We know from history that extremist demagogues emerge at times in all societies, even in healthy democracies. We have had our share of them in the United States. Among them are Henry Ford, Senators Huey Long and Joseph McCarthy, and George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama who was a leading contender for the 1972 Democratic nomination for president before he was severely wounded in an assassination attempt. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of How Democracies Die , have