ‘democracy is going to die’ and the narrative of everything is going to hell in a handbasket. But truly, it’s not as bad as it seems. My intention was to get people to come and listen to an argument that is different from what they’re hearing on a daily basis in the news.”
Part of Weyland’s argument was pointing out the two key features he’s noticed in his work that are necessary for democracy to fall: great public support and weak institutions. Currently, neither apply to the U.S. government, as public support for President Donald Trump falls below 30%, and our institutions remain steady despite the rapidly changing political atmosphere.
However, even though the present democracy is not at risk according to the framework Weylad has observed, there were others in the audience who had different opinions.
Nick, a political science major here at Augustana, said that while he agreed with many of Weyland’s statements and found his argument to be logical, he felt that our democracy might be eroding slowly rather than falling apart rapidly.
“There are some things he didn’t talk about,” Nick said. “But I also think some of these things are not in the scope of his study. It’s a weird situation we’re in. Democracy might not be at risk of dying tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but I think we’re seeing in the U.S. a long-term erosion of democracy as we’ve seen in other countries.”
Weyland’s work has focused primarily on Latin American countries, including citing Venezuela in his presentation as a frequent example of a democracy that fell under the leadership of Nicolás Maduro and Hugo Chávez.
“As Dr. Weyland said in his presentation, democracies can die slowly, like in Russia with Putin or Venezuela with Chavez,” Nick said. “I don’t know much about these countries, but I know they held elections for years before, kind of like falling into autocracy. So, definitely we can see democracies going through like a slow death. And I think personally, there are signs of that in the U.S.”
One factor that reassures many in the political science field regarding the stability of our democracy is the Constitution. A foundation for our government and a building block of this nation, there is a power held in the Constitution that not even high executive powers can overrule.
To change the Constitution would require three-fourths (38) of the states, and currently, the political atmosphere is split roughly fifty-fifty. This divide may lead to various issues within politics, but it is one of the main factors that protects the democracy of the United States.
Now, there has been talk in the news and media about President Trump’s dedication to running for a third term, violating the Constitution, but this scheme, according to Weyland, may not be for the reasons we think.
“There is a political reason behind President Trump saying that he’ll go for a third term,” Weyland said. “Because in his second term, he’s what you call in American politics, ‘a lame duck’ due to the fact that he can’t run again. So you’ll see, probably as early as midterms, movement with potential successors such as J.D. Vance and that’s a problem for a populist leader like him, because when other leaders rise, President Trump’s centrality, prowess, power and leverage will fall. There is a strategic purpose of what he’s saying here.”
With all this said, there is still much to be determined in American politics as we progress through Trump’s second term in office. But, there is still strength in the foundation of our democracy and resilience in the systems of government we’ve held for centuries.
